Jan 162015
 

Birds on a Wire

Flock No2 ©2014 April Siegfried

For three days I watched this flock gather each morning on the same set of poles and wires, and stay into the afternoon. (The overflow crowd spilled onto the next set of poles down the road.)

A cashier in the local drugstore said they’d been doing that for a couple of days before I arrived in Asheville to visit family for the holidays.

On the fourth day the birds were gone.

What you can’t hear through this image was the noise of their constant chatter. It was an astonishing, wondrous experience!

Aug 082014
 

Untitled{click image to view full screen}

I’m testing a new layout and some WordPress plugins which will (hopefully) make it easier for me to post more often. “Simplify, simplify, simplify” is my current mantra. I’d love to hear if you run into any issues or have other feedback as I change things up.

May 162014
 

Crabapple Tree ©2014 April Siegfried

Spring has finally arrived in Chicago, after a long and unusually harsh winter.

Yes, these are “flowers”—so difficult to see and photograph in a way that is fresh, that’s not similar to the thousands of images already housed in the data banks of our mind’s eye. Their abundant beauty is so welcome, however, that I can’t help but try to express that experience.

Click on any image above to view large as slide show (with 5 second pause between each.)

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Crabapple Tree
Panasonic DMC-FZ40; 1/25 sec @ f7.1, ISO 100 (handheld);
Focal length: 8.5mm (47mm EFL)

Crabapple Flowers
Nikon D300 ; 1/125 sec (handheld);
AF-S Nikkor 18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 G ED plus
Canon 500D Close-Up Lens

May 152014
 

Sometimes I get all tied up in knots about my images. Is it interesting enough to shoot, good enough to share? Is that really the color I saw when I was there?

And sometimes it’s fun to just relax and play.

Here I came across someone else’s playtime, but I got to enjoy it too.

Click on either image above to view large.

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Nikon D300; f11, ISO 200 (handheld);
AF-S Nikkor 18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 G ED

May 102014
 

Fog №3

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Nikon D300; 1/145 sec @ f11, ISO 250 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 105mm (157mm EFL); focus distance 33.5m

This wasn’t exactly what I “expected” to see on a foggy morning in spring. Once I let go of those ideas and realized what I was seeing, however, I had great fun on this walk.

Click on any image below to start a slide show:

Apr 032014
 

Window Blind №11 (Unruly) ©2014 April Siegfried

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I seem drawn to photograph window blinds, perhaps because they suggest qualities of the life lived behind them.

A fellow photographer from Thailand commented on this image, “Naughty!” That made me smile, and led to the subtitle “Unruly.”

Nikon D300; 1/45 sec @ f16, ISO 320 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 70mm (105mm EFL); focus distance .89m

 Posted by at 8:46 am  Tagged with:
Apr 032014
 

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Stepping outside to run errands, I discovered this present on our front steps. Except for a very light touch of contrast and sharpening in post-processing, this image is as seen.

Panasonic DMC-FZ40; 1/15 sec @ f4.4, ISO 100 (handheld);
Focal length: 82mm (460mm EFL)

Mar 162014
 

Centrella ©2014 April Siegfried

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Well…the snow was melting; then we got more. Needing groceries, I saw this while walking to the store—and had to laugh.

Nikon D300; 1/60 sec @ f11, ISO 200 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 44mm (66mm EFL); focus distance 4.73m

Mar 162014
 

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Untitled—Paper
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Nikon D300; 1/90 sec @ f11, ISO 200 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 150mm (225mm EFL); focus distance .89m

Untitled—Plastic ©2014 April Siegfried

Untitled—Plastic
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Nikon D300; 1/45 sec @ f16, ISO 280 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 200mm (300mm EFL); focus distance .79m

As 6½ feet of snow begins to melt in Chicago, some surprisingly beautiful treasures are revealed in the “trash” left behind.

Mar 042014
 

Rhymes with Orange ©2014 April Siegfried

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A cheerful splash of color on a cold winter day.

Nikon D300; 1/45 sec @ f11, ISO 200 (handheld);
18-200 mm f/3.5–5.6 @ 65mm (97mm EFL); focus distance 1.12m