Thanks Trish

Got an opportunity to take photos at a retirement party tonight (thank you for the invite,Trish!) and while there, saw a beautiful bouquet with evening sunlight streaming in. Hope the rest of my shots turn out as nice as these flowers did!

Stacking...thanks Bridget!

A while back, Bridget sent out an email about stacking, a technique where one takes several photos of an object, but uses different focal points in each shot. A free software then combines the images so that the object is in total focus and is sharp. The concept intrigued me and as I am trying to get back into taking more photos, I gave it a shot with this wooden bracelet. It required my tripod and 8 images to get this combination. I didn't get the whole bracelet in focus but definitely got much more in focus than I would have if I simply used the automatic focus feature. I think I need to experiment more with lighting as well. I will keep trying this out. The software is caled Helicon and is free for 30 day trial.

2 posts in one day :)

Looking back through my photos from vacation, I tried to alter some to save them since my camera was broken at the time and screwing up all of my photos. I went back to black and white and high contrast in true Eli Reed fashion. The first two are shots of an old colored school, one of the first in North Carolina following the end of slavery in the southern states. It was a few miles away from the plantation I visited there.

This shot was inside the plantation, a writing desk with copies of the Collins Family personal and slave records. The Collins' actually were one of the few plantations that kept meticulous records and descendents of slaves from the Somerset Plantation can trace back their ancestry with great accuracy.

It's a step!

Picture of the morning reflection of the bay window on my newly refinished livingroom floor. Now all I need is some furniture, right? BTW...the camera is back :)

A couple vacay pics and clouds

I still don't have my camera, but here are a few pics from vacation, a picture of a slave kitchen at a southern plantation, and a picture from my cell phone which is of the beautiful clouds last night before the storm!