Roland Park

Roland Park has a ton of houses with personality.  They have huge colomns, and huge facades.  I love to drive past them when I go to run some errands.

I never noticed this house, or the damage to the widows walk before, so I am assuming that it was caused during the recent storms we had.  

I did not shoot these pictures in manual mode, and I did a bit of editing.  Not having the best week, and I have had trouble getting out and taking pictures at all....hopefully I can turn that around today.

Love Always,

Meg

Exploring Manual Mode

This is another picture from Saturday, but I love it!!!!

I usually like to stick to the whole, don't center anything principle of photography, but I really though that this picture was more moving with the leaf centered.  The light breaks up the picture and moves your eye through the picture so I am ok with breaking a rule or two.  :  )

Love Always,

Meg

Serene Sunday-Spice Market

During our time in Istanbul we went to the Grand Bazaar, which is basically a tourist trap.  People go there to experience Istanbul, and all you see is cheap trinkets, everyone there is catering to tourists.  So later that day we went to the Spice Market in Istanbul, which caters to actual Turkish citizens.

There are still a lot of trinkets and nick-knacks, but also local business men.

My favorite part was seeing all the spices piled up, with their very vivid colors.

And the Turkish delight was marvelous, I got some in vacuum sealed boxes that would clear customs, but I loved the texture of the the powered sugar in this above shot.

All of my friends know that I hate sticky things, and so when I first saw these honey combs, I cringed.  Then I took a deep breathe and took advantage of these huge packages of honey.  :  )  I am so glad I did

I love to take pictures of people when I am on my vacations, sometimes I will be walking along and just see the perfect picture.  I love this woman looking into the stalls.

I didn't get a Turkish flag while I was there, but I loved seeing the vivid red of the flag everywhere we went. I also couldn't let a stellar mullet pass by. hahahah.

Men and women would stand outside all of the local mosques and take donations, and they would also sell or loan people shawls to cover up if a person was not properly dressed.  I did not enter this mosque, but I did have to get a shawl on one particular day when my shoulders were not properly covered.  I was very thankful that they were there, because I would not want to offend anyone in their place of worship.

This happens to be one of my favorite pictures from the trip, other than the previous picture.  I love the silhouette, and I love the ethereal quality of the picture.  The only way this would have been better would have been if some of the crows had been flying in the background.  The coloring is a bit off, but that was because I forgot to change my white balance setting after I left the spice market and this picture came out BLUE, hahahah.  I did this twice on the trip and have left my white balance on auto ever since.

I had trouble going to Turkey, I have always been a history buff so I had quite a huge problem with the governments stand on the Armenian genocide, but I truly loved my time in Turkey and would definitely go back in a second.  I know that my photography has improved in the three years since I was there, and by the time I get back there I am sure I will be able to capture the sights much better.

Love Always,

Meg

Full Manual Mode

Today I finally made the leap into full manual mode.  I haven't really been posting very much these last two weeks.  Firstly the weather has been horrible, it has been very rainy for weeks and I have not wanted to get all wet.  Also, I have been working in my photography class, and have been taking truely horrible pictures.

That being said, I feel like I am finally making some progress with my photography.  The class I am taking is a lot of review.  I have taken a few photography classes, so I know about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, editing, and composition.  But for the life of me I have never been able to put these pieces together to take a beautiful picture without the auto mode, but the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together.  This week was the first time, EVER, that I have taken pictures in full manual mode and had them turn work.  This is going to be a long road, but I am finally on the path to going farther with my photography and I am sooo excited.

In all of these pictures I am directing the camera to focus on a point of my choosing, setting ISO, Aperture, Shutterspeed, and trying to wrangle my dog...which is easier said then done.

One tricky part of this is that my yard is covered by a huge canopy of trees, so everytime the wind blew I would have to reset my settings and run after the dog.  But I am really proud of these pictures.  I did not do any editing other then adding my water mark.

Love Always,

Meg

Mr Winks Wednesday

I took these pictures with my point and shoot camera, while I was waiting for my father to run into the pharmacy really quickly.

I love this picture, because he saw my father walking back and he raised up his little paw like he was reaching for my father.  It just reminded me why I love dogs so much, when the people they love are away, even for five minutes, they light up like Christmas morning when they return.

I took these pictures on my little point and shoot camera, they are a little over exposed but I am really trying not to do too much editing in Photoshop until I improve my photography.  I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into Mr. Wink's life.

Love Always,

Meg

Mothers Day Dinner

Yesterday I went out to dinner with my mother and father to celebrate mothers day.  La Famiglia, in roland park, is my favorite restaurant so I had an amazing dinner.

Yeah, I know this is a horrible picture, I could probably do something to it in Photoshop, but I really just wanted to document my favorite dinner.  The soup is gazpacho,  puréed, with some finely diced peppers dropped in.  Then my father is eating clams casino, which is what I had for my entre.  Amazing.

Dogfest 2011

Today was very damp and dreary, and so I did not go out to any exciting places this weekend.  Since I don't have any new pictures to share, I decided to post this picture from last year.

