Melinda

Milk Bottles

When I was very young, we didn’t go to the store to buy milk; it was delivered to our house. On my trip to Chico a couple months ago, we walked through the antique mall, and I spotted an old milk bottle from Quality Dairy just like the ones that appeared on our doorstep in the 1950’s! Of course, I bought it, and I am using it to hold some of the Russian sage which is in bloom now.

I added Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1 texture to each photo (usually 2 layers at varying opacity) and am linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

June 17, 2014June 16, 2014

Melinda12 Comments

Contrast

I was uninspired yesterday, but was in a photography mood. I had been intending to photograph some huge leaves that came in a Trader Joe’s bouquet, so set them out and started shooting. When it was time to edit, nothing really appealed to me. I ended up merging two photos and adding a Flypaper texture to create the image below. It is nothing like the leafy, green, backlit shot I envisioned, but I like the contrasting shades and textures.

The second photo practically begged to be taken! I was planning to do a photoshoot with an old milk bottle on my dining table (and I sorta did. . .). But for the first time in this Arizona house, I was captivated by the light! I love the contrast of the light and shadow as the late afternoon/early evening light came pouring through in the sliding glass door. This is why I love photography- it’s those unexpected moments!

June 16, 2014June 15, 2014

Melinda2 Comments

Found again!

The feather that may or may not be an owl feather has been found again! My husband found it on the bedroom floor, where I’ve looked before. All I can say is that the ceiling fan must have been blowing it from place to place. So here’s a new shot, taken on the bathroom counter using my macro lens with a long exposure.

Textured with kk_0303.

June 13, 2014June 12, 2014

Melinda8 Comments

Room to Breathe

My latest still life assignments for Be Still 52 are below. We were challenged to give the subject of our still life “room to breathe.” The first image shows my usual style- off center, close up, shallow depth of field- and part of the subject not in the frame. The second image adds some space surrounding the subject. It was interesting to me how difficult it was to be this far away from what I was photographing- I kept wanting to step closer. A good exercise!

Both photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1.

June 12, 2014June 11, 2014

Melinda2 Comments

Melancholy and iPhone Fun

Since I’ve been back, I’ve been catching up on life, and my photography work has consisted of culling and editing photos from Yellowstone and getting images edited and printed for my photography groups. I was also 2 or 3 weeks behind in Start to Finish and Be Still 52 (Kim Klassen’s classes), but knew I would have time to catch up soon.

A couple days ago I started going through the lessons I hadn’t done and found myself feeling inspired again to create a still life. One of the more recent lessons included a preset called melancholy– and a suggestion to revisit the whole wabi-sabi idea, which I loved. I enjoyed creating this image, which is very different from my usual shooting and processing style.

And now for a couple random iPhone photos. I didn’t take many photos this week, but did enjoy processing them.

This is the bridge (over a dry wash) that we cross when we walk the trail at Willow Lake. If you look closely, you can see the white southwestern prickly poppies that are in bloom along the trail. The basic edit was in Snapseed- and then I used one of the filters in Glaze (an app that I really don’t understand) and added some textures in Mextures, which also gave it a vignette.

The photo below was taken in our front yard and is a closeup of the flowers (and fruit?) of a spiky foundation planting in our flower bed. Now that it’s blooming, I notice this plant everywhere we go in Arizona. Last fall I cut off many of the dried stalks and put them in my old milk can on the front porch. You can see what they look like dried here. I edited the photo in Photo Wizard, which is a great app for basic editing (it even has a curves adjustment!), as well as having a zillion special filters and effects, from textures and vignettes to motion blur and a bathroom glass filter. I have yet to explore it fully- guess I need to go on another road trip!

I’m linking up with App-happy Wednesday again!

