A Praying Mantis

Found another, bigger praying mantis in the bushes. I was able to get a pretty good picture of it looking at me. They are pretty cool insects.

Another Point of View

It's summer and the butterflies are all around. They are mostly the yellow eastern swallowtails but there are some blackish blue ones that I looked up and are another kind of swallowtail. I went out for some pictures but the wind started kicking up and that made it next to impossible to get any. I did get a couple and I like the angle of this one.

Just Ducky

I came across a picture that I took back in 2010. I used some Photoshop
skills that I have learned since then to correct a color cast from the original picture. This little duckling is so cute and I'm sure it will bring back some memories for my friend who is holding the little duck.

Sippin' Nectar

I love taking bug pictures. I especially love dragonflies and butterflies. This one came out nice.

Another cool butterfly

My neighbor is so nice. She lets me come over and take pictures. Today I took photos of butterflies on her butterfly bush. However, the best one was when I turned around and saw this butterfly on one of her other flowers. Enjoy!

Eastern Swallowtail

We just had a fast but nasty storm blow through. The sun quickly came back out and so did this butterfly. I don't know where it weathered the storm but I'm glad it made it through.

Another Dragonfly

Here is another view of yesterday's dragonfly!

The Dragon's Fly

I watched this cool dragonfly while I was out walking my dog. Afterward, I grabbed my camera and was delighted that the little guy was still hanging out in the bushes. I couldn't use auto-focus
so I had to manually focus but I'm getting better and quicker at that. Here is one of the pictures that I liked the best.

Not quite the super moon.

The super moon is supposed to be visible tomorrow night, so I will probably be out taking more pictures. Meanwhile, I got one of the moon tonight. I had a 100-300 lens with a 2x converter. The auto-focus wouldn't work with my converter so I had to use manual focus with my window sill being my "tripod". I'll have to go outside with the tripod tomorrow night. Here is the picture of the moon from tonight.

I caught a lightning bug right as it spread its wings to fly away!

The Sweet Blooms of Spring

I love Mimosa Tree Blooms. They look like sweet tentacles of nectar that the butterflies and bees seem to love. They are such a pretty pink and so delicate. Here is one for your enjoyment.

A Real Lady---Bug

I took this a couple of days ago but I thought it was a good picture and thought I would share it with you!

Big Fat Red Ant

I'm out taking bug pictures and today I saw a big fat red ant on a mimosa leaf. He looked pretty ferocious but didn't bother me. Hope you enjoy!

More rainy day pictures

I thought the leaves looked pretty with the leaves covered in little raindrops from the rain yesterday. It is supposed to rain really hard today so I don't think I'll be out taking pictures today. Enjoy this dark moody picture.

After the Rain

There has been pretty steady rainshowers this morning. I went outside during a break and noticed these ladybugs on a Mimosa Leaf. Here is the shot I got.

Prom Time

I had the enjoyable experience of taking some prom pictures for the 8th grade prom for one of the kid's mom. He gave her a beautiful corsage and I took this picture of them holding hands and showing off the corsage. Although it only shows the hands of the young man and young lady, I just love this picture. Hope you will enjoy it too.

Kitty Cave

It's time to feature my feline friend Marty. He's quite the photogenic fellow but I can't really say he loves having his picture taken. He does like hanging out in his Cat Cave. He is peeking out and probably trying to figure out what this round alien thing aka my camera lens is doing. No worries, I was pretty far away.

Fun at a friend's house

I recently had the pleasure of taking pictures at the house of a friend name Audrey. We had a great time doing it and I look forward to going there again. Here are a couple of the pictures from that day. One is of Audrey and her younger son and the other is of her older son.

Mallards Hanging Out

I was looking through some of my old pictures and came across some Mallard ducks that live at the pond on Elon University. The drake was walking toward the female.

More Spring Beauty

My neighbor has the best green thumb and allows me to come over and take pictures whenever I would like. Her Irises have started blooming and they are so beautiful. I hope that you will enjoy them.

A Swan's View

I found some of my pictures from last semester. Here is a swan who lives at Elon University in the lake. He decided to check me out while I carefully used a telephoto lens to capture this image.

A Little Bling

I thought I would try photographing something different so I grabbed some costume jewelry and took it to school. Here are some of the results:

Texture and Clipping Masks

It's the weekend and I'm goofing around with photoshop and thought I'd play with text, texture and clipping masks. I used a picture of a campfire clipped onto my texts so the word fire would be made of fire. I also took a texture and used it with my multicolor background. So here it is: As always, your comments are welcomed.

Check out my Facebook page

Hope everyone will check out my facebook page and "like" it. Please share it with your friends so that I can break the 100 likes mark! Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=hp#!/pages/Daylily-Dreams-Photography/103577386667

Spring has Sprung

We are finally getting some real Spring color around here. I'm not sure what kind of tree this is but the flowers sure were pretty.

Website Mockup

Our last project for Graphic Design II is to make a website mockup in photoshop. Although there is a lot more to do, here is the front page of mine, in its beginning stages.

