Keeping it Simple and using the Light…Natual light.

ISO 2000, 5.6 1/5000

Sometimes being a mom, a part-time working one who works half the day then takes the other half to pick up one set of kids at 2 and the other at 3, it doesn’t leave too much extra time to take photo’s then write about them plus, cook, clean and find time to be healthy.  So these pictures are certainly simple and for sure taken in my own backyard and in the bathroom, and kitchen window however as boring as these images may seem there is a story behind each one.  Not only is there a story but I’m rather proud of myself with this prompt because I shot on full manual.  When I went on the PNW retreat Deb also shoots a Canon so she showed me how to shoot on the BIG letter M.  I mean I have shot on M before but just sort of half crazy cause I will dial this way and that until it looks decent and sometimes it can take lots of dials to get it right.  Oh, the revelation!  I just need to center the line inside the light meter, just place it in the middle and all is good.  And these my friends are straight out of the camera, no touch ups or photo editing which hello is not really my expertise (yet) anyway.

The first image is of a special pierce of jewelry.  It was a gift from my mom and it was bought while she was in France visiting my sister.  My mama knows I love birds and well, it has a bird on it.  It also has some very powerful words in French.  I had no idea what the words meant until my little sister came home for a summer and interpreted them for me.  In English it interprets “Little of us have the strength to change the story”  And these words are powerful and true.  Do you have the strength to change your story?  Think about that?  It takes enormous strength to change your life story, rather than just take it for granted living it with no real effort is far easier.  Now I love the necklace even more.  And I took this image in my very own backyard.  I hung it from a tree branch and the wind kept swaying it back and forth so long story short…was not easy to shoot this on manual and manual focus!  But this one looks pretty decent in the natural backyard sun light.

These next two images were taken in our down stairs main bathroom.  We have two bathrooms in this house but this is the family favorite.  All five of us prefer it and use it most often.  It has a nice deep tub, beautiful natural sunlight, sparkling white subway tiles (when clean) and now perfectly deep black walls.  It’s kind of dramatic now that it’s been painted black.  So I took a pretty red rose from one of my rose bushes grandpa left me.  The smell, oh how I wish you could inhale this rose, it’s perfect.  I took it using two settings.  I show you both.

ISO 2000, F4, 1/2000

ISO 2000, F/20, 1/60

My last images are at my front kitchen window.  In the morning it gets the very best light but by late afternoon which is when I took these images the lighting isn’t as spectacular yet still it’s okay.  I use this window when I bake in the afternoons and I shoot photo’s of my food.  And it’s of a feather that I have stuck inside of a potted plant.  Because if you know me.  You know I also love feathers.

ISO 2000, F/29, 1/6

ISO 2000, F/8, 1/25

And this is my version of the lesson natual light, which technically is more of a photo prompt than anything else and if you want to see how two people who live in two very different places view things in natural light, visit my friend Christina at 22limes