June 11, 2014June 11, 2014

Melinda6 Comments

Old things that are falling apart

I am well aware that the title of this post could be referring to ME- so please resist making a joke! 🙂

On our drive in Paradise Valley (see yesterday’s post), I mentioned to Miles that I was going to be looking for barns and for old things to photograph. He commented that he LOVES things that are old and falling apart (again, please resist the joke!). I checked with his mother later, and it is TRUE- he is drawn to old, falling apart things- pretty cool for a six year old!

So look what we found!

Oh, I so love this barn! And the yellow flowers in front- so cool! This one was textured with 2 layers of golden by Kim Klassen.

And then there is the shot below of the same barn. I wanted the photo to look old too (although, realistically, the barn should look NEW in an old photo, right?), so I edited it and re-edited it- and edited it again- way too much time spent on this photo. Basically, I added a couple textures, brought it back to Lightroom and then decided I wanted a vintage look. Instead of starting over, I took the photo into Silver Efex Pro and used one of their presets to give it a tintype took. But the clouds had gone away! So I brought the new version in AS A LAYER over my original version in Photoshop and blended them. Then I kept playing with the textures (all Kim’s- mostly her older ones), adding and subtracting them until it looked the way I wanted. No point in naming the textures for you- I masked out and reduced opacity so many times- it would make no sense- ridiculous!

And finally- when we had finished our drive, we were in Livingston, where we took Miles out to lunch at his favorite Mexican restaurant. When we got into the car to drive back to Yellowstone, he pointed out something for me to photograph- he has quite the eye, huh? So proud of him!

Linking up with Texture Tuesday.

June 10, 2014June 9, 2014

Melinda13 Comments

Country Roads, Montana-style

One of my favorite Montana drives is between Livingston and Gardiner, Montana- aptly named Paradise Valley. My husband, our oldest grandboy, Miles, and I took a leisurely drive through the countryside so that Gramma could photograph barns and the beautiful scenery that abounds there.

There were country roads . . .

and cows, of course . . .

and beautiful red barns!

You might see a few more images from this drive in future posts; I took dozens of photos!

June 9, 2014June 8, 2014

Melinda5 Comments

Take Flight

I had other plans for my blog today- Yellowstone photos (which will find their way here soon). But I awoke with the desire to photograph this tiny feather I chased around while photographing the baby owl (no idea if it’s an owl feather or just a random feather floating by). I brought it back in a plastic baggie, which I dug out of my purse this morning, set on my dental cabinet (one of my favorite surfaces for photography) and took a bunch of macro shots. I intended to shoot more, perhaps on a mirror, but, alas, as I carried the feather through the house, the breeze from the ceiling fans carried it aloft to who knows where.

Rather than mourn my loss, I sat down and created some photo art with one of the 5 good shots I have.

Here are a few more images from this morning’s shoot .

June 5, 2014

Melinda2 Comments

App Happy and Catching Up

It’s App Happy Wednesday over at Keeping With the Times, so I’m posting a couple road trip/through the window shots today. I’m also catching up with my Start to Finish 2 Lessons, so my still life images are on here today as well.

First the iPhone photos! After a day and a half of driving (actually riding, as my husband- who has been suffering from allergies and asthma- was doing ALL the driving. . .), I was happy to see red rock as we got to southern Utah, a sign that we were close to Arizona. I think the first shot was edited in Snapseed, and then I added the text/graphic with Rhonna. The second photo was edited in PS Touch, because I needed to do some cloning- and then I added texture with Photo Wizard.

Now for the Start to Finish lesson! The assignment was to create a still life that included eggs. Hurray- something I actually have! No browsing in antique stores for me today! I realized straightaway that still life photography is still challenging for me. I feel confident in the photography and the processing- but not with the styling. I am so in awe of my classmates and their styling ability! I found that what works for me is keeping it simple; when I add too many elements, it all falls apart.

This above image was one of my last shots. Filling the frame and using a shallow depth of field- definitely my comfort zone!

The above macro shot may not technically be a still life- you barely notice the other eggs!

