As Lonnie and I headed to Holbrook the first day of our field trip, I captured this view out the car window. It had clouded over, threatening rain, and the exit sign seemed to point up into the clouds- suggesting an earthly exit perhaps?
Exit 233
Route 66 Field Trip
Last week we took a fun trip with my photo club to the Winslow/Holbrook area to view explore this part of Arizona’s Route 66. This iPhone shot was taken from the backseat at Two Guns, a 1920-40’s era ghost town with ruins of a gas station, a “zoo” and many old structures.
AI (or A-One as it has been called recently…)
We are encouraging our Photo Club to experiment with new techniques (if they desire…). One of the ways we’ve done this is to have an AI gallery on our website where members can post images created with AI or composited with AI elements. I added this AI image of a woman created with CoPilot (after many, many tries at getting the prompt right for what I wanted) to my photo taken last year on a drive through rural Sonoma County. I named the resulting image “Jane’s World” after my mother and one of my favorite paintings, “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth.
Apple Blossoms
We are having a late Spring, and I don’t think I’ve seen our two fruit trees produce half as many blossoms as they are this year! The bees have discovered the apple blossoms, and I hope this is predictive of a good apple crop (there’s always a first time…). I am loaning my Lensbaby 56 to a friend, so I thought that before that I would use it for the blossoms. It creates a soft glowy effect which I think works beautifully on spring images.
Morning Birding
What a sweet face this Cooper’s? Hawk has as it sits atop the shepherd’s pole waiting for birds to come out of the bushes to get breakfast from the feeder hanging below! I only got one click of the shutter through the window and off it flew! Update: Although my Merlin birding app identified this photo as a sharp shinned hawk (with Cooper’s as second choice), my son-in-law thinks it is a Merlin Falcon, and he is pretty sure. Lonnie thought it was a falcon as it flew in- and I thought kestrel or peregrine falcon because of its size, but I trusted my app! Now I’m not so sure!
Meanwhile across the yard, our Gambel’s quail family was making an entrance. The mom has discovered the Bird Buddy in the apple tree and enjoyed her breakfast for a good ten minutes as I took photos through the window.
Tumacacori in Red
We visited Tumacacori State Historical Park two years ago, which inspired me to create a series of abstracts reflecting my feelings and memories of this place and time. I was looking through this series and found many images which I’ve never shared on this blog. This one began as a multiple exposure from inside the church.
Our Town
It was snowing lightly as we left our neighborhood at noon today for a little drive. As we left our neighborhood, we could see dark skies to the south, and as we headed toward town, we could see Thumb Butte shrouded in fog. We drove up to the Resort on a bluff overlooking town, and, as I took this shot, sunshine and big puffy clouds were to the right and behind me which illuminated the VA Hospital below.
The Blur of Snow
Here’s another photo of a snowy day at the square in Prescott- captured with intentional camera movement. We’ve had such a dry winter that it was a treat to take photos in actual snow, which gives a touch of minimalism that I love in photos.
Un-Still Still Life
So when you use intentional camera movement on a still life, is it still a still life…still?
Snowy Day at the Square
I always love how snow transforms our downtown- and how intentional camera movement gives the scene a dreamy quality. I think we should be done having snowy days; snow from our last storm a few days ago was mostly melted by afternoon. Bring on Spring!
Backyard Visitor
That intense gaze was directed at the sparrows and finches at the bird feeder. I took my photos and off he went. He looks like a Cooper’s hawk- but seems smaller than the other ones we’ve seen.
Neighbor Lights
I got up before daybreak on last week’s snowy day and ventured outside into the barely visible snow. I used the intentional camera movement technique with bigger apertures than usual in the dim light and liked this image of the neighbors’ lights glowing through the trees.
March Winter
Winter has finally come! We drove down to the Courthouse this morning and had a wonderful time seeing how the deepening blanket of snow transformed everything. I took a few standard photos and then had a great time waving my camera around for some winter impressionistic images.
Sunrise at the Draw
Another view of sunrise at Whitewater Draw
February Feelings
Just a little abstract expressing my mindset these days…
melinda anderson photography 