To start off 2011........



May you have a successful and rewarding new year, ameen!!

One Summer's Day.....

I don't think I posted this one, it was taken on a lovely summer's day in Birmingham, amazing what you can do with a boot ey!! lol.

Ripples in the Water



This was taken at the Nature Centre in Birmingham.

Pink Bouquet

Right I'm finally gonna start uploading some photos, starting from today!

Yes.....It's Me!

I just wanted to say, I haven't forgot my blog, I moved in April and just settling in now, I will have some more photos up soon insha Allaah, I have some waiting in my camera which were taken in Birmingham before I left,will be uploading them very soon, so watch this space ;)

Bike Art...

I recently found a really cool website, called BeFunky.com , it's similar to picnik, but has alot more photo effects available, especially when you upgrade for $24.95 for the year. With the top photo I did some slight editing in picnik, but I experimented with the bottom two at BeFunky. Even though it's easy to just add a photo effect with these kind of websites, I feel like I'm kind of cheating a little, taking a shortcut, I would much prefer to master photoshop, which I'm slowly in the process of trying to do, then I think I will feel much more of an achievement after maybe editing a photo, adding a different effect etc.. when I know I've put my learnt skills into practice.

Swings re-edited

Here's the swings again, but with a different treatment added...

Life's full of little beauties

Blooming Hyacinth/ School of photoshop

Masha'Allaah it's amazing how quick this Hyacinth bloomed,when not so long ago it looked like this...

Sadly the flowers on it have all now withered, but I'm hoping there will be new ones growing soon, insha Allaah.

On another note, one resource I'm currently making the most of is the 'School of photoshop', as you can guess by the title, it is of course about 'photoshop'. I've had CS3 for a while now, and have tried the odd tutorial, but became overwhelmed with the huge amount of tools photoshop has to offer.

I like the way this tutorial is broken down, into preschool - Getting started in photoshop, Kindergarten - Using palettes, first grade - photoshop's toolbox, and so on. Last night I started grade 2 :) (just like being back in school :D )which introduced 'Layers' I have dabbled a little with them before, but this really helped me understand alot more how they work, I can't wait to get started on grade 3! insha Allaah 'selection tools'.

Swings

“The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch swing with, never say a word, then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation that you ever had.”

No9

Two shots of a top I recently bought, edited on picnik.

Nice and Simple

Sometimes it's nice to leave things simple....

The Golden Flower

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such ~ Henry Miller.

Just experimenting with a previous picture of mine, not sure if I did post it on my blog. I edited it on picnik, adding a few favourite effects of mine, one being Cross process, and also Lomo or Orton, or probably both!

Butterfly

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Pottering around....

While on my search around the house, trying to find something worth photographing, something a bit different from my usual choice 'flowers', I came across these cute little post I recently bought for our classroom, I actually found them rather photogenic and quite fun to photograph and edit :D

Exploring The Globe

Home-Ed with the girls.

Introduction to Aperture in Digital Photography - Darren Rowse

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing a series of posts on elements that digital photographers need to learn about in order to get out of Auto mode and learn how to manually set the exposure of their shots. I’ve largely focussed upon three elements of the ‘exposure triangle‘ – ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. I’ve previously written about the first two and today would like to turn our attention to Aperture.

Before I start with the explanations let me say this. If you can master aperture you put into your grasp real creative control over your camera. In my opinion – aperture is where a lot of the magic happens in photography and as we’ll see below, changes in it can mean the difference between one dimensional and multi dimensional shots.

What is Aperture?

Put most simply – Aperture is ‘the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken.’
When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’. You’ll often see them referred to here at Digital Photography School as f/number – for example f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens (and the amount of light getting through). Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind). Read more:

Anthurium - Lady Love

Well, here it is.....my first photo of 2010, as I mentioned in a previous post I've had alot of problems with uploading photos to the computer, I have not been able to pin point where the actual problem lies, it's very complex. So now I've got a new camera alhamdulillaah, another fuji film, but the s200 EXR. The same problem arose earlier when trying to upload this photo, but I somehow sorted it out alhamdulillaah.


Anyway......this pic is of the Anthurium plant, named Love Lady, I love the pink leaves, makes a change from green! Masha'Allaah.

30 Photographic goals for 2010

1. Don’t leave your camera
You never know what opportunities will present themselves to you if your camera is always at your side. It may be a bit of extra hassle, but you will develop a greater sense of observation by being aware of your camera constantly.

2. Shoot a Photo a Day
No greater photographic progress can be seen than by a personal photo a day challenge. Watch your development over a period of 1-3 months and be amazed at how far you’ve come. Read more

How to be inspired everyday...

Whether you have been creating photographs for years or only for few weeks, finding inspiration is not always easy. We all experience periods of creative blocks when we get stuck and all our good ideas come to a halt. Inspiration seems to elude us. So, what can we do to help a creative energy affect us day after day? Is there a way to stay inspired? For me there is a definite “Yes” to these questions. Read more

100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography (By Darren Rowse)

100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography

Missing photography :(

Originally uploaded by Umm Khadijah

I've had to neglect my photgography somewhat for a while, I've had a problem arise with the memory card on my camera, I can't upload any photos to my computer, even a brand new card I bought recently is having the same problem.

So now I have to send the camera to fuji film to find out the problem, it's quite a complex one, cos they don't even know what it might be.

So I decided to order a new camera, I wasn't too keen on my current one anyway, insha Allaah will sell it on when problem is fixed.

So I really can't wait to start taking some photos again, which I can actually put online and edit etc.. I've missed it, and I need to re-start the online photography course I was doing with proud photography.com.

For now I just wanted to share a photo I took last year, which I had on my flickr but I don't think I'd posted it on here.

There's a slightly bigger one below.