Our first snow seems to have finished off the last surviving bunch of marigolds, unwatered and forgotten, but still blooming out front.
Textured with several layers of Kim Klassen’s rue, altered to have golden tones.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday.
Boots
It snowed! This lifelong California girl is having to adjust to living in an area with four seasons. I have vacillated between excitement and dread over the possibility of snow- and now it has happened. Fortunately, I’ve been in training for the last 10 years or so through my visits to our daughter in Montana and Wyoming and realize this inch or so of snow is no big deal. But when I hear Prescott residents reminisce about the winter where they had 8 feet of snow (I think it was back in the eighties) or hear my friend, Debbie, talk about HER first winter here when they were stuck inside for days at a time, I know that it is important to be prepared.
Because of our frequent trips to Yellowstone, I do own an adequate winter wardrobe, including these boots, which I love. I photographed them today in response to the Flickr topic, something I wear.
And, in case you are curious, here is what our house looked like yesterday morning:
Funny- I don’t think I ever posted photos of our Benicia house on my blog, but I have posted at least 4 photos of this house that I can think of (at sunset, with stars, with Christmas lights, and now with snow). The blue sky in this photo quickly gave way to gray clouds, which hung around all day. But there has been no more snow, and almost half has melted away in the front. No more snow predicted for this week- at least not yet!
Handmade- and Comfortable
Two of this week’s Flickr topics were perfect for me!
The first was HANDMADE/HOMEMADE. I chose to photograph these little blocks, stamped by my son, Matt, when he was in fifth grade. Arranged one way, they say HOHO, and, turned around, they read XMAS. He would not be happy to see them on here on my blog- but, fortunately, he probably doesn’t read it!
Another topic this week was COMFORTABLE. We don’t have a formal living room in our new home; the living/family/great room is arranged for comfort, with couches that have recliners built in (pretty un-cool, but oh so comfortable!). So, with temps in the twenties (expected to dip into the teens), here is a shot of my slippered feet by the fire as I wait for the snow to start falling.
Yellowstone Winter
The scenes below are now covered by a deep blanket of new snow (with temperatures far below zero), but, during my visit a week ago, only the mountains were completely covered.
The top photo was edited in Photoshop with textures from Florabella and Jessica Drossin.
Ho, Ho, Ho!
We have definitely got the Christmas spirit this year! We just finished decorating the outside of our house; I think it may be the earliest this has ever happened. And, truth be told, we had stopped putting up Christmas lights outside of our old house a few years ago. Moving has re-energized us! And now, I need to get back to putting the finishing touches on the tree.
Family Thanksgiving Potpourri
Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks for family- and we are so thankful for all the special moments we shared being together at our daughter’s home in Yellowstone. These are a just few shots showing some of the fun we had just hanging out with our kids and grandkids. We miss our Yellowstone family!
Looking at Ice
Being able to experience life through the eyes of a two (almost THREE!) year old was one of the pleasures of spending a week with my grandsons at their home in Yellowstone. The snow was almost gone when we got there, but Henry had a great time stomping on ice and watching the cracks form as we took a walk one day.
Textured with two layers each of cool grunge and sybil, from Kim Klassen for Texture Tuesday.
CM Monthly Challenge- Creating Drama with Light
Our travel day back from Yellowstone has just ended, the laundry is going, and I am at the computer with over 500 photos to go through (and a computer that does not want to connect to our home WiFi network). Saturday night I remembered that I would have to post a photo today showing “drama” with light- so I took several shots of Miles in a relatively dark room. Then later I looked over and saw my daughter on the iPad with the kids showing her what they would like Santa to bring. Ahhhh- dramatic light!
Please follow the link to see how Stacy has interpreted this challenge! Click through all the blog posts to complete the circle!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Greetings from Yellowstone, where we are spending our Thanksgiving with our daughter, son-in-law, two grandsons, and our son. Photography is taking a backseat to family time, but I am attempting to edit photos and upload them from my husband’s iPad. I hope this Thanksgiving finds you healthy, happy, and surrounded by those you love!
The Leaf
My husband found this beautiful leaf in our driveway and brought it to me, knowing I would want to photograph it. I’m still experimenting with the newer version of Photoshop that I got through my Creative Cloud subscription, so I had a lot of fun adding an artistic filter and several of Kim’s textures, including two magic versions of 1301 I “created”, KK2, and partings.
Bendy
Here’s a macro shot of curly tendrils on a leaf from our front yard. I took this photo in response to the topic, BENDY, from my daily challenge group on Flickr.
Beep beep!
Roadrunners are welcome visitors to our yard; there were actually two running around the day I shot this photo. There was harsh, contrasty lighting that day, so I had to bring out the shadows and lower the highlights to get a usable shot. This version was also textured with grunged by Kim Klassen, and a black and white adjustment layer at soft light blend mode was also used on the feathers.
Why did I do so much editing on this simple image? Because I finally got PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE CLOUD!!!!! I was unable to get the low monthly deal before, because I had the educator’s version of Photoshop, making me ineligible. I would have had to purchase the entire Creative Suite and pay $30.00 a month- NO WAY! But there is a Black Friday deal going on right now which lifts the restrictions on the 9.99 photographers’ package of Lightroom and Photoshop until December 2. I am finally happy with Adobe again. So, if you didn’t know about this deal- now you do!
Beyond Beyond, Day 34- Making Magic!
It’s so much fun to get back into Kim Klassen’s Beyond Beyond lessons- I seem to need a boost now and then to stimulate my creativity. Today’s lessons were how to create “magic” textures using textures that have already been created. Kim gave us a sample image to play with and then challenged us to make our own magic textures (using one of hers as a base) to add to her image.
Before bringing the image into Photoshop, I cropped it to a square (not sure I like cutting off the cup handle, but I wanted it to look different from hers) and used her preset, dark days. In Photoshop I used two textures which I had converted to magic textures- dollard and sybil (2 layers). And I added text (with a layer of dollard clipped to it).
Then I broke all the rules!
The magic texture effect works best with airy images that have a lot of white in them. But I tried it on a shot I took this morning of the view from our driveway of clouds and approaching rain (it actually started to rain while I was taking the photo). I like how the magic textures (1301 and dollard) gave a kind of canvas-ish effect. I reduced opacity on both and masked off some of the white strokes that appeared in the image.
One and Empty
I took some time to catch up on some of my Flickr challenges- and I was in a monochrome kind of mood.
This one is for the theme, one.
And this one is for empty.
Monarch
The Desert Botanical Garden also has a butterfly garden; at this time, it was all monarchs, which were great fun to photograph.
The last one was textured with a sample from Kim Klassen’s Waterfront collection for Texture Tuesday.
melinda anderson photography 