Shadow Collision

Like 99.99999 percent of photographers everywhere, I am fascinated by the interplay of light and shadow. I noticed the overlapping shadows of diners from two booths, as we ate lunch at our favorite diner recently.

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Spooky Walk

One of my absolute favorite things about Prescott is Mt. Vernon Street decorated for Halloween! We walked along last night to view the spooky decor, which seemed to be much more elaborate this year. Above is one of my favorite houses and below is a somewhat spookier view of the same house.

Being a dog lover, I couldn’t resist this porch decor on one of the houses!

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Visitor

We had a dusting of snow this morning- along with a busy flock of yellow-rumped warblers! The snow was melting away as I went outside with my camera, but the warblers still swarmed the feeders as I snapped photos. This little guy waited in the willow tree (along with a few friends) for awhile, then back to the feeder.

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Aurora

The aurora was visible right over our house last night!

I had received a text with a photo just taken of the aurora visible from Colorado. I didn’t have any real hope of getting a photo, because last time we drove all over Prescott trying to see it without any luck at all. I knew that it might not be visible to the naked eye and that people here had seen it before by taking iPhone photos. I went out to the driveway and just aimed my iPhone at the sky in a northeast direction and there was the purple! I did not see streaks or dancing lights or any green at all, but the color was definitely there. I used night mode on my iPhone for most of the shots so that I would see the stars against the dark background and increased the exposure slightly to get the color. My hands shake, so the focus on the stars isn’t perfect.

Below is another view looking out across the street from our driveway.

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Talk Like a Pirate

I’m almost a week late sharing this, but a) it wasn’t quite finished on September 19 and b) I wanted to share it with my photo group before posting it. I took this photo at the parrot show at the Yavapai County Fair a couple weeks ago and knew as I took it that I wanted to create a painterly illustration of this wonderful pirate as he moved up onto the stage and stood in front of the rigging with his macaw (one of many birds he showed us). The image was a challenge for me to create, because there was a big awning thing and a motor home behind him, and getting rid of those distractions was a huge challenge for me.

Those of you who knew me before retirement as the teacher who held pirate treasure hunts every year will appreciate what a labor of love this image was to create! Aaaarrrrgh, matey!

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Kaleidoscope

This piece was so much fun to create- it came together quickly out of two photos layered in Photoshop and a fair bit of brushwork. My photo club’s theme this month is Prescott/Prescott Valley, and after re-editing a photo shot a few years ago, I discovered that the lake where it was shot was just outside Prescott, so it didn’t adhere to the rules. On the last day to submit a photo, I woke up with the idea and inclination to throw caution to the wind and create an abstract- so here is Whiskey Row Kaleidoscope, a whimsical view of our iconic street of bars, restaurants, shops, and art. My friend Debbie came up with the title- thank you, Debbie!

And. . . to my surprise, it won third place at the photo club!!!

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