Just in the Driveway

I'm so homesick.  Homesick for Mississippi, for the people I love that live there.  It's been nearly two years and every day is still a struggle.  I don't know if I will ever get over it.

Of course, my go-to therapist is my camera, so I decided to take a walk around our property and look for things to love, to explore it like a tourist, so-to-speak.  It was mid-morning, a little cooler than the day before, and I thought fresh air might do me some good.  I also decided to challenge myself to experiment with shooting "wide open", with all shots either by the 50mm 1.4 or 28mm 2.8 lenses, at either f/1.4 or f/2.8.  I didn't take any ND filters with me, so I had to drop my ISO to the lowest setting and the shots with any light at all had to be shot at a shutter speed of 1/8000 (my camera's maximum).  Several of the shots are freelensed (lens detatched), all of them are manually focused, and the macro images were taken with the 50mm reverse-freelensed (detatched and rotated backwards).  The wide-open shots on the 50mm turned out quite soft, but I like the dreamy effect it rendered, and I usually shoot skies at at around f/11, so I was espicially pleased with the dream-like quality that shooting the skies at f1.8 and f2.8 yeilded.  Overall, it was good for my soul to look for the beauty in the ordinary things I pass by each day, and fun to experiment by pushing myself to use my camera and lenses in these ways.

The following images are the result of that little morning walk, just in the driveway.

Get out and see what you can find in your yard to photograph. Detach your lens and turn it around backwards and try to get some macro shots. Try shooting wide open.

Experiment.
Create.
Breathe.

xoxo-Leah