More Fun with Color Bleed

Decided to take one of my tulip photos and turn it into black and white so that I could practice color bleed in photoshop. I wanted to bring back just one of the flowers back to color so that it would pop. As always, your comments are welcome.

Do the Dew

Our latest photo assignment was to take a color picture and turn it into a black and white and then bring back only a portion of the color. I had just finished drinking a Mountain Dew and decided that the can would be my photographic subject. So by using a mask, I was able to bring back just the color of the words on the can. Here it is.

A Little Bit of Spring

I've been posting assignments from my graphic design class and photo class but not any just go out and take a picture for the fun of it pictures. I went to check my mail and noticed the light shining through my neighbor's tulips. She has given me permission to take pictures of her flowers whenever I want to, so I had to grab my camera and take the picture of those tulips.

Truck Billboard Assignment

Our last assignment was to get a photo from the web and make a billboard that would go on a truck's side. This was to advertise the pretend business called Oasis Day Spa. Here is mine. It had to be 7 words or less and be easy to read quickly.

Visit North Carolina

One of our previous assignments

was to create an ad to feature an area in

North Carolina. I used a picture that I had taken of Pilot

Mountain to feature for the Piedmont Triad. Here it is.

Black & White Portrait

One of our recent assignments was to do a portrait and then turn it into a black & white photo. Here is one that I did of my son, Joshua.

Break the Chain

Our latest assignment for Graphic Design was to create newspaper ad PSA to remind people not to chain their dog. We were specifically told to create it in a manner that mimics the movie posters by designer Saul Bass. Here is my design.

The Left or the Right

No, this isn't a post about politics, it is about the best method to convert a color photo into black and white. The picture on the left was converted using the Hue and Saturation tool and the picture on the right was converted using the channel mixer tool. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment on the bottom of this post. I think I like the results from the right but so far the comparison that I placed on my facebook page have been mixed.

Spring Break Fun

Today is the first day of spring break. I'm not going anywhere, so I thought I would work on some Photoshop Tutorials. This one was creating a filmstrip picture using Photoshop CS5. I decided to put in three pictures and fill all of the frames rather than just putting in one picture like the tutorial did. It was fun and the results are pretty good! Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Crystal and Beads

Our latest assignment was to shoot pictures of a glass object. Glass is really hard to light. After a lot of work and several attempts, this is one of my favorites.  I had a crystal wine glass next to a crystal candle holder that was lying on its side. Tumbling out of the candle holder were glass and cats eye beads that I use to make jewelry.

Person with product

Our assignment this week is to photograph a product with a person. It doesn't have to be the whole person. I decided to take a shot of a silver Sharpie metallic marker. Here is the one I like the best.

Pretty Neighbor

We have an out of class assignment in addition to our studio work. For the studio, I am going to take a picture of my partner doodling with a sharpie pen. We have to take a picture of a person with a product but it doesn't have to be the whole person. That picture will be posted later.  So, back to the out of class assignment, we have to do an outdoor portrait. I took a picture of my neighbor, who was working on moving. She looks pretty whether she is dressed up or just hanging out. Here is one of the pictures.

Elmer's Glue and Scissors

Since the pictures that we took for assignment 2, small product shot, had to have a label on them, my idea of shooting jewelry just wasn't going to work. I happened to have a bottle of Elmer's glue sitting on my desk as a left over from a craft project. I thought to myself, that bottle has a label and what is more fun than a pair of scissors and a bottle of Elmer's glue (along with some construction paper). So, that is what I shot in the studio last night. Elmer's glue and scissors.  I still want to try my hand at some jewelry in the future but here is a peek at last night's session.

Small Product Photos

So, our next project is going to be small product ads. Until I found out that the item we need to shoot has to have a label, I was going to try my hand a jewelry. I have this huge gaudy fake topaz ring. I decided to set it on a crystal candle holder just to see what I could get. This is using no lights, other than the overhead house light. I think it could be nice if it was lit up to bring out the sparkle. As it turns out, my project shot will be a bottle of Elmer's glue with some construction paper and scissors.

Brian Part 1 and 2

I'm in photo 2 at GTCC and our first assignment was to make portraits using fairly even light and using dramatic light. These are two of the photos of my classmate Brian. The first one used the main light on the right with a muted fill light on the left. The dramatic lighting used only a main light coming from the right. We also used a black velvet frocked background so that there would be no reflection of the light off of the background.

Win a trip to the Galapagos!

I just thought I would provide a link for Muench Workshop's Galapagos Trip give away. When you click on the link, I get an extra entry and you get to have an entry. Good luck! http://bit.ly/UL5UC3

Breathtaking Sunset.

Well I finally was able to post using Firefox. Internet Explorer wouldn't allow me to add pictures to my blog, which defeats the purpose of having a photo blog.

This beautiful sunset happened last week and it was just breathtaking, so I thought I would share it with you.

Here is another picture from Christmas Day. It's a lovely picture of my daughter.