I’m not sure if it’s because of the thunder and lightning or the tarantula (!) we found on the front porch- but I’m in the mood for a grunged up photo! As I walked by my sunflowers yesterday, I noticed the window light created some beautiful backlighting. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots before the light changed. In Photoshop I added some textures and voila!- a grunged up sunflower!
Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
I have quite a few flag photos I’ve taken this week, but I think my favorite is this one I snapped with my phone last night as we drove home from the store just before sunset. Storm clouds were building, and I loved the flag set against the gray clouds. I added a texture with the Mextures app in my phone.
Here’s one from last month’s rodeo in Montana. The young boy on the horse raced around and around the ring while the national anthem played and everyone stood at attention- hats off. A beautiful sight!
After we got home from the store last night, we sat on the porch as the sky darkened, the wind picked up, thunder crashed in the distance, and the sky lit up with a a lightning display that went on for hours. At first I tried to take photos, but it was so windy that it was impossible to keep the camera still- so I sat down and just enjoyed the show. If we had any rain it came during the night and wasn’t enough to make puddles. It’s dry out there now. But the monsoon season has begun- bring on the rain!
One year ago today we had our first look at the house that would become our Arizona home!
July 3, 2013 found us looking for a house to buy in Arizona after having bravely sold our California home without knowing for sure where we were going. We were pretty sure Prescott was the place- we had good friends here, we were were looking for a small town and a simpler lifestyle- but we needed to find the right house! Our realtor wasn’t much help, but our friend Debbie found a house just listed online that seemed to fulfill our requirements (one story, 4 bedrooms, open floor plan, easy maintenance). We got the realtor to get us in- and the rest is history! I knew it was the place when we walked in the door- it just felt like home. We ended up making an offer, but lost out to another buyer. Dejected, we drove back to California without having bought a house and talked about renting until we found the right one. A few weeks later, the other buyer’s deal fell through, and we got in the car to drive back to Arizona to visit the house again and make an offer. On August 24, we moved in!
Back in California, I spotted this table runner at Pier 1 and bought it for our Arizona home. I love the Southwest colors and how it looks it with my Trader Joe’s sunflower bouquet.
I took these shots for Be Still 52, Week 7, a lesson on depth of field and a softly focused background.
I am continuing to play with still life, but not going too far outside my comfort zone for this photo session (maybe NEXT time. . .). In fact you’ll notice these images are all VERY similar. Feather and book, book and feather. The last two have an added hat, and the book was changed from The Red Badge of Courage to The Secret Garden (and I moved outside). I think my favorite is the second one (I like the blue book).
Editing notes:
1. converted to black and white in Lightroom, kk_celebrate texture added in Photoshop
2. edited with Kim’s moody preset in Lightroom, highly tweaked
3. edited with Kim’s days of old preset in Lightroom, and tweaked
4. basic edit in Lightroom, Kim’s kk_happyheart texture added in Photoshop (2 layers)
Edited in Lightroom with Kim Klassen’s dark mood preset (adjusted)
Texture added: Kim Klassen’s july, desaturated
I created an even darker version by desaturating the Photoshop version in Lightroom and adding some split toning.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday
We went for a drive to Yarnell a few days ago, and I had a great time photographing some random sights along the main drag.
A painter was touching up the trim outside the antique store before hanging up the new sign,
A highlight at the end of the day was visit to the salvage yard, where the last two photos were taken. I loved the irony of the playground sign placed next to the highway sign along with the motors and other items.
And then there were the random doors propped up by the road.
All of these photos have textures added. The first two have a painting filter applied as well.
Look what my husband found in the yard the other day (I have trained him well!)! It’s long and striped, but it’s the little fluffy part I was attracted to for this macro shot.
Linking up with Friday Finds today.
For Be Still 52- side lighting practice:
Thank, you, Debbie for the new jar!
My husband and I took a walk at Willow Lake yesterday and discovered that our favorite trail was now surrounded by beautiful golden weeds, waving and billowing in the breeze. I took a couple iPhone shots and brought home a handful to photograph with my macro lens. One of my current Flickr challenges is STARS, which I’m seeing everywhere in nature this week. The iPhone photo below was edited in Snapseed and PixlrExpress.
This might be my favorite star photo of the day, edited in Snapseed only.
