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.

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

Melinda3 Comments

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!

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

MelindaLeave a comment

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.

MelindaLeave a comment

Breaking Through

The sun broke through the fog at Whitewater Draw presenting us with an unforgettable scene. Behind us though, the cranes were still almost invisible in the early morning fog. Time for photographers to head to breakfast!

MelindaLeave a comment