Walking through the [neighbor]hood

The other day I decided to go out and see what my the manual setting on my digital point and shoot camera could really do.  That’s right I touched things like the shutter speed and aperture and didn’t break anything….I don’t think.

What I like about the place I chose to take the pictures is that even though all of these houses are less than a few blocks from Wilshire Boulevard (one of the busiest and most widely used streets in Los Angeles) for some strange reason, after a block or so, you can’t hear the sound of cars rushing by.  You hear birds chirping, kids playing, and lawns being mowed. 

I took about a half hour walk around the neighborhood taking pictures of anything that inspired me or that was just kind of interesting.  I’m sure people saw me walking around with a camera and was like “What is she taking pictures of? Is she spying on us? I bet that’s not just a regular point and shoot I bet she’s casing the joint and taking pictures inside our windows! Hide your wife! Hide your kids!”

I think I need to work on exposure just a little bit, or maybe it was because it was such an overcast day that everything came out kind of flat and maybe a little over exposed/bright.  Either way, the brightness/contrast was changed a little on all of these pictures (thank you Photoshop), but other than that, this is how I took them.  I welcome any comments as I’m not really a photographer (maybe one day).  My favorite one is of the lamp…I kind of which I’d taken the time to remove the cobwebs though!