Lensbaby

San Antonio River Walk – Lensbaby Blog Circle

Published: Mon, Jul 01, 2019
Written by GizellaN
7 Comments
Categories: Blog, Family Trips, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Blog Circle, Photography, Photowalk, Twist 60, USA
Tags: Lensbaby, Lensbaby Blog Circle, Photography, River Walk, San Antonio Texas

Welcome to my July 1st Lensbaby Blog Circle post, in which I’d like to invite you to take a short walk with me in San Antonio, Texas. My family was taking a five-day vacation in Austin and San Antonio, and I grabbed my Lensbaby Twist 60 to capture some great moments while walking on the famous San Antonio River Walk (Paseo del Rio), which is the largest urban ecosystem in the United States. The whole walk is 15 miles long, but we mainly just visited the downtown area. You can walk by the river, enjoy a lunch or dinner in one of the many restaurants, visit small gift shops, or take a guided tour on an electric barge. We walked around the downtown area twice; once in late afternoon then after sunset. The vibe was different, but we noticed that even at night the area is very family friendly.

I really enjoyed capturing the colorful barges, and I even took pictures of people, which is very unusual for me. We saw pretty flowers, some wildlife, and at night we walked up to San Fernando Cathedral where we watched a laser light show projected to the cathedral’s wall for a few minutes. Without further ado, enjoy a brief tour of the San Antonio River Walk.

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Comparing Three Lensbaby Lenses

Published: Mon, Jun 17, 2019
Written by GizellaN
No comments
Categories: Blog, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photography, Sol 45, Twist 60, Velvet 56
Tags: Casa Romantica, Flower Photography, Lensbaby

In the past few weeks I haven’t used my Lensbaby lenses as much, because I attended nature programs in groups, where an automatic lens was more useful. If I wanted to take pictures while hiking, I had to do it fast and not hold up the group.

Last week I spent a brief time at a pretty place in San Clemente, California. Casa Romantica is a beautiful venue for weddings and parties, and it is open to the public when no events are going on.

I walked around the garden three times, using a different lens each time while approaching the same subjects. I used the Sol 45, the Twist 60 and the Velvet 56. After comparing the images I chose the ones to post that I liked the most. One subject worked very well with all three lenses, I’ll save that for last. A few subjects didn’t work for me at all. So here are the winners:

The only image of the view from the gardens I liked was taken with the Twist 60. It was a dark, overcast day, but this is the lens I would use again for this view on a sunny day.

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Photographic Experiments with Roses

Published: Sat, Jun 01, 2019
Written by GizellaN
2 Comments
Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Double Glass, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Blog Circle, Photo Technique, Photography, Sol 45, Velvet 56
Tags: flower, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Blog Circle, Photography, rose

Welcome to my June 1 Lensbaby Blog Circle post! For this post I used the dried up roses my daughter gave me for Mother’s Day. My goal was to experiment with them and see what I could create. I set a few limitations for myself:

  1. I would only use Lensbaby lenses (since I was shooting for this post)
  2. I would only use natural light and some light modifiers – light reflectors, light softeners and flags (these add shadow)
  3. I would take all the photos from a tripod

Here is my setup, showing my wonderful assistant, Destiny as well:

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Perfect Imperfection – Something I Can Achieve with my Lensbaby Lenses

Published: Thu, May 16, 2019
Written by GizellaN
No comments
Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Inspirational, Lensbaby, Photo Technique, Photography, Sol 45, Sweet 50 or 35, Velvet 56
Tags: Lensbaby

Whenever I talk to people about my current photography I tell them that Lensbaby lenses are perfect for me. The funny part is that many Lensbaby images are far from perfect if you are looking at them with your technical eyes only. I could even say that Lensbaby pictures are perfectly imperfect. What do I mean by this? Let me show you some of my creations and explain how the imperfection led me to create something that I felt stood out from the crowd.

Let’s start with this image, which I took with the Sweet 50 (my very first LB lens). Technically this image is not successful. I clearly wasn’t able to focus fast enough on any of the birds. Despite this, I really like the outcome. Thanks to the special effects created by the lens, I feel the movement of the birds, and I can almost hear the noise gulls make when a large flock of them fly away all at once.

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When I’m Encouraged to Eat My Models – Lensbaby Blog Circle

Published: Tue, Apr 30, 2019
Written by GizellaN
8 Comments
Categories: Blog, Food photography, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Blog Circle, Photography, Single Glass, Sol 45
Tags: blackberry, blueberry, broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, food photography, kale, Lensbaby, lettuce, Low-carb, low-carb diet, strawberry

A few days ago I hinted that I was going to bring up a topic and a related project I started working on. The topic is a life style change my husband and I decided on at the end of January, and it involves a diet change. We have been eating a lot less carbohydrates and minimized the sugar intake as well. We are not following a “brand name” diet, we have been just making more educated choices when it comes to our food. I don’t want this post to be just about the diet, but I do want to say that in addition to losing a lot of weight we are also feeling full of energy.

Eating a low-carb diet means that our vegetable intake has increased, and our fruit choices have changed as well. A few weeks ago I thought of a photographic project I could start that involves our new lifestyle. I want to photograph the food items that we are encouraged to eat, and therefore we have them at home almost all the time. In order to make these images a bit more interesting, I also started learning about food photography just recently. Hopefully, you’ll see an improvement in my food photos throughout this project.

A few days ago I posted some strawberry images. Strawberries are one of the recommended low-carb fruit, and I’ll repost two of my favorite images from the set:

Lensbaby Single Glass at F5.6

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