Shutterbugs and Photographer Friends,
Welcome to the World Through My Lens, 09.2019. This is a collection of photos I took during September for the 2 photography challenges in which I am participating. There’s the Sunday Stills series hosted by Terri at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives and The Everyday Eye Candy Project 52 with LaShawn at Everyday Eye Candy on Facebook and her blog, Everyday Eye Candy. Before we get started today, you can visit last month’s World Through My Lens post, here.
WORLD THROUGH MY LENS, 09.2019
I did finally, finally, finally use my DSL camera a lil bitsy (as Lucia would say) this month. The only photo below captured with it, however, is the picture of the cactus or succulent. Hope to remember to grab it to take with me as I go out the door this month, in case I come across a perfect photo op. And I have my photography class beginning on 10.22.2019. That will be an encouragement to use it more, I am sure.
Here are my responses to this month’s prompts for the World Through My Lens, 09.2019
WORLD THROUGH MY LENS WEEK 36
EVERYDAY EYECANDY PROJECT 52, WEEK 36: Architecture
The architecture of the University of Texas, El Paso is very unique. Every building uses aspects of Bhutanese design; “sloping walls, high inset windows, overhanging roofs, and dark bands of brick inset with mosaic-tiled mandalas” [source]. The campus is lovely and reflects the peace associated with the Buddhist religion. I liked the ray of sunshine that divided this photo.
SUNDAY STILLS, 09.01.2019: No Challenge
World Through My Lens Week 37
Everyday Eyecandy Project 52, Week 37: School Daze
Drove past the school from which I retired in 12.2013 just as the dismissal bell was about to ring. Snapped this photo of the school buses jockeying for position in the parking lot. The first photo is the original, unedited shot. I used Prisma to edit the photo in the following frames. Which do you prefer?
Sunday Stills, 09.08.2019: Layers
For some of the prompts each month, I really try to seek the perfect subject. So was the case with the word ‘layers’. I walked and drove around considering the word in everything. Layers of old roofing shingles, layers of peeling paint, layers of paint on a painting. But the photo I decided to use was this cactus on the grounds of the University of Texas, El Paso.
World Through My Lens Week 38
Everyday Eyecandy Project 52, Week 38: Autumn
Autumn has finally arrived. Our temperatures have dropped close to 20*F for the highs. Evenings are cool enough that we can sleep with our bedroom door open to the balcony. Every year, I build a scarecrow and here is this year’s version. I noticed my ‘fella’s’ clothes are getting pretty faded. Might be time for new a outfit next fall.
Sunday Stills, 09.15.2019: Sports or Hobbies
You probably remember how I have been working to finish projects. Finish reading books, finish my spring-that-has-become-seasonal cleaning, and finish some of my craft projects. This is my mosaic. Managed to finish another section this week. Making progress!!
World Through My Lens Week 39
Everyday Eyecandy Project 52, Week 39: Fruit
Made a quick stop at Whole Foods across town when I had a few minutes to spare before my physical therapy appointment. These mangoes and oranges? were displayed near the door. I enjoyed the contrast in texture and color in this display.
Sunday Stills, 09.22.2019: Signs of Autumn
The first signs of autumn around our house were the decorations in my thrift-shop wheelbarrow. Looking forward to a trip to the pumpkin patch and corn maze next weekend with Lauren, Lucia and Francisco.
World Through My Lens Week 40
Everyday Eyecandy Project 52, Week 40: From Where I Stand
Not getting wet from where I stand taking Lucia’s photo in the outlet mall splash pads. Interesting that there are 2 sets of shadows for her little chubby arms.
Sunday Still, 09.29.2019: A Bug’s Life
I wrote, here, about my experience accompanying my daughter for a reading by a Houston-based medium, here. During the reading, Kim O’Neill mentioned my attachment to butterflies. I have always associated my father with a butterfly sighting but the physic suggested that the butterflies are actually visits from my maternal grandmother. Now I choose to believe a butterfly represents them both.
RANDOM SHOTS
As always, I will close out this post with a few random shots I have taken during the month.
More Fruit
First up, some shots I took for the prompt fruit before going with the oranges and mangoes in the photo above.
