My first macro photographs...and learning to edit them

Now that we have a nice new camera, I feel it is my duty to learn to use it. I signed up for photography classes at the base arts and crafts center, and last week was the class on macro photography. For those who don't know, macro is taking very close up photos, usually of totally normal things. It's very strange how you start to look at the world in an entirely new way even after just a few days of focusing on macro photos.

Sunday the weather here was gorgeous...you can feel spring trying to sneak in, but it just can't quit make it yet. To enjoy the sunny weather I went out into the front yard and starting messing around with the camera looking for macro subject matter...and here is what I came up with.

We have a pear tree in the front yard that is just starting to get buds. There was one bud that had already bloomed into a flower. It was random because it was just this single bud growing straight out of the trunk. Here is the original photo...




The I played with it in photoshop and got these two...






Nothing spectacular, but it was really fun to manipulate them, and I think they look pretty good:)

Then I found this random shell in our yard. We are nowhere near the ocean, but for some reason there are little shells all over our yard. I have this theory that the kids that lived in the house before us had some shell collection that just migrated outside at some point...I have no other explanation for it. So here is the original shot of the shell sitting on one of the big rocks in the yard...



And then the photoshopped version. This one looks a little grainy to me, but I think I just compressed it too far to download to the blog because it doesn't look like that on the original.



And just for fun, here's Bo caught mid yawn...he looks like a ferocious beast:)...well maybe not...