At home, I noticed stars within stars within stars in this flower (Queen Anne’s lace?) that I’ve been using in still life compositions (you’ll see them later this week). I took the photos below with my macro lens on my Nikon.
Linking up with App Happy Wednesday!
It was my first visit to the Prescott Farmers’ Market. I took my camera and enjoyed photographing the produce almost as much as I enjoyed buying and eating it!
I did a basic edit on each photo for my layout and then took them into Photoshop, where I used the Oil Paint filter and one layer of Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1 texture. I used the Oil Paint filter, because Adobe has gotten rid of it in the newest update to Photoshop CC, which I have yet to install. Why??? It was a perfectly good filter- and I did use it occasionally (I like to play with effects).
But the main reason that I haven’t installed the newest update is because of the Mini-Bridge. I LOVE the Mini-Bridge! I use it every time I add a texture- it makes it SO EASY! Plus, I have written actions for many of my favorite textures that include the action opening MB and adding a layer of the specific texture. I haven’t always used Mini-Bridge. I learned it from Kim in one of the classes- and it made my life so much easier. I have my Photoshop workspace set up in a certain way (modeled after the way Sebastian Michaels has his in the Photoshop Artistry class), and I made sure to add the MB icon right at the bottom where I can easily click on it. Sorry for the rant, but I can’t see why MB has to go!!! I’m not happy with Adobe right now!
Linking up with Texture Tuesday today!
I seldom used portrait orientation when taking photos until a couple of months ago. Now I seem to be doing it regularly! I may have started turning my camera in my bathroom “studio” to avoid getting towels and bathroom fixtures in the shot, but then I continue to use it- especially when I want a shallow depth of field in front of, as well as behind, my subject. My 50mm lens does this beautifully, as well as my 85mm macro lens. I would love to own a LensBaby some day to play with moving the focus around! I did order one for my iPhone (coming in August through the kickstarter deal), which will partially satisfy my desire for this cool lens.
Here are two shots with a vertical (portrait) orientation. The first was taken with the macro lens. I took the photo with both orientations, and liked the vertical one best (those blurry berries in the background and a small unfocused slice in the front). There is some texture added to this image (a bluish one from Kim Klassen- teal?).
The one below was taken with my 50mm at 1.4 to give a very narrow field of focus- with lots of blur in the front. It was actually taken for a Be Still 52 lesson on side lighting. The cup was placed on the floor by the open front door (on the left for light)- with a piece of white foam board for a background. There is also a bit of lighting coming from the patio door farther away on the right. I used my Warm Black and White preset (some split toning) for the black and white conversion.
More from the Yellowstone archives- this time from the drive through Paradise Valley (remember that barn?):
Although I have been taking photos since I’ve been back from our trip, I keep finding Yellowstone photos that I haven’t posted here. (no wonder- I took hundreds!). I can’t promise these will be the last. . .
Yes, I’m talking about the weather here in Prescott!
Dozens of these (very photogenic) little things blow up to my front door every day.
And now we seem to have a mini- tumbleweed on the front porch settee.
Bring on the monsoon- we need rain!
I was starting to get a bit bored with my iPhone camera. I usually forget to pull it out for a quick shot when I’m using my DSLR- it seems silly. Because I’m not posting any DSLR photos to instagram- just iPhone photos- I often have nothing to upload. Two things have changed in the last couple days- one is participating in the 21 day juice challenge on instagram (#21dayjuicechallenge) and the other is a brand new app. No I’m not on a juice fast; I don’t even drink juice, because of the sugar. I make smoothies, and taking a photo of one every day with my iPhone camera is much less stressful than coming up with something creative! The other change came from reading a fantastic tutorial (featuring the work of an amazing photo artist, Cindy Patrick) on the Pixlr blog that I was alerted to by Terri Porter on instagram- #terriporter (her beach photo using the app is fantastic!). I downloaded the Pixlr Express app- free, as are most of my apps- and am loving the things I can do with it!
I cropped and did a few minor adjustments in Snapseed, then opened it in PixlrExpress. I used the dapple effect to give it a painted look. I then added blur, masking it off the bottle with the history brush. A frame completed the photo. All of these steps were part of the tutorial, which included much more than I did to this image. Check it out- you will be inspired!
melinda anderson photography 