More Autumn
Our desert community receives less than 9″ of rain a year. We can always tell that autumn has arrived when the rains and winds sweep in sometime during October. Halloween is often cold, wet and windy, but the first week of the month, this year was cool, damp and breezy. One morning, when I was up early to help with Lucia, the clouds were hanging very low over the mountain tops. I snapped this photo and then used Prisma to create the edited versions.
This picture with Prisma’s Joker filter is very striking with its unexpected colors. Would like to paint this version.
And this version was created using the Femme filter. It would be pretty drawn with pastels.
Finally, discovered this dramatic mural hidden away off one of the main drags in El Paso. It was painted on a wall of a small, new shopping center, next door to a Kendra Scott store I hadn’t known existed. The vivid color palette represents Frida Kahlo’s flair for the dramatic.
Musical Chairs
Last month I scrubbed the upholstery on our dinette chairs and then sprayed them with Scotchguard. I left them on the patio to dry in the sun. Took several photos of them because they looked kind of interesting, haphazardly arranged on the pool deck in the sunshine. Was going to share the photos here with you in my World Through My Lens, 08.2019 but they disappeared.
Well, I found them again! Here’s my favorite.
YOUR TURN
What would your World Through my Lens 09.2019 post look like? Well, here’s where you share a photo with me! Would love for you to share a recent fav photo from your phone over on my Facebook page. If not a favorite photo, how about the 10th photo in your gallery? Or share it on your Instagram account and tag me, @onceuponatimehappilyeverafter. I will go share mine, now. Meet you over there?
Hugs and kisses,
Terri Webster Schrandt
Wow, Leslie! You were busy last month with your photography! I always like how you do the monthly wrap up with this! I’m glad to read you will be taking a photography class! You will really enjoy it and hopefully, they can help you understand your camera better–it’s complicated! You will have to tell me more about Prizma, is it an app? I use Painnt which is an app and it does similar filters to Prizma. As always, I always appreciate your beautiful and thoughtful images shared for Sunday Stills!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Terri, for always inspiring me to try new photography subjects and to think outside the box. I was over at your blog yesterday and need to go back to leave a few comments. Your photos are amazing.
Prisma is an app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neuralprisma&hl=en_US I am going to check out Painnt. I like Prisma, though, because it is free!!
Donna
Hi, Leslie – I love your different variations of the school bus photo — especially the last one. You have a great photographer’s eye (and are also an awesome photo editor)!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Dear Donna, I think you have given me too much credit! But thank you so much. I am beginning to think about photos before I take them but lots of times I am just lucky and the pictures look like I knew what I was doing when I really didn’t!!
Deb
That first building is fabulous – and the more you look, the more you can see the inspiration from Buddhist temples, lovely.
There is nothing more iconic that that yellow school bus and some of those filters made the photo look like it was a still from a 1950s American tv programme!
That photo of the chairs has reminded me that I really do need to do something about the fabric on the chair in our dining room. Especially the one that Leo sits on … I’ll say no more 😉
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Hey, Deb, I felt the same way about the yellow school buses in some of the filtered photos. Like 1950s America!
Ha! Got a kick out of you saying you need to do something about Leo’s chair in your dining room. I wash my chairs down with the hose, which probably isn’t the gentlest way to clean them but it gets the job done.
Ruth Josey
These are all just wonderful! I love the last photo of the school buses best because it looks like a pencil sketch, but they’re all really neat. You’re so creative! That scarecrow is just darling and I don’t think he looks faded at all (unless you just need to go shopping for him – then he looks really faded – LOL!) and that mosaic is beautiful! I, like you, have so many unfinished projects :/ Your little granddaughter is adorable – any photo of her has to be a winner. That Frida Kahlo mural find is awesome – you need a photo of you in front of that one (and it has one of your butterflies in it too). And I love the chairs around the pool – very artsy! Great job on finding the beautiful things and making new ways to look at them!
Ruth
http://www.VogueFauxReal.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
You make me laugh!! Thank you for that. I might just need to go shopping for my scarecrow next fall in order to give him a new, fresh look!! Or maybe turn him into a her!!
Wonder what our unfinished projects say about us? That we have lots of interests? That we are very busy? I really want to finish some of these projects so I can put the supplies away once and for all. It is hard having the projects sitting around everywhere!! Constant reminders that I don’t finish anything.
Maybe I will return to the Frida mural and pose with her. There are a lot of murals in El Paso. Maybe I should start a fashion series posing with the murals. You have inspired me! Thank you!!
