Fall – Jolene's Life in Focus

Autumn in the City of Subdued Excitement

October 21, 2013March 27, 2017Posted in BellinghamTagged Autumn, D7000, Fall, fall leaves, Nikon, photography, vines2 Comments

My friend Nichol suggested a photo walk around Bellingham this afternoon. The City of Subdued Excitement did not disappoint!

Village Green

November 29, 2010Posted in BellinghamTagged Autumn, Bellingham Washington, Droid, Fairhaven Village Green, Fall, fall leaves, Jolene's Life in Focus, leaves, Motorola Droid, photo of the day, photography, picture of the day10 Comments

Although it may feel like it, and the snow has been falling already, Autumn hasn’t called it quits yet. I spotted the Fairhaven Village Green sign on the way to Daphne’s in Fairhaven for hot toddys the other day. The colors were still so vibrant. Sometimes the quality of my Motorola DROID camera phone really impresses me.

This may be the last time to appreciate the colors, though. More high winds are expected tonight, which will probably clear out the remaining foliage.

Chasing Waterfalls

November 7, 2010Posted in BellinghamTagged Autumn, Canon 40d, Fall, Jolene Hanson Photography, Jolene's Life in Focus, photo of the day, Photo walk, photography, Shutter speed, Waterfall6 Comments

It seems like every photographer has a smooth waterfall picture in their portfolio. Andy has a few on his walls. Until now I didn’t really care, but then as we walked through Whatcom Falls Park yesterday on our group photo walk, I decided I wanted my own.

David‘s advice, after lending me the Canon 40d I’m currently using, was leave the setting on auto then aim, focus, and look at what the shutter speed, aperture, ISO are. That will help teach you what to use when you want to go manual. That ended up being good advice, and I haven’t been in auto for quite some time.

With this water fall, I manually set the shutter speed, but kept an eye on the auto settings for everything else. Eventually, I figured it out, and this is what I ended up with. The shutter was set at 0.6 seconds, the F-stop at 22, and ISO at 160. The problem I noticed immediately with leaving the shutter open longer is that more light gets in, washing out the photo. Lowering the ISO and increasing the F-stop look care of that. Did I do this correctly? I’m an amateur, so without taking a class I don’t really know. But, the pictures looks like what I had envisioned.

One last thing (and I hate ever admitting that Andy is right), you MUST use some type of tripod when leaving the shutter open for a longer period of time. There’s just know way you can be steady enough, and the parts of the photo you want crisp will be blurry.

Twisted II

November 5, 2010Posted in BellinghamTagged Autumn, Autumn leaves, Fall, fall leaves, Jolene Hanson, Jolene Hanson Photography, Jolene's Life in Focus, photography, twisted tree9 Comments

The colors may be more vibrant, but I still prefer the original Twisted.

Camera: Canon 40d
Location: Entrance to Bayview Cemetery; Bellingham, Washington

A Piece of Dirty Dan

November 3, 2010Posted in BellinghamTagged Autumn, Autumn leaves, Bellingham Washington, Dirty Dan, Dirty Dan Statue, Droid, Fairhaven, Fall, fall leaves, Motorola Droid, photo of the day, photography, Pic of the Day, Picsay Pro, Village Green2 Comments

Yesterday afternoon ended with a London Fog from Tony’s Coffee (always done to perfection) and a stroll through the Village Green in Fairhaven where I stopped to read my new book, The House of God by Samuel Shem. Chapter I of this book made me wonder if medicine is a good field to go into. The jury is still out on both the book and on medicine.

As I left the Green, I noticed the accumulation of autumn leaves around the Dirty Dan statue. Photographing it is way overdone, so I tried to look for a new perspective on it, and decided upon this. Sometimes, the smallest fraction of an object is more interesting than the whole.

Camera: Motorola Droid, 5 mega pixels.
Apps: PicSay Pro; I increased the saturation and played with a new feature called Faux HDR and Instant Film.

Dew Drops

November 1, 2010Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Dew, Dew Drops, Fall, Jolene Hanson Photography, Jolene's Life in Focus, leaves, photography4 Comments

These leaves are a precise expression of my Ordinary Things Project. Deciduous trees have the unfortunate destiny of losing their leaves once a year. Littering the ground, they may not seem like much anymore, but if you look closely – sometimes you’ll see something beautiful still remains.

These dew drops, for example, reminded me of treasure. I could imagine being six years old and pretending they were diamonds and running around with my friends collecting all the leaves. As we age, it seems like we lose a bit of that wonder and the ability to find the extraordinary in the everyday things.

Instead of looking at the surface, let’s challenge ourselves to look again. Look deeper. Find the secret, the treasure, the hidden thing waiting patiently to be discovered. What have we been missing because we’ve failed to really “look”?