Life’s Sweet Ordinary — through my lens

Ever since I was young, I have been intrigued by photographs. When I was a little girl, the only photos I saw were black & white and a few were sepia. Photographs held my attention perhaps because they focused on the subject and not the colours. To this day, I’m still drawn to black & white photos, sepia photos, or those lovely aged and faded ancestors.

One of the beauties of digital photography is the ability to do our own processing. I have had Photoshop for a while using it to add my copyright or to do some minor post-processing. This past year I finally purchased Lightroom 2 and have been thoroughly enjoying learning the software but the best part has been seeing what I’m capable of doing with my photographs. The software is so logical and easy to work with. It’s like going back to film and doing my own adjustments in a dark room — only easier and more fun!

The best part of all is that when I want colour, there it is.

When I want black and white, I can have that too.

Or, if I want a degree of sepia, voila!

I didn’t add a link in this post, but you’ll likely notice I’ve been doing a fair amount of black and white photos over at my Flickr site. Feel free to check them out. Now I think I’ll go pore over one of my Ansel Adams books!

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun!” ~ Mary Lou Cook, calligrapher / author.

They’re lonely these days since I pick up my camera far more often than I type out strings of words.

This year I’ve been concentrating on my photography plus the planning and then the launching of my photography as a business. In doing so, my freelance writing has been drastically reduced — by design. The last major article I have written is soon to be released in Dogs In Canada magazine’s December 2008 issue. It’s an article I did based on an interview with musician and activist Matthew Good.

I continue to write a weekly environment column, “Everyday Earth Wise,” for Grande Prairie Ink!, a local lifestyle newspaper. Yes, the environment is another of my passions. I’ve been green for decades, before it was ever cool to be green.

As we go through life, the landscape of our life shifts, changes, and moves in different directions. Have you found your passions have shifted? Or perhaps you’ve finally followed a lifetime passion? Tell me about it, or if you’ve written a post about it, leave a link in the comments so we can read about the shifts in the landscape of your life.

Living on a remote rural farm I miss the company of people. Perhaps that’s partly why I enjoy blogging but also why I embrace every opportunity to do a photo shoot that takes me to someone else’s home or location. At this time of year, now that the yard and fields beyond are blanketed with snow, with many more layers yet to come, I balk at the added confinement.

This year I’m trying something different as we enter this confining season — I’m drawing on every element of positive thinking in an attempt to break into the season with an attitude of playfulness. Much like this pair of horses I photographed while on a photo shoot this past autumn.

Or in the way Henry, the American Bulldog, was so frisky during a delightful hour long photo shoot this past October (sorry this first one of him is blown out … I should have done some post processing to enhance it, but you get the idea!)

Unlike these frisky dogs and horses, I know what is to come but they are totally in the moment. There really is truth to the benefits of living in the moment, isn’t there? I’ll have to try thinking less of my confinement and more about the beauty that is within these four walls (though I still envy everyone who lives in or near the city — any city.)

ready, set ...

got it!!

I took this one day-before-yesterday while my husband was shoveling snow — Austin is crazy about leaping after the snow.

(Don’t forget about the contest coming up … I’ll likely make the announcement Friday morning.)

The first thing that likely comes to mind when you hear the term still photography is photos of inanimate objects that are not live subjects, such as food, ornaments, furniture, and all manner of a world of objects. The weather-worn dove gracing the top of a gravestone that I shot below is a prime example of still life.

{photo taken at the Valhalla Cemetery, Valhalla, Alberta}

Still life is always a very cooperative subject for a photographer; the object is eternally posing and well, still. Although not at all considered still life, this photo taken earlier in the summer is one I humorously refer to as a dog being still (soaking in her cool pool after a rigorous workout).

Cooling off, being still

I very much enjoy the challenge of taking photos of live, moving and far-from-being-inanimate subjects. Whether it’s people, pets, livestock, or some sort of vehicle.

I’ve been fortunate that some of my photos have been published in a few newspapers and in horse and dog magazines, though I am always seeking out additional opportunities. If you have a photographic need, I have the cameras.

{This post is another participating in Springtree Road’s November in Black & White.}

I love challenges and calls to action. They get me working harder, thinking more, experimenting more. And I’m a firm believer that the more a person experiments, the further ahead we get in a particular endeavour. So, to take up Springtree Road’s challenge, here are my first November offerings in black and white.

workhorse at the end of the day

three sisters

These were converted using Lightroom2 but since they are old jpeg files they could have been even better if I had shot them originally in RAW. I seldom shoot in jpeg anymore.

Thanks for visiting Life’s Sweet Ordinary.

All photos copyright © Diane Schuller. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy or download. Permission required, thank you for respecting my copyright.