Capturing circles

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We had an interesting challenge this week from Beth…and that was “circles.” What I really wanted to do was mix up some water, oil and food coloring in my sink and take pictures of the fun things that emerged, but then I discovered some very unusual circles of my own, just waiting to be photographed. So I jumped on that chance instead.

These circles are actually long gone now. Because the day after I captured them last week, they all melted away. We have quite a few rain barrels around the farm that collect water from our gutters and they freeze solid every winter…but thankfully the barrels are plastic and even if the bottom of them pops out like a pregnant woman’s belly button (sorry but all you moms & dads know what I’m talking about, they just go back to their usual form when the thaw begins. I don’t even know why I really looked in those barrels that day because I rarely do. So I guess that just means I should be looking in other usual places for inspiration as well.

Since I took so many shots of different bubbles, I thought it would be fun to play around with some actions in Photoshop to make these images a bit more interesting. They’re all free actions from Ree, The Pioneer Woman, and I truly adore them!

I used the follow lens /& filter for these shots: Canon 50mm 1:1.8 macro lens with Quantaray stackable 4x macro filter – I LOVE these filters because I can get in really close to the subject. I usually use Program AE on my Canon 1000D (Rebel XS) which sets shutter speed & aperture for me. Still a lot of learning left to do when it comes to playing with everything myself in Manual mode. 🙂

F/2.8, ISO 200, Exposure 1/100 sec. Sharpen & Define action

F/3.2, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec. Sunschine action

F/3.2, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec. Sepia action

F/2.8, ISO 200, Exposure 1/100 sec. Seventies action

F/2, ISO 200, Exposure 1/50 sec. Boost action

F/2.8, ISO 200, Exposure 1/100 sec. Vintage action

I really love how the 4th & 5th ones came out. The color of the 5th one reminds me of a wave and that was actually just working with the natural colors in the barrel and enhancing them in photoshop. Just so you know, they more or less looked like the first image before I started putting all the extra actions on there.

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