16 January 2007

Day one in Florida.  I slept late.  I guess that’s what “holidays” are for, really.  But, this is not an early-rising household!  Breakfast happened around 10 a.m.  Then, lunch around 1 p.m.  In between was some quality time–some photo sharing, lots of time spent with Gammy (not that she really realizes it) and much catching up–and then after lunch a two-hour trip to the grocery store.  An hour into the outing, my mom looks at me and says, “Hey, you don’t like grocery stores, do you?  I’m sorry . . .”  But, since this is just about the only outing she ever gets, I told her not to apologize.  And I *was* actually glad to be there with her.  By the time we were done, though, I was really ready to go home and take some ibuprofen.

To be fair, the headache started before the grocery trip.  And now, it’s gone–that’s the important thing.  Dinner was great, and Mama made my favourite dessert.  Then, we made party favours for the birthday tomorrow, and then, at nearly midnight, I finally decided to go outside–yep, outside, in my bare feet and wearing my nightgown–and take my photo for the day. 

I had intended to shoot the pretty blue flowering bushes in front of the house.  Positioned near them is a lovely blue glass gazing ball, and I had thought it would make a nice contrast from the ice of yesterday.  But, I couldn’t get quite the shot I wanted in the dark–even with the flash.  So, I began experimenting. 

What I finally got here, that I really rather like, is a shot of the palm trees in the front yard, with the camera pointed almost straight up, and with the black night sky as a backdrop.  I let the flash fire, but with the camera on manual.  That means the flash exposes the subject, but since the shutter stays open longer, it doesn’t overpower things and cause that washout problem.  That seems sort of backwards to me, and I don’t really understand, but it seems to work.   I had done this once before taking nighttime photos at TRF and was fairly happy with the results.  The colours come out good, and the black background is strikingly cool. 

~MB 

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