Out to Lunch

Three of my Rapunzel group drove over from Petaluma yesterday to meet me for lunch at Sailor Jack’s.  We missed Darlene, Marie, and Nevin, but had a delicious lunch and great conversation as always.  Plus, it’s my birthday month- so there were PRESENTS!

After lunch we came back to my house to have a Skype conversation with Nevin.  Our group originated in Petaluma when our children were babies, and now only four remain there. Marie is in Sacramento, Nevin is in Irvine, and now we are planning to move, most likely to Arizona.  Thank goodness for the magic of the internet, making it so easy for us to stay connected.

I took this shot of Claudia, Georgia, Jan and myself right before we Skyped with Nevin.

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I edited this in Lightroom 5 beta, which I downloaded today. I tried the new, much praised cloning and healing brush, but had a bit of trouble with it- so went back to Photoshop, where I’m more familiar with the tools.  I’m going to have to watch a tutorial, I guess. I did like that all my Lightroom 4 presets (in the Develop Module AND the export window) were absorbed automatically into the new program (not so with Flickr, Facebook etc). I only imported photos from the last month into my new catalog; I want to make sure I know what I’m doing before I totally commit. I’ve been thinking about the new Photoshop Creative Cloud and have decided for now to just go with the new Lightroom- and keep CS5 until it seems unworkable. By then, it will be easier to make a decision to go with the cloud or not.

 

 

Melinda2 Comments

Still Going Strong

The Mother’s Day flowers are still going strong! Here are some shots in black and white (some split-toning in the first).

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Note to my photo friends:

Life has been very busy lately, and I haven’t had the time or energy to visit blogs and comment as much as usual. We are in the process of getting our house ready to put on the market in June, after my daughter’s family visits.  I am spending my days cleaning out closets, cabinets, and drawers, while my husband works and organizes the needed repairs. To complicate matters, I’ve been having vertigo for several weeks- so I’m not driving, reading, or spending much time on the computer (yay- more time to clean out closets!).  I really appreciate you all for visiting my site and leaving such nice comments- please know that I will be back to my usual routines soon!

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Apples- Day 3

I’m multi-tasking today- another apple photo for Beyond Beyond AND I converted it to a black and white in response to today’s Texture Tuesday challenge.  It somehow seemed WRONG to take the beautiful colors out of the apple photos, but, being pressed for time, that is what I decided to try- and I’m happy with the result.

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Editing notes: In Lightroom, I used a bit of a matte curve (just slight) and added grain to soften the image.  After converting it to black and white, I darkened the shadows a little and added some yellow to the highlights and purple to the shadows (low saturation).  In Photoshop, I added a layer of Kim Klassen’s anna texture, 100% opacity to the background, 50-100% brushed off the apples.

Melinda5 Comments

An Apple a Day (BB16)

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Our assignment this time is to shoot as many apple photos as we can over the next week. Of course I started with a macro- taken with the camera on a tripod and using a long exposure, no special processing.

Expect to see a few more apple photos over the next week!

 

Melinda7 Comments

Floral

Spring is definitely happening in Benicia, despite a brief rainstorm.  I’ve been a bit under the weather lately and haven’t done much photography except around my yard.  Thank goodness for flowers, always around waiting to be photographed!

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Melinda2 Comments

In the kitchen. . .

I am eternally grateful to my macro lens for providing me with seemingly endless photo subjects.  Here’s a sample of what I found in a kitchen drawer- and on the counter. I purposely used a shallow depth of field on all- just because. . .

kitchen macro layout

Melinda4 Comments

Beyond Beyond 15

The theme for this week’s lesson was I Collect. Kim Klassen showed some of her collections of photos, books, and memorabilia dropped artfully on the floor. I chose to instead quickly drag out some of my family memorabilia that I have acquired over the years and arrange them on top of the old dental cabinet where they normally reside inside drawers.  During the two years that I did a Project 365, almost every item pictured here was featured on my blog.  I am an avid family genealogist and lover of all things antique and am now, in my later years, trying to figure out what I really want to keep (everything in this photo, for sure).