And here is a from above shot, which I do love doing.

I found myself opting for a darker, more matte processing style today. The blue and brown tones seemed washed out with my usual editing, and I found reducing exposure and using a matte curve gave me the look I was going for. In Photoshop I added Kim Klassen’s simple texture- and called it done!

I also played catch up with some Flickr challenges- and discovered that one of them, fast food, worked with my egg theme!

No special processing here- just a quick Lightroom edit. This might be my favorite of the day!

June 4, 2014June 3, 2014

Melinda8 Comments

Nature

We arrived home last night- so much to do! Laundry, groceries, miscellaneous to-do’s that can only be done from home- and catching up on my photography editing, posting, backing-up, blog visiting, and my still life classes. I am missing my little Yellowstone munchkins terribly; our 16 hour drive home only reinforced how far apart we are!

I’m posting some photos of new, green aspen leaves I shot on a drive the first week we were there. The snow had finally stopped and Spring arrived at the same time we did! I love the aspens in Fall, and this was the first time I had photographed their leaves in Spring. These were shot somewhere on Dunraven Pass.

The above photo is textured with two layers of Kim Klassen’s sybil, using color burn blend mode. The second photo is of the same branch, but I crouched down to get a blown out sky in the background- no textures.

June 3, 2014June 2, 2014

Melinda10 Comments

Yellowstone Memories

Lamar Valley

Elk on a hill

June 2, 2014June 1, 2014

Melinda4 Comments

Rodeo!

The highlight of last weekend was the rodeo- my Friday Find for the week. I hadn’t been to a rodeo since childhood and had forgotten what fun it could be.

There were bucking broncos. . .

and bulls!

And, of course, I love taking the detail shots.

But most of all, I loved watching Henry enjoying himself!

May 30, 2014May 29, 2014

Melinda13 Comments

Yellowstone Epic Horse Drive

Last weekend as part of the Memorial Day festivities, a large group of horses were run through the town of Gardiner (bordering Yellowstone) and up to new pastures in Jardine (in the hills). We joined the throng lining the streets waiting for the Yellowstone Epic Horse Drive. It was all over in a flash, and my photos are mostly of the, um, back ends of the horses and clouds of dust. However, the 2 or 3 minutes that it lasted were pretty thrilling. The next day was the rodeo- probably the most fun event I’ve ever photographed. Look for those photos soon!

May 29, 2014

Melinda5 Comments

Bear Aware

Yesterday morning we noticed some activity on the road (park employees going up the hill, throwing rocks, not letting tourists out of their cars etc.) in front of my daughter’s house at Yellowstone; she mentioned casually that it was probably a bear. The bears are hungry and know that the elk mamas have their babies hidden in various spots around the area. I always try to act somewhat cool and un-touristy about these things, but eventually had to go outside with my camera. I edged around the side of the house and came upon two young black bears partway up a tree, with the park workers patiently waiting for them to come down. When they did, the guys chased them across the road, but they kept returning, especially the cinnamon colored one, who was not the least bit afraid of humans. Within a short while, there was a group of photographers with their long lenses gathered outside- how do they always know where to go? My husband and I went to town, and were surprised to see that the cinnamon bear was still on the hill across the street when we returned; the female elk had ganged up on him and chased him off the lawn. We haven’t seen any more of the bears since then, but it was a reminder that we are in Yellowstone and in bear territory.

May 28, 2014

Melinda3 Comments

New Growth

We are on the second week of our visit to our daughter’s family in Yellowstone National Park. A few days ago, we took our traditional drive through the park with our son-in-law as tour guide. This time we drove up to Dunraven Pass, where we enjoyed beautiful views of the spring meadows and hills, the snow capped mountains, and, of course, bison and elk.

As we got higher and higher, part of the burn area from the 1988 fire was clearly visible ahead. But as we drew closer, we could see the small green trees that have grown up between the skeletal burned pines, as the forest renews itself.