Rebecca Jo
I really need to do a photo challenge to get myself in gear of using my good ole DSLR!!!
I was proud of myself for getting a pic of Ernie last night with my camera for his birthday 🙂
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Ernie’s birthday picture was terrific. Good job. I just wish my DSLR was smaller and easier to take with me.
Dara
I have an architecture prompt coming up in 52 Frames. This week the theme is “my life” and I wish my kids would let me take a picture of them to submit! I love the butterfly picture, you are lucky you got close enough to capture it so well!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Dara, I think that butterfly was on its last leg or wing. Poor baby, didn’t try to get away from me. Bribe those babies of yours to let you take their pic for ‘my life’.
Gale Johnston
What a neat project! I loved viewing your photography! The school bus pictures: My favorites were the first and the last. The last one looks like it would be in a children’s book. It looks like a painting. Your scarecrow is adorable! That’s neat that you make one every year. I just put out a store-bought one from Hobby Lobby. His clothes look fine to me. Your mosaic project looks very labor intensive! It’s going to be beautiful! I really like that you included the materials and tools involved in creating it. I agree that the contrast of the texture of the two fruits make an interesting visual. The picture of you granddaughter is precious. And the butterfly…wow! Beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing all of it! I would share one back with you, but I really don’t have any that are worthy.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, sweet friend. I am really enjoying playing around with my phone camera. Now to get more confident with my real camera and start taking it places with me. Thank you for the compliment on my little Lucia. She is a handful. So much personality.
Have been working on my mosaic forever. Since I first retired. The gal who taught me how to do it, disappeared – at least she closed her shop and I lost contact – and now I don’t know what to do with it when I am finished. I thought it had to be fired but maybe not. At this rate, I won’t have to worry because I will never get finished anyway. Ha!!
Laura Bambrick
This is always a neat post you do each month! You really get some creative photos and they turn out so well!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you so much. I am really enjoying photography. So glad we are no longer using film!!
Carrie @ Curly Crafty Mom
I just love all of the color in these photos, school buses are always such a nice bold yellow. I love the soft succulent photo, too. I like the shadow the chairs give off on your pool deck.
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Carrie. Your photography is really terrific. If you are photographing food or a an arrangement of products, do you take the pictures or does Brian? I was interested reading one time that you have props in your basement for your photos. That is such a great idea. I should make a larger light box and use it. My little one does make my photos better but it is so small I can’t fit much in there.
Allie Mackin
Oh this sounds fun and so creative. You got some great snaps and playing with filters is really fun.
Allie of
http://www.allienyc.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Hello, Allie! Not sure how you found my little blog but thankful you did. I am beginning to love photography and so look forward to the class I will be taking at the end of this month in hopes of becoming more comfortable with my ‘good’ camera. And then to get in the habit of taking it with me.
My hubs always teases me about using filters on my pictures – he prefers them au naturale! But like you said, the filters are fun to play with and can take a simple photo to a whole new level. Thank you for stopping by!
Jill
That first shot of the University is beautiful with the sunray shining through it! I love the different filters you put on the bus photo! I need to try a photo challenge so I use my camera more!
Jill – Doused in Pink
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Jill. Photography has become quite fun for me. And hoping my class will make it even more so. The UTEP campus is truly beautiful. I am so glad that whoever decides such things decided that all of the buildings on campus will keep with the Bhutanese themed architecture.
Barbie Holmes
Oh my gosh! The colors are so vibrant! Loved seeing all the different filters applied and how it affects the saturation of each photo. I need to use my camera more. I am getting too dependent on my iphone! Thank you for the inspiration!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Hi, new friend!! Thank you for stopping by my blog. I will return the favor. Our phone cameras are so easy to use, always available and take pretty good pictures. But I think my good camera has lots of possibilities that I am not familiar with. Have been doing photo challenges for a couple of years and they have encouraged me to look at the world differently.
Leanne | www.crestingthehill.com.au
A really interesting assortment of photos Leslie and I can tell you enjoy taking them. I’m such a slacker when it comes to photos – I take a few family ones when we see the grandgirls and that’s about it. I tend to always be disappointed that a camera can’t truly capture the beauty of what my eyes see with their ability to filter out the superfluous. With practice I’d probably improve, but I’ll just be the admiring audience for others’ photos and leave my camera at home.
