Tag: fpj-photo-challenge

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Animals

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. #fpj-photo-challenge

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. This week's theme is animals

The only animals I saw this week were a deer that ran across the road while on the way to the office and the squirrel running across the road while coming back from getting my hair cut. It's winter here. The animals are in hiding. It's dark when I leave home on my commute to work. It's still dark when I leave the office to come home for dinner. I get most of my photography done on the weekend. And this weekend was dark and damp.

These particular animals shown here are family. My sister-in-law's husband -- the bigger animal in the photo -- is celebrating his 40th year of his birth. The little animals lined up to ensure the were awarded a share of the sugared dough covered with colored sugar. It was like watching lions hunt. The little ones are my wife's cousin nephews. That's a way of saying it's her two first cousin's kids. I am not sure who the ladies in the right background are, but they are the family of family.

The one lady in the middle background is my wife. Sometimes she thing I small like an animal.

Yes, human beings are animals. Some would say the most dangerous ones on the planet. We kill for sport. We eat more than we need to sustain our bodies. We take what we want from the earth and give nothing back. We are more like viruses.

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Fire

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. #fpj-photo-challenge

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The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. This week's theme is fire.

I started to worry that I might not be able to complete this week's themed post. My original vision was to get a shot of a bonfire. I find bonfires interesting. I would have set my camera on a trip, changed my settings for narrow aperture, about f/8, and captured some long exposures of the embers coming off the fire. Instead of star trails, I would have had light trails of embers.

But as the week went along I realized I would need to think of something else. My wife suggested a photo of our fireplace. "Too mundane," I said. A candle flame? Maybe. I held out for something more interesting.

On Sunday my daughter asked if we could go out to eat. She wanted to try out Aja, the new pan-Asian fusion restaurant that opened in town. Aja is a Sanskrit word. It means goat. My wife is vegetarian and the restaurant. We debated over the menu for a bit, but my wife acquiesced due to my daughter's insistence.

The food was excellent, and the wait staff was attentive. I even got into a conversation about photography with our waitress. She loves to travel and take photos. She asked what I was doing when she saw me taking pictures of my wife's cocktail. I explained I was doing a weekly photography project and this week's them was fire. She immediately offered to help to suggest various things around the restaurant.

But it was not until we were walking out the door that I spotted this dragon; aglow in red.

I applied a Kodak Ektachrome filter, ran the photo through Google Nik Dfine noise reduction software, and then applied the maximum screen sharpening on export from Adobe Lightroom.

Cold

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. #fpj-photo-challenge #cold

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I was nervous about this week's photo challenge. This was my first time participating in this blogging challenge. When the topic was announced, I was concerned that I would not get the picture I wanted. I didn't have a particular vision, but I knew that I wanted something with snow or ice.

But that same day it started to snow. It was a weekday, and I had only a few minutes to capture a few shots with my camera. The rest of the day I would be inside working, and by the time the work day was over, it would be dark.

That morning I capture a shot of our mailbox. But I wasn't feeling it. The next day we still had some snow on the ground. On my way out to work, I grabbed a few more shots. I took some images of the snow in the pine needles of the neighbourhood trees.

Last night it started to snow, and it snowed all night. It wasn't a lot of snow. I think we got about five inches of snow. In the morning, my son cleared the snow from the driveway and Bhavana's car. Later that afternoon I convinced Bhavana and Kiran to take a trip into Princeton with me. Kiran wanted some supplies from the paper store, and Bhavana wanted to help me with my project.

It was cold in Princeton. The sky was cloudy, and the wind knifed through our layers of clothing. I had hoped to do some street photography, capturing images of Princeton University students or shoppers walking around town. But few people were about, and most people looked at me strangely when I took their photo. I got a shot of some ladies enjoying hot coffee outside the Dunkin Donuts.

We bought some birthday cards. My sister-in-law celebrated her birthday in November, but I had not found the right card for her. We stopped at Rojo's for coffee and espresso drinks. Bhavana tried a macchiato for the first time. She loved it.

After picking up dinner -- pizza at Jule's and shawarma and falafel sandwiches at Mamouns -- we stopped at the Princeton Public Library to use the restroom where Kiran found some used books to add to her collection. She loves books. We paid for her loot and then headed home.

It was while trying to decide which beer to have with my pizza that I remembered I had a bottle of mead in the fridge. While reading the label, I saw the "WELL CHILLED" on the bottle. At that moment I knew what photo I wanted for the weekly challenge.

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. This week's theme is cold.