Personal Treasures

I don't think I really thought about how hard it was going to be to keep up with TWO sets of prompts when I signed up for both Picture Summer at BPS and Love Your Pictures at Shimelle's.  Today I've combined Shimelle's prompt 1 (play with lighting photographing stuff that showcases your personality), Shimelle's prompt 3 (groups of three) and Picture Summer Day 8 "Treasure Hunters" which asked us to photograph things we collect. 

To be quite honest, I am trying more and more to be minimalist and don't have collections anymore. The beanie babies are gone, the Boyd's bears figurines are packed away. But I do have a little shelf where I keep mementoes of happy times. Just little things, all totally unrelated, that make me happy for various reasons I won't explain here.  So I chose three. And I went to several different places to photograph them. After post-processing, here are my best images of my personal treasures.

First up, taken in the living room (aka my scrap room)on a bench near the window.

Second, taken in the former dining room, now office. I love the light this window puts out and the color of the carpet makes a nice neutral background with some texture.

 My third photo is taken on the dining table in the sunroom. This is the brightest room in the house (by far) and the light in here is more even most of the day. However, the red placemat definitely changed the "feel" of the objects. I had to add vignette and softening actions to make this picture interesting!

The next two photos were both taken on a windowsill in the sunroom. If you want LOTS of light, this is the place to go! I only wish I had realized how dusty the windows were before I snapped the pictures.

Same placement, different angle and changed to landscape orientation. This one is a little truer to color on the bottle label and I like that it captured more of the outside background.

Finally, same photo as above, but I desaturated all the color to give it a sepia tone effect.

Now my only problem is that I don't know which one to put up in the galleries! I like each one for different reasons and I don't have a stand out favorite. There are too many to post them all, so please help me choose the best one or two to post!