Photos by Melissa Odom

Latest photos during September

2009-09-27T22:37:00.004-05:00

Well this last week has been very busy photographically speaking. I just love heading into Autumn, so much to photograph and not enough time.

The first few photos here are from a walk tonight on our land.

Ryan had a birthday party on Friday night and this scene was across from the house where the party was. I added a little bit of Topaz Adjust filter to this one.

This is at Fellow's Lake - the first hint of color.

This year had been my second annual visit out to a Wagon ride near Fair Grove that happens every year right before the Heritage Reunion. (thanks Ron!) On one of their stops, their is an amazing barn full of the greatest things to photograph. The image below is an HDR image of 5 images of varying exposures to get the range of light in there. I then tweaked it some more with Topaz Adjust.

After the wagons left, found some great flowers and this preying mantis.

Finally this last one is from the Springfield Nature Center where the Southwest Missouri Camera Club had a field trip recently.

Ok, maybe now I can get back to some more editting from our big trip. :)

Grand Canyon - North Rim

2009-09-20T14:13:00.004-05:00

Some photos at the Grand Canyon from September 4th. We were lucky enough to catch a thunder storm headed our way and capture a few lighting strikes before we had to head for cover.

Zion National Park - Sept 3

2009-09-03T21:27:00.003-05:00

Found some green reflections in the water on a hike on a trail called River Walk. Wonderful walk in a shady area on a hot day. At the very end of that hike you can then walk through the river itself into The Narrows. That is a very scary walk when you are carrying all your equipment on your back through knee deep rapids in slippery rocks. We all made it back out with our equipment though.

Bryce Canyon National Park Day 3 (Sept 2)

2009-09-03T21:13:00.004-05:00

We attempted the Sunset Point location at Bryce for our last morning and we found some pretty good light to get the Hoodoo's to glow a bit.

After we left Bryce we went to Zion and were able to get there for some sunset type shots. We are not able to see the sunset itself but as the sun gets lower we get some glow on the canyon walls. The image below is a very fast HDR edit....better edits will come when I get back to my PC

Bryce Canyon National Park - Day 2 (Sept 1)

2009-09-03T21:06:00.003-05:00

The first photo is from sunrise at Sunset Point but unfortunately due to clouds and smoke haze from Utah fires we didn't get as much glow as we would have liked.

Later in the day we went up to Inspiration Point where a full view of the main amphitheater is possible. It was a bit cloudy but the view was awesome!

After Inspiration Point and some flat lighting we decided to drive the loop and look for some wildlife. We found a few mule deer to photograph.

Bryce Canyon National Park - Day 1

2009-08-31T15:10:00.003-05:00

Technically we arrived here last night but it was dark and we all were tired. We were up on the trail by 6:30am to hike to the bottom of Queen's Garden trail. Had a beautiful sunrise!

Photos from Lower Antelope Canyon

2009-08-31T15:05:00.005-05:00

Been on a road trip with our SW Missouri Camera Club and spent yesterday afternoon shooting the Lower Antelope Canyon near Page, AZ. All the photos I'll be posting from this trip are pretty much straight out of the camera as I just don't have the patience to edit in Photoshop on this 2 year old laptop. :)

Next post to come - Bryce National Park.

The Scott's

2009-08-21T20:24:00.003-05:00

Wow - I had such a hard time choosing which were my favorites that I had to make a collage! What a fun downtown session this one was - we had such great light and the kids were really great.

Springfields New Butterfly House

2009-07-13T07:01:00.003-05:00

Springfield has a new Butterfly House at Close Memorial Park/Nathanial Greene Park and they had their opening event this weekend. Here's a few favorites from Sunday. Coming soon will be a new Botanical Center - see this website for more details and to become a member of Friends of the Garden:

http://www.friendsofthegarden.org

2009-07-06T15:57:00.002-05:00

Woke up the find a wonderful foggy morning today so took a walk in the "neighborhood" with my camera.

These are from the neighborhood as well - taken last night.

Alien Pods

2009-07-02T20:15:00.003-05:00

I have no idea what kind of plant this is but it grows near the creek on our land and when the sun shines through it in the evenings it's just fascinating.

Dickerson Park Zoo

2009-06-27T13:28:00.002-05:00

Just got back from a very hot morning of shooting at the Dickerson Park zoo with Southwest Missouri Camera club. We were very lucky to have arranged to get in early and we missed most of the bad heat. Here's a few of the photos:

Photos taken this past week

2009-06-12T15:18:00.002-05:00

As much as I dislike thistle growing in our pasture, it sure is a fun plant to photograph! I used the Topaz filter set to Spicify for this one.

I used Topaz on this one too to bring up some detail and bring out the glow.

Our yard is full of these guys lately - hopefully we can keep them out of our garden.

Photos from MAPSYM Photo Symposium 2009

2009-05-30T17:42:00.003-05:00

These are a few of my faves from a photo symposium in Eureka Springs. It was a fun weekend and we had the pleasure of working with professional models including doing a late night available light only workshop.

2009-05-04T21:09:00.002-05:00

Two very different takes on the same photo.....this was taken in our yard between a couple of bouts of rain. Both are the same HDR combined image - nothing too heavy though.

The first isn't altered too much - some cropping, cloning out of an electric fence, curves adjustment and a little bit of dodging and burning. The colors were super saturated on their own due to the rain, spring colors and the quality of light.