I went to dogfest last year, and loved seeing all the fun dog breeds, but my favorite picture from the day was of this little kitten.  I have never been a cat person, but I love photographs of little kittens.  I was amazed when this little guy fit in my friends hand.

I did quite a bit of editing on this pic, but I really wanted to show the harsh light against his dark fur.

Love Always,

Meg

Serene Sunday- Hagia Sophia

Three years ago, I went to the Hagia Sophia and it was one of the most memorable moments of my life!!!

The Hagia Sophia was built in 500 AD and is the third church to have been built on this site, the two previous chuches had been burnt to the ground.  The church is one of the oldest churches to still be standing.  Then in 1453 Mohamad Mehmed took over Constantinople, and converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.  Then in 1943 the mosque was converted into a museum.

The Hagia Sophia is just soooo massive, I was just walking around with my mouth hanging open.

I couldn't help but take a picture when another tourist stopped by the massive doors, I was sure that without some kind of comparisson I would not remember the scale of things in ten years.

In this first picture you can see the gold leaf rendition of Jesus Christ and through the doorway you can see Allah's name in arabic.  I had to take a short moment to say a prayer, because in this moment, chrisitanity and islam are co-exhisting, here in this museum.  It really warmed my heart.

I love the warn paint that shows the age of the museum, and the gorgeous stone work.

In order to get to the secound floor, it took about five or so minutes, so I did loose quite a bit of my limited time to get up there, but this first picture just so happens to be my secound favorite picture from the Hagia Sophia, I love it.

This is the actual historic chandelier from the mosque.  Originally they would put candles in each of the glass vials, but today they have been fitted with lightbulbs and are powered by electricity.  The lighting fixtures in all the mosques we visited were breathtaking, and really added charactor to the buildings.

I think this was the last picture I took, I just love the stained glass.  There was a lot of construction going on inside of the Hagia Sophia while I was there, so I will definately have to go back some day.  Istanbul is such a vibrant city, and I can't wait to go back.

Love Always,

Meg

P.S.  These photos were edited with photoshop elements.

Kaylee

I am taking a photography class with Lisa, from thelongroadtochina.blogspot.com.  I am really, really excited to start using full manual, and to leave the auto button alone.  Here are some pictures that I took of Kaylee in Aperture priority mode.  The first one is really blown out, but I really like it anyway.  I did not edit any of these pictures, and I am going to try to not do much editing at all for the next few months while I get better with the more manual settings of my camera.  I feel confident with my editing skills, of course I can improve in that area as well too though, so I am going to really focus on getting the best pictures sooc.  I'm really exicited to be back on the right track, and can't wait to see the progression of my photography.

I really wish Mr. Winks wasn't in the back ground of the first picture, but I can always edit him out later if I ever want to print it out.  I kind of like having my dad's hand in the photo, but I will probubly crop it or edit it out if I print those pictures as well.

Love Always,

Meg

Mr Winks Wednesday

How sweet is the little guy, I think these pictures speak for themselves!!!!

Love Always,

Meg

Glyndon

While driving to McDaniel, I drove through Glyndon.  Glyndon is a small historic town which was on the path of the Western Maryland Railroad.

This church was what really caught my eye, it is right on the main street, and it really spoke to me.  This is the Sacred Heart Church in Glyndon.

 I love the beautiful wooden doors, and the bell tower.

I'm sooo glad I made to trip back to take a few more pictures today.

A lot of the time, I have an idea of where I want to go, and then I good search the town and it's surrounding towns.  As soon as I saw St. John's Episcopal church, I knew I had to go there.  I love when churches have amazing, vivid, red doors.  

I also loved the little entryway that the church has as well, I wandered up and down the street trying to get it from different directions.  But I really prefer these shots that framed the red door.

I also loved the writing on the awnings, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving...."

"...And into his courts with praise."  Psalm 100:4

I except for screening or multiplying certain areas of the pictures, the only edit that I made was to add pioneer woman's colorized action to all the pictures.  It brightened up all the pictures, and gave them an older, weathered look.

Love Always,

Meg

Serene Sunday

After a few weeks off from Serene Sunday, I am ready to show some more of my favorite trip pictures.

This is the Ortakoy Mosque, we saw this on the first night we were in Istanbul.  All mosques with more than one minaret (the tall spires) is an imperial mosque.  These mosques were built to show the victory of the empire in a conquest or battle.  

The next Mosque we visited in Istanbul was Sehzade Camii.  Sulieman the magnificent's mosque was under construction, otherwise we would have gone there.

I am really glad we got to see this mosque, which is still an active mosque.  It was not filled with tourists, so we could really explore the inside and did not have to worry about huge crowds.

The decorations inside the mosque were sooooo vivid, this was my first trip with my new camera, so I was still having trouble truely mastering the settings.  I know I am going to have to go back some day and hopefully I will take some better pictures.

 We also got into the mosque at an off time, so thankfully there were no worshipers there at the time, this way I did not have to worry about interupting or offending any one who was there to pray.  Everyone walking around in the backround was part of our travel group.

Next week I will add the pictures from the Hagia Sophia, which is the main reason why I wanted to go to Turkey.  It is truely one of the wonders of the world!!!!

Love Always,

Meg