explorations in photography

I took a bunch of random pictures with my camera today.  I am no expert, I just played around with it.  Here are some of the best pics I got.  They are really rather stunning full size.  My camera is great, I am hoping to figure out how to use it well soon.

This first one is of dead sunflowers from last summer that are on the side of the house.  I really enjoy taking close ups.

I was playing with the contrast of focusing the foreground and blurring the background.  It makes for an interesting shot.

This picture looks a lot better full size.  My mom claims that the fruit on this tree used to be apples.  They look like berries to me.  Little wrinkly berries.

I just plain got lucky with this one.  I just love that the background is so muted and the branch is so vivid.  I honestly got lucky with every one of my photos today.  When it comes down to it, I have no idea what I am doing, but I am having fun pretending.