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The other part of the lesson was to ponder our STYLE in photography. I’ve seen this topic bandied about on the Clickin Moms forum; I think it is probably more of a big deal when you are a pro. For me, I know I like bright colors AND black and white photography AND strong compositional elements.  I rarely like haze and matte processing in my own images, except in some of my lighter floral photos- but I like it in the work of others.  I love landscapes- but don’t feel particularly competent in achieving the look I admire in the work of other photographers.  I’m not too worried about finding my style, but hope it is evolving as I learn.

Photo processing notes: Although I didn’t do anything special photographing the little scene above (tripod, door open for light), I did try something new in processing after doing my basic edit. I used a free “hand-tinting” preset from OnOne software (I have their Perfect Effects 4). What it did was convert the photo to black and white, but bring back anything that was colored brown (by desaturating blues, greens, etc). I chose this preset, because I didn’t like the blue color of the writing on the Hopalong Cassidy mug in the cabinet amid the brown tones of the image. So basically, almost everything was left in the brown tones except the mug-  easier than using an adjustment brush.  In Photoshop, I stretched the canvas as we learned in a previous lesson and added a texture to just the bottom section.

Melinda8 Comments

CM Monthly Challenge- Shooting Through Glass

This month’s Clickin Moms blog link up challenges us to shoot through glass. Off and on during the month, I would think of the topic, but never seemed to be anywhere where an idea just jumped out at me.  I did a few lame attempts at home, and finally settled for some shots at my church this week.  But I do offer up these photos from LAST month’s trip to San Diego where I took a few shots of the spectacular view of downtown San Diego from my son’s apartment.  I did not use a tripod (tsk, tsk) and shot at a very high ISO (6400!) so yes, there is digital noise! And what did I learn from taking these photos? Use a tripod! Check for reflections (they are almost impossible to edit out). Do it right the first time- our son has since moved to a new apartment, and I will never have the opportunity to retake these photos.

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To keep myself honest, here are a few photos I did take this week.  They are through glass, but not quite with the dramatic view. . .

Flowers as shot through the sliding glass door of the sanctuary at church:

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This is almost the same view- but with the focus on the door.  Hmmm, the glass isn’t quite clean!

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And here is the stained glass over the door, shot from inside:

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There are some wonderful creative photographers in our blog circle.  If you click on each link in each photographer’s blog, you will be able to make the complete circle and end up back here.  Start with Jennifer Bantle’s blog!

Melinda7 Comments

May Day Lavender

Trader Joe’s had some little pots of lavender for sale, so I snagged one that was wilting rapidly in the afternoon heat yesterday.  It has perked up nicely today, and it is now blogworthy! I do love lavender, and am so happy to have it in my yard again!

30Apr2013-1069-EditTaken with my macro lens and texured with Kim Klassen’s 1301 and sybil textures.

Melinda2 Comments

Seek Beauty

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I rarely desaturate a photo to this degree- and I NEVER EVER use a white vignette.  Never say NEVER!

I started with a Lightroom preset from Matt Kloskowski (he offers them free on his blog); this one is called Wedding Fairytale.  I’ve actually used it a few times for flowers (it would be great for newborn babies too, I think); it’s a good one! I added a layer of Kim Klassen’s 1301 texture and this quote from Bill Cunningham, a street fashion photographer for the New York Times (this week’s Texture Tuesday’s challenge is to add words to our photos).

Speaking of beauty, head on over to Kim’s site for some links to beautiful textured photos; the link is at the bottom of the page.

Melinda10 Comments

Tiny Buds

My husband loves to plant geraniums in pots on our deck- they are colorful, they live forever, and they can take a lot of neglect.  Here is a macro of some tiny geranium buds- if you look fast, they almost look like roses, don’t they?

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Textured with 2 layers of Kim Klassen’s 1301 and one layer of Cora.

Melinda5 Comments