This one I took quite a bit of liberty with and tried to change it to a moonlit "other worldly" scene.

Nathaniel Greene Park

2009-04-26T12:38:00.004-05:00

A few photos from a recent field trip our camera club took to Nathaniel Green Park.

Photos from Wisconsin

2008-06-07T11:38:00.006-05:00

We were on a family vacation in Wisconsin over Memorial day weekend and I haven't had a lot of time since then to process many of the photos but here is a few I just had to work on.

Hopefully more to come later. :)

Woods Prairie

2008-05-04T12:47:00.010-05:00

The camera club I belong to took a field trip on Saturday to Woods Prairie to photography the Spring wildflowers. It was cold, gray, and windy but there were about 8 of us who ventured out. These are a few that I came back with.

My poor neglected blog :)

2008-04-28T22:10:00.007-05:00

I am soooo behind on posting photos so I'll catch some up. :) It's been crazy lately but here's some samples from my latest sessions.

This little cutie is less than a week old here and he wouldn't do any sleepy photos for me but he is a charmer.

This is from a recent senior session - Sarah - you have a future as a model!

The latest session - we had a great day at the Park on a great Spring day. I can't believe he is already 4.

Photographing Angels

2008-03-16T19:25:00.004-05:00

Had so much fun with these photos from Saturday!

New Winter Projects

2008-01-06T23:08:00.000-06:00

Not counting today, which was almost 70 degrees, the weather has been chilly and with the Christmas festivities behind me, I turned my attention to a few projects I've been meaning to get to. One is adding a few images to my commerical portfolio and the second is refining my interior architectural photography. I've been meaning to take photos around our house which was just completed in last May and so far I've gotten as far as the kitchen :)

December 2007 Ice Storm Photos

2007-12-10T12:45:00.000-06:00

Couldn't resist taking a few icy photos this morning. The last round of freezing rain went through during the overnight hours and we got about 1/4 inch of ice in our area. Although it was crisp outside the wind wasn't blowing and it was nice to be outside. These are all from our land not far from our house. After several branches nearly fell on my head though, I decided to head inside. :)

Latest Photo Shoots - October and November

2007-11-25T18:40:00.001-06:00

I've been lazy about uploading images to the blog so throwing the last three photo sessions together. All were a blast to do - thanks so much you guys! Your kids are the best and such fun to photograph!

Halloween pumpkin, Woodland Fairies, and misc.

2007-11-05T19:24:00.001-06:00

I kept trying to get the halloween wallpaper that I really wanted but didn't accomplish this photo until after halloween when I could set the pumpkin itself ablaze. Thanks to my husband for his pyrotechnic skills! :)

This is from the creek on our property.

This is some flowers I had in a vase that I froze in ice. I love taking photos of flowers and was looking for a new take on the same subject.

Woodland Fairies.

Weekend trip to Ha Ha Tonka area

2007-10-15T11:28:00.001-05:00

My family and I took a trip just a little north of our house to the Ha Ha Tonka state park area and although it wasn't a photo trip I never go anywhere without my camera! We had a great time. We took a tour of a nearby cave called Bridal Cave. I kept wishing I could have brought in a tripod and had time to use it but the tour guide kept us moving along but got a few shots on high ISO settings.

The leaves are just starting to turn - it should be peak in 1-2 weeks.

This was in the Ha Ha Tonka state park on the trail up to the castle.

I plan to go back soon and capture the castle with more fall colors and at a better time of the day. Although I took some pics of the castle, the lighting is so harsh that I'm not happy with any of them.

This is also a view on the castle trail looking down at the river.

Guess I didn't get enough photography in during our hikes so did some night time "Painting with Light" on some items I had sitting around. This is a heat sink from some electronics lit up with a blue nightlight and red laser light.

Happy Fall!

October 2, 2007

2007-10-02T20:50:00.001-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it is October already .... fall is really going to be here fast this year! We've had some fall storms come through and had the perfect opportunity to take some long exposures to catch some lightning --- can you believe I can sit in my living room and take these photos out my window? I love living in the country!

Here's a photo I took for a scavenger hunt contest and I decided not to enter this one, not because I don't like it but it didn't quite fit the category as well as I would have liked. Can't wait for those colorful leaves though!

This next one is from a couple of weeks ago when I went to an apple orchard looking for some fall apple photos but turns out a freeze last spring left us with no apples but they did have some nice late summer flowers in their garden.

This last one is from a couple of months ago - took this sunrise at Fellows Lake on my way to work.

My First Entry

2007-09-25T22:12:00.000-05:00

I have high hopes for this blog. I hope to update on a weekly basis but we'll see :) To start with, here are a couple of photos I have been working on lately. The Fall Watercolor photo is one from last fall but have been playing with some different water color techniques and like this effect. Perhaps it is just the impending autumn season.

The Japanese Gardens photo was from our local Japanese Park during a fall festival. I had a short time frame when I could attend and I had hoped to capture some colorful costumes but found none but was lucky to find some Japanese maples just starting to turn colors. Unfortunately, they had added dye to the water and it looked very off to me. I was playing around with some filters in Photoshop and really liked this version of heightened contrast and a touch of muted color.

For the last photo of the Apples, I have been experimenting with light painting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_painting) and used an LED flashflight and a red laser to capture this image.