We had our first HUGE monsoon storm yesterday- thunder, lightning, heavy rain, flooding (not at our house) and power outage!
After hours and hours of rain and sky drama, the rain subsided in the early evening. The hummingbirds dashed to the feeder, and all was back to normal in the high desert.
And then the storm resumed . . .
On Tuesday, I posted my favorite photo of the cooperative swallowtail that had been visiting our yard. Today, I am posting three more photos and am hoping he will make a return visit!
While my friend Carol was visiting (she flew home today, alas), we took the required drive to Sedona which we do with all our visitors. This time, we decided to drive to Cathedral Rock, because we had seen several photographs depicting the rock formation reflected in Oak Creek. We chose late afternoon/early afternoon for our visit, so that the light would be right. Unfortunately neither route recommended to us took us very near where we wanted to be, and the sun was beginning to set as we finally decided to do our shoot from the road. With only one small cloud in the sky, we took our photos. On my photography to-do list is finding the spot to get that reflection.
A few weeks ago we had some drama in the front yard involving a brave bunny and a scared (and scary) snake. The short version is that, as I was looking out the window, the cute bunny in the front yard hopped, almost running, across the yard and leapt onto a LONG snake (which I had not noticed was there). In a flash, the bunny and the snake were rolling around, the snake was attempting to climb a post on the front porch, and then the snake slithered to safety inside an small evergreen tree out of the bunny’s reach. The bunny stalked that snake for two days- and then no more action.
Flash forward to yesterday. . .
Carol (who is staying with us) and I were getting ready for the day, when my husband informed me that there was a “little snake” in the back yard. I went out and was horrified to see a very large (probably 4 feet long) snake slithering around under the apple trees. It looked like the snake in the Snake and Bunny Saga. I grabbed Carol’s camera with its fancy 400mm zoom lens and clicked away- from a safe distance. When she joined us, I reluctantly gave her camera back and eventually got close enough to take photos with my 18-200mm zoom.
Carol identified our heretofore unknown snake as a Sonoran gopher snake- and, sadly, we found that he has a hole under the apple tree where he apparently- ummmm- LIVES!
To sum up, we have a big snake LIVING in our back yard. I thought the bunny had scared him away for good. So, besides birds and butterflies, we have lizards, toads, bunnies, and a snake. And at least one tarantula- but that’s a whole other story. I considered this as we sat outside last night drinking wine and enjoying a delicious grilled meal- about 10 feet away from the snake’s “HOUSE.”
I’m trying to be a grown-up about this.
We’ve had the most cooperative swallowtail in the yard the last few days! It allowed Carol and me to get however close we wanted while it sipped nectar from our butterfly bushes. Carol, true to form, looked up this particular swallowtail online and determined it to be the Two Tailed Swallowtail, Arizona’s state butterfly.
I took dozens of photos of the butterfly, but am partial to this almost out of the frame shot of it checking me out as it drank.
Textured with Kim Klassen’s 2203 for Texture Tuesday.
On Saturday, we took Carol to see the Granite Dells and Watson Lake. It was fun watching her experience this otherworldly landscape for the first time.
Busy times here! We picked up Carol- my college roommate, photo-buddy, and fellow photoblogger- at the airport yesterday. Since then it has been talk, talk, talk- and what do we talk about?- PHOTOGRAPHY, of course! Here is a quick shot I did of Carol working on her blog at our kitchen counter last night.
We just returned from a last minute whirlwind road trip to California where my husband had a meeting. Most of our time was spent driving, but I did get a chance to see a couple friends during the 24 hours we were in the Bay Area. Before we left, I put together blog posts for the first part of the week, and I also snapped a few photos of my red anniversary roses, which I knew would be wilted by the time we got home. I edited a few when I got home- different settings, crops etc.- the first one one with a texture. Today I’m so excited, because we pick up my friend and photo-buddy, Carol, at the airport in Phoenix! I know we’ll be taking a lot of photos over the next week!
So here are the roses, mostly shot in the living room window.
I posted this photo, taken at the salvage yard we visited in Yarnell a couple weeks ago, on Flickr last week for Fence Friday. Happy Fence Friday on Wednesday!
Textured with Kim Klassen’s touchof
It is amazing to me how powerful Lightroom is for creative edits. I would expect it to be great for straightforward exposure, clarity, cropping etc. when editing a photo- for a “clean” edit. However, there is so much potential in this program for creative edits as well- for things you would expect to have to go into Photoshop to do. And presets make it soooooo easy!
In this Week 8’s lesson in BeStill 52, Kim Klassen provided us with two presets (hazy dazy and breathe) to try on our images. The topic of the lesson was backlighting, which was challenging with yesterday morning’s overcast skies. Although the roses (it was our 43rd anniversary yesterday!) were set on the covered porch and were backlit, it is hard to tell in this closeup. I have other photos I’ll post soon.
Below are four versions of the same photo. Which do you like best?
Row 1Box 1- “clean” edit
Box 2- darkday preset
Box 1- hazy dazy preset
Box 2- breathe preset
I took my camera when we walked along my one of my favorite streets in Prescott yesterday and tried to capture some of the details that give our downtown such character.
I somewhat impulsively joined the 21 Day Juice Challenge on instagram a few weeks ago. It was a good idea for me, because I was getting bored with my phone photos and needed a reason to practice. I drink smoothies several times a week normally- how hard would it be to do it every day and take a photo?
Well, I actually enjoyed the project and was inspired to try new combinations of ingredients so that my photos wouldn’t all be the same. I also tried to use different apps and styles most days- although at the end I was pretty dry creatively. There was only one day where I didn’t like the smoothie I made- Day 15- but at least I got a good photo!
I wish I could say that I created the layout on my phone, but I didn’t- I used Lightroom. The two apps that I used the most were Snapseed for a basic edit- and Pixlr Express. I also used Mextures, PicStitch, and Rhonna.
And here is a bonus shot I took at our Courthouse Square over the weekend.
I used Snapseed (basic edit), Mextures, and Pixlr Express for this shot of these wonderful musicians. I used one of the stylize filters in Pixlr Express to create a painted effect- I think I did it twice- and then blurred the whole image, brushing it off the main subjects. I finished it off with a texture from Mextures- and then back into PixlrExpress for the frame. All completed while binge-watching Damages (with Glenn Close) on Netflix!
Linking up with App-Happy Wednesday today!
I am lucky enough to have a couple bags of shells my father brought back from the South Pacific after World War II- from the island of Eniwetok, to be exact. Alhtough I’ve used some of them in other photos, I got them out again yesterday to shoot with my macro lens.
I wanted the shells to be on a wood background, but I don’t like how the grain of my dining table looks in photos- and, truthfully, I didn’t want to lie on the floor. I haven’t bought any kind of tray for still life (still plan to) or wood to use as a background, but I came up with something that for me was a brilliant solution, if I do say so myself! I took the little drawer out from the dental cabinet where my treasures are housed, turned it over, and scattered the shells on top. The wood you see in the photos below is birds-eye maple, which is used for the inside of the drawers in the otherwise mahogany cabinet. I used side lighting from the sliding glass door- and a wide aperture with my macro lens to create shallow depth of field (BeStill 52 lessons).
All the images are textured with two layers of Kim Klassen’s simple or simple1 textures.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.
melinda anderson photography 