It’s ten more days before I get to see my own grand-babies, so I borrowed my friend, Debbie’s new grandson, Trevor! His mama, Marissa brought him over today, and I got to hold him and take photos!
Can you believe that hair?
And those eyes!!!
I know he’s a big baby (over 9 pounds), but his feet look so tiny in his mama’s hands!
He is such a doll- I think I’m going to have to insist on photographing him again!
I am linking up with Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday again- one of my favorite photography/artsy things to do! The theme today was to choose a favorite photo, textured or not. A couple days ago I ordered a 16X20 metallic print of one of my photos of the Point Arena lighthouse, which I took on our trip to Mendocino last month. I would never have ordered anything so huge normally, but the print came as a freebie with Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom 4 Kelby Training seminar, which I’m attending next month with my photo buddy, Carol. I did not add a texture for the print- especially because of it being printed on metallic paper and not being sure of how that would do with the texture. I haven’t had many photos printed and feel a little out of my element making printing decisions.
But for today, I did add a texture, Kim’s dusty rose at 40% and masked off the lighthouse. I really like what the subtle texture does to the photo. Pay a visit to Kim Klassen’s Cafe to see some beautiful textured photos by other photographers!
I also took some photos for the topic, circles, for my Daily Challenge Flickr group. I was uninspired, but decided I liked the bokeh circles best.
If you come to my house and sit at my desk, you might notice the mishmash of magnet words, quotes, and images I have placed on the file cabinet at my side. I fiddle with it from time to time as I seek inspiration. At the moment health is a focus, so I placed strong and health near the top, where my eye tends to go.
The word of the day should be patience, because what should have been a quick shot ended up being a 45 minute process because of Photoshop- and possibly, no probably, my Wacom tablet. I wanted to add a texture to this image- a 5 minute edit at most- but Photoshop kept crashing and taking Lightroom with it. This is something that has only happened since I got my tablet. I took a month break from it and had no problems. I started using it again a few days ago, and the problem has returned. Sigh. So now I need to get to the bottom of this. . .
Florabella textures- Vintage and Sugar and Spice.
After a trip to Starbucks, my husband and I drove over to the arsenal area so I could photograph some windows. The arsenal has been turned into artist studios and businesses and is a fascinating place. I promised Lonnie I would be done quickly, so didn’t take a lot of photographs. One of the artists followed me around in his car, suggesting subjects for my photos. Since I had just read a thriller about abduction, I got a little creeped out and didn’t spend much time talking to him. But- since he referred to himself as a “fellow artist” (suggesting that I, too, was an artist), I did get a bit of a charge out of the encounter.
Here are a couple images, both artistically 🙂 edited with high contrast black and white adjustments and some split toning.
The theme today is homemade– perfect for today, because I was at Claudia’s for lunch!
Here is a shot of part of Claudia’s latest quilt- gorgeous!
Jan’s delicious carrot cake, a recipe from Pioneer Woman, was definitely blogworthy ! Yum!
I love having fences to fall back on on Fridays; I don’t know why I don’t do it more often. Here are two taken on a quick one block walk downtown this morning with just my 50mm lens.
I have photographed this gate before- but not in fall. Today I created an easy preset in Lightroom which emphasizes the yellows and oranges in the image- fun!
This shot is of some magenta flowers peeking through the fence around the community garden. Magenta isn’t one of my favorite colors, so I used one of Lightroom’s built-in split-toning presets to make it more to my liking.
The topic is indigenous! What could be more indigenous to our suburban hillsides than weeds? I drove to a nearby park and then wandered into the “open space” (aka weeds) on the hillside.
This one will be the official response to the prompt. I wish I could have captured the beauty of this clump of weeds covered in raindrops and sparkling n the sunlight. I am still working on it, but like this black and white version for now.
I couldn’t resist snapping this shot of a park bench. What is it about park benches, fences, and bicycles that makes them such great photo subjects??? It might be my favorite shot of the day.
I have taken so many photos of the open space over the last year or so- and will probably take many more- especially when there is a barbed wire fence in the scene. The next two photos both have some texture added (Jessica Drossin).
Textures: warm grunge (Kim Klassen), cornered warm (Jessica Drossin)
One of my mini pumpkins was the subject for my photo of the day- but this time I used my macro lens. Because it is Texture Tuesday, I played around with textures (Kim’s golden and kk_grannyscupboard) and ended up using a square crop as well.
My Daily Challenge group on Flickr has window as its topic today. Interesting windows are among my favorite photography subjects, but I have no real time to go out and shoot one today, so…..
I took this photo when we were in Mendocino a few weeks ago, but I can’t use it for the Flickr group because I took it BEFORE the topic was posted. I edited it in Lightroom and tried a bit of desaturating and split toning to give it a vintage look- a technique I learned from Kim Klassen (of course) in her Round Trip class. I tend to have bright, saturated colors and lots of contrast in my photos. In fact, one of my Flickr friends said it was my trademark, so I am experimenting with other editing styles just to step out of my box a little.
Go visit Kim Klassen’s Cafe for links to more textured photos!
Congratulations, San Francisco Giants- 2012 World Series Champs!!!!
I have three mini pumpkins set in front of the TV, so I took a few shots and moved them to a table to try some more. I then played around with processing three of them- one into a black and white, one with a texture, and one with minimal processing. I decided just to post my first shot, the one with minimal processing. There is something about the orange pumpkin against the black background.
Orange and black? Halloween you say? I say- GIANTS!!!
A couple years ago, the minister of our church dressed up as Professor Dumbledore of the Harry Potter books and presented a wonderful sermon on the power of aligning our intention with Spirit/our higher self/God to transform things in our lives to greater goodness. The next week, some of the wonderful people in our church community made “intention wands” and sold them at services. Of course, I bought one- and often look at it to remind myself that I have the power to make changes.
The theme in our Flickr group is magic today, and I know that the power of intention is indeed magical.
No texture used today- that texture in the foreground is the worn top of my father’s dental cabinet!
Beautiful Lake Tahoe again- snow capped mountains and deck chairs on a sunny, but cold, beach:
Taken from River Ranch on the Truckee River, the scene of Anderson family (mis)adventures in river rafting twenty something years ago:
A business trip to Tahoe- okay, we can handle that! And with a bit of synchronicity added, as today’s Daily Challenge theme is cold. It IS cold with snow on the ground, as evidenced by this shot taken at Incline Village ( a bit of split-toning was added in Lightroom).
These last two photos were taken at the beach- no snow down here!
And now it’s time to watch the World Series- GO, GIANTS!!!!
Clouds! We’ve got clouds!
It makes such a difference to have white, puffy clouds in the background instead of a dull, gray sky. I took a short walk in the neighborhood and captured this shot of the hills overlooking the mothball fleet way in the background. This photo does not follow the rule of thirds, but I like it better than most of my other ones because it shows the beautiful sky.
Walking back, I spied this Halloween display in front of a neighbor’s house.
melinda anderson photography 