Thanks for linking up with us at MLSTL and I’ve shared on my SM 🙂
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Leanne, for your kind words and for sharing my post. I think I become most aware of my camera’s limitations when I try to capture and sunset or a shot of the moon. My photos never do God’s work justice. The colors and textures just aren’t the same when seen through a glass lens!
Joanne Tracey
I love the textures that you’ve captured in some of these, the camera flare in the first shot and the unedited version of the school bus. The femme filter on the landscape gives a great painterly result. #MLSTL See you on instagram!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Joanne, for coming by. I am enjoying playing with photography and my phone camera. Hoping my class this month will make me more comfortable using my good camera. I imagine it can take even better photos!
Shugunna Alexander
All of the pictures are really good, my favorites is the school bus, your granddaughter and the desert. I still haven’t found a photography class but I can’t wait to see ir hear how yours is going. Good luck Leslie!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, friend. I am excited and a little nervous about my photography class. Hope to learn a lot and become more comfy with my camera.
Candi Randolph
You are one very busy lady, Leslie! I loved the photo filters – it’s amazing how they can change an original shot, particularly when it becomes more like a line drawing. Very cool. My favorite was probably the fruit. 🙂 My photos are taken with my phone, nothing special there. But every once in a while I snap something really interesting, so that works for me. #MLSTL
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Candi, for the kind words about my photos. I am finding photography to be my new favorite hobby. Hope to learn more about my good camera with a photography course I start in two weeks. Phone cameras do remarkably well. And lots of my best photos have been accidental!
Erica/Erika
Hi Leslie, I have a basic point and shoot Panasonic ZS70 and I am almost embarrassed to say I take 100’s/1000’s of photos. Just by luck, and being in the right place, I get a few good ones. I greatly admire photographers who plan a shot, the lighting, the time of day. I have told myself to try using a tripod, especially for sunset scenes. Again, I am embarrassed to say I carried the tripod with me, although I have never used it.
I hope you will write about your photography class. This may encourage me to be more adventurous when using the camera.
I am in awe of your stunning photos! I appreciate the information discussing the background story of each photo. I have never heard of Prisma and it is now in my notes file to investigate. I prefer #1 although an interesting and fun effect on the other photos.
You are obviously very creative and artistic. I think the mosaic would put me in a zen state, which is often a good idea.
Leslie, I had a bit of a challenge trying to find your site at first. Your comments come in as Mommyhon333 and I could not locate your site. I then found out you are Leslie and I found your visually beautiful and interesting blog site and I subscribed to it. I think I can access some sites better using Firefox versus Safari. Thank you for a visually beautiful story filled with fun, whimsy and information:) Erica
Erica/Erika
I meant to add #MLSTL and sharing on SM🙂
Leslie Roberts Clingan
I always forget to add that when I read a post linked up for #MLSTL. I need to do better!!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Erica/Erika,
Thank you for this thoughtful comment. And for taking the time to track me down! Interesting that my comments come in as mommyhon333, which is my email address. I need to look into that. (Just fixed it, I hope)
I dragged my good camera, my fish eye lens for my phone, my selfie stick up the mountain on our hike today and back down. Used the good camera some but having to adjust the focus, the ISO (whatever that is) and something else equally Greek to me, kind of limits my spontaneity. Please check out Prisma. I have it added as an app on my phone. It really makes a rather ho-hum photo more interesting.
Thank you for describing me as creative and artistic. Not sure how much of either I really am, but your kind words are music to my ears. Hope we can get to know one another through this crazy blogging world. Maybe even do a post or two together?
Dee | Grammy's Grid
Oh WOW, the Prisma effects are nice!! Love the cactus. The mosaic looks interesting. I guess I missed the post about what it is and what you’re using to make it. Precious pic of your grandbaby in the water, little ones just love water!! Poor you, no rain. Poor me, it’s pouring the rain as I write this. My body doesn’t cooperate with rain 🙁
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Rain is hard on us over here, too. There really is something about rain and arthritis pain.
I started my mosaic when I took a class at a downtown art gallery. But just as quickly as I started, the gal closed her gallery and I never heard from her again. So I have been working on it myself. But I don’t know what to do once I think I am done! I think it is supposed to be fired, like in a kiln. But who knows? Might not ever get finished with it anyway.