A Photo a Week Challenge: Dead Center

I am always up for a photo challenge. It is time to violate the widely accepted photography “rule of thirds”. The premiss of the rule of thirds is that the subject of the photo is placed on the left or right vertical third of the image and the horizon is place on the top or bottom third of the image. Thank you Nancy Merrill for giving us amateur photographers permission to violate this rule.

This Great Blue Heron was just waiting for us to drive by as we returned from a day trip to Cades Cove in Eastern Tennessee.

Original
Black spot is sort of centered in the frame.

Dead Center
Black spot is dead center of the image after cropping square.

Rule of Thirds
Black spot is positioned on the left third of the frame and horizontally centered.

Please take a moment and complete this survey.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

Photography 101 Day 6: Connect and Tags

Tags are a means of connecting a blog post with others who share a common interest. Merriam-Webster defines connect as:

• to join (two or more things) together
• to join with or become joined to something else
• to think of (something or someone) as being related to or involved with another person, thing, event, or idea

Capturing these concepts in a photography can be easy or challenging depending on how the photographer interprets the definition.

I chose these photos because they demonstrate power in connections.

Safe Harbor Farm, K-9 Rescue, Rehabilitation and Rehoming Center
Maysville, North Carolina

My wife found a connection with the resident cats at Safe Harbor Farm by using food as the tag.

Union Covered Bridge
Paris, Missouri

Union Covered Bridge is one of 4 remaining covered bridges in Missouri that incorporate the Burr Arch design. The bridge connected early travelers with either side of the Elk Fork Salt River. Additionally, the timber connections of the Burr-Arch design provide strength and integrity to the bridge.

200 AMP Transfer Switch
Mark Twain Landing, Monroe City, Missouri

The transfer switch transfers power from the source to the users. Without the switch (tag), there would be no power distribution or connection to the electrical users.

Dam on Mill Creek
Cades Cove, Tennessee

The log across Mill Creek and the flume gate are tags that connect the creek to the water wheel at John Cable Mill.

John Cable’s Mill
Cades Cove, Tennessee

Without the tags (log and flume gate), there would be no power at the mill.

How do you connect?

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

Photography 101 Day 3: Water & Orientation

In day 3 of Photography 101, moderated by the happiness engineers at The Daily Post, our objective is to capture a water scene and change the orientation to see how the scene is impacted.

I take more landscape photos than portrait photos. Landscape being defined as wide shots, while portrait is defined as tall shots. Why? More often than not, the decision is based on how I plan to use the photo. This presents a problem because, once I’ve left a scene, it is highly unlikely that I will be back to capture something I may have missed.  This mindset comes from my early experience with film photography. Film was expensive especially since only about 20% of what I shot was worth keeping. The digital age has eradicated this reasoning. Digital storage is significantly less costly than film.

Today’s theme serves as a reminder that I now shoot photos in the digital age. Since today’s weather is really ugly, black ice everywhere, I opted to dig into my photo collection to see what I have that includes landscape and portrait orientation of water scenes.

Cades Cove in eastern Tennessee is one of my favorite places to photograph. This scene is of Mill Creek behind Henry Whitehead’s Place and was taken with a Nikon CoolPix S6300 Point-n-Shoot.

Landscape Orientation

Portrait Orientation

The second photo (portrait orientation) picked up more foreground detail than the first photo (landscape orientation). I would like you, the reader, to give me your opinion on which photo best captures this scene.  Poll will close Mar 11, 2013.

It just so happens that I am using the same scene from Mill Creek in my 5 Day B&W Challenge post today.  Go take a look for a different view of the same scene.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

Day Four – 5 Day B&W Photo Challenge

Today, we take a trip to Cades Cove in eastern Tennessee, one of my favorite places to visit. Driving and walking around Cades Cove is like taking a step back in time.

Mill Creek, Cades Cove, TN Behind Henry Whitehead’s Place
NIKON D2000, ISO 100, 55-300mm zoom set at 55mm, f/22, 1.6 Sec

And for an added treat, step over to my post for today’s Photo101 class. I use the same scene that I shot with a Nikon CoolPix.

I am asking my Photo101 classmate and new blogger friend Celesta at Enjoying Life to join in on this photo challenge. She has some amazing photos on her blog. You should take a look.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

Another Theme Change

My last Blogging101 assignment thru me for a loop. I did not like the change from Yoko to Twenty-Ten theme.

One more change – this time it is to Coraline theme. I’m still tweaking on it. This theme has the option of sidebars on left and right side. I’ve not found how to activate the theme in the 3 column format.

It is a good thing we do not have any Blogging101 assignments for the weekend. This will give me time to settle on a theme.

Also, I changed the header photo to a panorama of Cades Cove in Tennessee. This is one of my favorite places to visit.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.