Fun in the (overcast) sun

I was able to make it down to the beach today. The best method I have for controlling the shutter speed on my camera is to manually change the ISO.  It was cold and windy, and I didn't have a tripod.  I played with the ISO around 400-800 because anything higher is just too grainy with my little camera. 

The wind had blown the sand through the snow drifts, carving out a tiny canyon and leaving stripes of sand in the snow.

 

I think this picture came out pretty good, It would be better if it was more in focus though.

Ive been hoping it would snow soon, so I could get some nice winter shots.  As luck would have it It snowed about 6 inches last night, and I had the day off from work. I would have liked to head down to the beach and photograph the snow shore, but I had a feeling the roads wouldnt be plowed that close to the beach, and my car could probably get stuck.  I settled with photographing the backyard instead. I was glad I didn't head to the beach, because I was only able to stay outside for a few minutes in the cold weather.  It's also quite difficult to manipulate a compact camera with gloves on.

I had a little bit better luck getting a depth of field shot this today.  Most likely because there was about 10 feet between the branch in the foreground, and the trees in the background. In the photo from yesterday, there was only about a foot between the closest object and the farthest one.

I ventured deeper into the back yard and a nice landscape shot.  I tried to get the widest shot I could but there was a line of trees against my back.  The only post processing I used today was cropping and straightening of the pictures.

I did play with the last image in Photoshop a bit, and adding some contrast seemed to improve the photo