Arizona monsoon season!!! What a difference rain makes! Our brown hills have turned green, and, after this week’s huge storm, I went outside and actually found raindrops left on plants from the night before. If you look closely, you’ll some tiny refracted images of flowers in some of the drops.
Linking up with Friday Finds today.
One of the recent lessons in BeStill 52 was to create an unstaged (or at least a seemingly unstaged) still life. I’ve been busy- or at least preoccupied- but finally made some time earlier this week to get it DONE.
Of course, the first step was to get caffeinated, and, as the coffee started coming out of the Keurig, I grabbed my camera and took a few unstaged shots. Encouraged by how easy this was, I added a nectarine and a knife and finished the shoot in less than 10 minutes. If I had known how fast I could get it finished, I would have done it sooner!
Inspired by my photo friend, Barbara, I edited each photo with a different preset and am calling it DONE!
Presets used (all by Kim Klassen):
Left- truegrit
Right- oldendays and lettherebelight (one of my all-time favorites)
My iPhone Lensbaby came at last! I participated in the Kickstarter program and was able to get it before it goes on the market (and at a reduced price).
I absolutely love it! My iPhone is fun again- thanks to this tiny little lens. This is the first and only lens I’ve had for my phone, and it has taken some time for me to get used to it. Although I loved it from the start, focusing it has been a challenge for me. The first step in using this little guy is to attach it to the magnet ring (supplied) on the phone (with the Lensbaby app open )- then adjust the position of the lens to get the best focus with a centered “sweet spot.” Since I almost always prefer an off-center area of focus, I then switch to the “movable sweet spot” mode and compose my picture. I’m not sure why focusing was so difficult for me, but since I’ve relaxed about it a bit, I’ve been happier with my results.
Here are some of my favorite shots.
The soft blur created by the lensbaby just seems to go with flowers!
Since this is app-happy Wednesday, I will mention the apps I used to edit these images. I generally open in Snapseed first to crop and make any exposure adjustments. I often go into Pixlr Express afterward if I want to make an adjustment to just one area of the image. I used to do this in Snapseed, but I find the history brush in Pixlr Express easier to use. To do this, I make the adjustment I want to the ENTIRE image, and then use the history brush to erase it from the areas where I don’t want that particular adjustment. It’s kind of counterintuitive, but I’m getting used to it.
Now I NEED to get a Lensbaby for my Nikon- I could start with a Composer Pro with a double glass optic. Are you reading this, Santa???
Today I’m posting some photos from our drive through Peeples Valley and Kirkland a couple weeks ago. I love country roads and all the charms of barns and fences and horses- maybe it’s because I grew up in a small town in a rural area. 
Textures (all from Kim Klassen): top- waterfront 7; bottom- nutmeg and unleashed
Linking up with Texture Tuesday
Warning: there are more Arizona skies in this post!
Last night,we had just sat down to dinner, when my husband exclaimed- LOOOOOK! This is not that unusual; we have beautiful clouds and sunsets (not to mention birds and snakes and lizards. . .), and we are always telling each other to LOOOOK!
As you have guessed, there was a beautiful rainbow out there (and it had not been raining).
But what became immediately apparent was that it was a DOUBLE rainbow that stretched across the whole horizon! I grabbed my camera (and he grabbed his), and we ran outside. I don’t know if he captured the whole span, but I soon discovered that my 18-200 mm lens was not really wide enough- especially, because it started raining as soon as we got out there, and we had to stand on the porch and then in the open garage. It got too wet too quickly to stand out there, so we went back to eating dinner. These photos do not begin to capture the beauty of the rainbow or the quality of the light- but here they are.
I don’t know what is going on with the clouds in the middle two photos (the darker semi-circular shape at the top). A camera thing, a flying saucer thing- who knows?
BTW, it being summer in Arizona, there was thunder and lightning going on too!
This summer the Prescott hummingbirds have finally discovered us! In fact I’ve seen as many as five flitting around at a time, buzzing each other in a seeming fight for territory. Our feeder is right outside the window by the kitchen sink, so I’m constantly watching them. I took my camera outside a couple days ago and had fun taking photos as the little hummers flew around me. They got closer and closer to me, trying to scare me off- but I held my ground!
Hummingbirds can be a challenge to keep in focus- but this out of focus one ended up being one of my favorites of the session. BTW the bokeh is from the morning light shining on the plum tree in the background.
I like this darker, textured version as well.
Yes, I did take some shots that were actually IN focus!
I love this one- he was staring me down! What a bully!
I’m linking up with App Happy Wednesday today with a couple iPhone photos, both edited in Snapseed. I didn’t do much to the first one, but the second one has the tilt shift filter applied to give it a bit of a lensbaby look. My actual iPhone lensbaby should be arriving this week- I’m excited!
This flower lined fence caught my eye as we were heading out of town for a drive the other day. After spending a couple hours taking photos of rural scenes and the countryside, I was too tired to stop and take photos of the original fence I had seen as we started our outing. We went back the other day, and I had a great time photographing all the flowers. You’ll be seeing more of them in the near future; today it’s just one photo of this pink beauty, textured with Kim Klassen’s touchof for Texture Tuesday.
On Saturday, dark clouds were beginning to fill the sky as my husband and I toured the Phippen Museum, a few miles north of our house. One of the docents nicely unlocked the door to the deck so that I could take a few photos of the view of the Granite Dells and the beautiful clouds. By the time we got home the monsoon storm had begun- thunder, lightning, and rain!
We had some rain late yesterday afternoon- and a rainbow.
After I took a few rainbow photos, I turned around and took these two photos of the pre-sunset light shining through the Russian sage. Always turn around!
Of course, I had to convert one to black and white.
And saving the best for last:
This was taken about 15 minutes later with my iPhone.
These days our morning walks are taking place earlier than before. We used to say that we needed to be finished by 9:00 to beat the heat. Now we say 8:00 is too late; we need to be on the trail before 7:00. The upside is that there is some beautiful morning light!
I processed these photos first in black and white (my preference most of the time). But I cannot deny the beauty of color in nature- even in weeds and grasses- so there is a color version as well.
I couldn’t resist this one as well- the two of us on the trail.
I have just one photo to show so far from the last BeStill 52 lesson on light. The challenge was to photograph spoons with the light hitting them from different angles. You would think this would be easy for me, as I have many, many spoons, but the light was the problem- the sun kept going behind the clouds, which took away the shadows I was trying to capture. Perhaps I’ll get it right next time!
I chose to photograph a few spoons from my grandmother’s souvenir coffee spoon collection from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. I used to play with these spoons when I was a little girl, and I still treasure them today.
I photographed my huge Russian sage (although not a native plant, it seems to pop up everywhere), on two different days over the weekend- and what a difference a day makes.
Here is Saturday’s photo.
And here is Sunday’s! I have to give my husband credit for this one. He looked out the window while we were watching TV (still binge-watching Damages!), and exclaimed over the light in the clouds. While he paused the TV, I ran out and captured this one before the light changed.
Both photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s textures- golden and waterfront11 on the first, 1301 on the second.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.
Photographing a feather we found at Lynx Lake last week was fun with my macro lens. And then I varied the processing- more fun for a rainy day!
A clean edit.
A warmed up black and white.
An infrared preset- check out that grain- whoa!
Textured to the max!
melinda anderson photography 