Bounce into Spring

A couple of months into blip, I posted a photo that remains of one my favorites. I remember being at the mall that day with my daughter and noticing the bounce of the water as it was coming out of the drinking fountain and landing in the stainless steel sink. The photo is here. I've been in a real 'abstract' mood with my photography lately. I love to photograph water in all of its different forms. Puddles, rain, drops, ice, snow, running water, streams, rivers, waterfalls.....they are all represented here in my blip journal.

So today I decided to revisit my water fountain shot. This was not created with a water fountain though. This was more of an experiment. If I kept my 50mm in focus with one hand and poured a glass of water into an already full stainless steel bowl, and used my flash, could I capture the image that I was hoping for? Yes. Another difference is that back in January of 2010, I photographed the bouncing water using my automatic setting. And now in March of 2011, I was able to photograph a similar image using my manual settings. It took me nearly six months to figure out how to shoot manually and now my goal is understanding flash. Not just the flash on my camera but other means of flash. I can't even remember what it is called right now. Flash bounce? Or flash something or other. I barely know what I am talking about right now but I know that really cool images can be captured with external flash devices. I feel like the flash has a way of freezing the image especially when trying to capture water. But like I said, I still have a lot to learn about that.

In other news, we had gorgeous blue skies today. I actually wore shorts for the first time to my spin class and I have to say, I did love that. Spring is the air. At least it was today. The neighbors were out. My kids rode their bikes / scooters / skateboards with the neighbor boy. Earlier in the day, I dove into a little bit of Spring cleaning. I was in the mood to go through things and get rid of stuff, so that is what the kids and I did. Believe me, they kept a very watchful eye of what I was putting in the 'donation' bag but all in all, they agreed with the choices. Now if I can only get the motivation to fix the mess that is my shoes all jumbled up on the floor in my closet. Now that is a real mess and a big time hassle lately every time I go to open and close the door. That will be next. My Mom wants to get ahold of my entire closet in a very major way. She is the queen organizer and uses her thumb to 'yay' or 'nay' something. Thumb up means I get to keep the item of clothing. Thumb down means 'you've got be kidding me, get rid of it'. And that is where the negotiating begins.

Happy Monday everyone!