Adventures · Inspiration

How to play with your camera – ground level

Every day is a day we can learn or discover something new.  I believe that wholeheartedly, and try to live up to that mantra.

Some days, when I take my first step out the door and see the same thing as the night before, I wonder…

Can I learn or see something new today…without leaving my yard, without going somewhere else.  Can I make my world, as it is, interesting?

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Or will it just be the same as yesterday?  Just another warm sunny summer day ahead, where the grass will dry, and the plants will need watering.

And the dog will poop twice (or more).  Yikes…that’s not so interesting, it’s a good thing, a plugged up dog isn’t.  I digress…

Those are the days when I choose to look at things from a different angle.  A dog’s view of the yard is a spectacular one to take.

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While Copper roams for the perfect spot to do his business or to discover with his nose who wandered through the yard overnight…

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I play with my camera on the ground level.

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I do my early morning squats, too, by hunching down close to the ground. I hold my camera at that level and click away just to see what I get.

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I love blades of grass.  I spend a lot of time clicking away at different angles.  I don’t do anything special with my camera, just have it set on manual mode, ISO 400, and I manually adjust the white balance to zero.  I have no idea if that is the correct way to do it, it has just become a playful habit of mine to experiment with ISO and white balance.

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I just play.

And wander around the yard, like Copper does, and see what I can find.  Today, we found a mushroom.  It’s boring to take a picture from this angle.

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These mushrooms are interesting to me.  When they are white, they’re like stiff marshmallows.  But when dried they turn into puffs of brown dust that explode and spread spores to make more.  I should look up what they are called, do you know?

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They can be interesting close up with the sunrise in the backdrop.

I learned today that pausing long enough to see if anything had changed, indeed showed to me that even the tiny blades of grass and the mushrooms have grown overnight and are ready to adapt to the day ahead.

I am too, are you ready to learn something new today?

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RDP#71 – Effervescent

PS – Which photos do you like best – the mushrooms or the blades of grass?  Or the combination of both?  What new thing did you learn today?  Do you know what kind of mushroom that is?  Are you craving a marshmallow too?  

 

 

 

 

14 thoughts on “How to play with your camera – ground level

  1. I always love your photos – mine never turn out like yours. Thanks for the ISO and white balance tip! And I can’t decide between the two – the blades of grass are pretty cool but so is the mushroom!

    1. Thank you, Robyn! Try the manual mode setting, that helps get the different depths of field of the objects, too. Most of all have fun and PLAY! 🙂

  2. Awww I really enjoyed this post! I have an (almost) daily series, The After Eight Moments, where I try to find something that catches my eye in my close surroundings. Challenging myself to do so has made me much more aware of all the little things, and how just changing the angle to look at them, makes a difference… Here is an example 🙂

    https://cyranny.com/2018/05/05/after-eight-moments-202/

    Thank you for sharing! xx

    1. Thank you, John – That’s what we call them too, I thought it was a made-up name ;-)! I appreciate the clarification – you’re always so helpful!!

  3. Interesting shot. That mushroom looks like a golf ball. I’ll have to get down and see what I can find more often. Thanks for the reminder!

  4. I love all of your photos, Shelley especially the blades of grass! You’re right. Every day we can learn or discover something new.

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