Textures: kk_chill and kk_linda
Linking up with Texture Tuesday.
Still Life Adventures
I almost didn’t post today- we JUST got back from Yellowstone and are beyond tired! I did manage to put together several fall still lifes for BeStill 52 in the few relatively quiet moments during our visit ((you saw one of them on Friday). I gathered some leaves with the boys, and added some pinecones and bits from my daughter’s flower arrangement. Here are two versions of the same photo, the first with Kim Klassen’s daysofold preset (modified) and the second with darkday.
And here’s a peek at what happens when you try to set up a still life with a three-year-old in the room.
Fall Leaves
After bemoaning the fact that I can find no signs of Fall at home, I am so happy to report that Fall has begun here at Yellowstone! I haven’t had a chance to get out to capture the landscape, so I created a little fall still life during Henry’s “quiet time” yesterday.
Linking up with Friday Finds.
From My Phone
We’re at Yellowstone taking care of the grandboys, who have grown SO much since we saw them in May (photos to be posted soon)!
I’m sharing a few iPhone photos from our travels. All were edited with Snapseed, and some of the plane photos also have a gradient added to the sky in Lightroom.
We flew over the Grand Canyon!
And here is somewhere in Utah :
On the drive from Montana to Yellowstone, we stopped in Livingston for dinner. It’s an old town with great old buildings; someday I want to explore it with my camera. The sky was dark, and the light was golden, and as we walked into the Mexican restaurant, we spotted a rainbow.
Connecting today with Barb’s App-Happy Wednesday.
Leftovers
Here are some leftover photos from last week’s shoot with my macro lens. Happy Wednesday!
Words to live by. . .
Textures:
kk_chill
kk_Aulneau
An apple, a sunflower, a cup- and more!
I finally got back to some still life last week, inspired by my new mug that I picked up at the grocery store.
A week or so ago, I entered 6 photos in the county fair. I haven’t done anything like this since high school, when I entered my crocheting. And the big news is that I earned 4 first place ribbons and one second place! Here is one of the winners, Sunflower Mystery (you might recognize it):
The other 3 first place winners were Feathered Gold (the owl feather), Point Arena Lighthouse (from a couple years ago), and Rodeo Dreams (a photo of Henry standing on the fence watching a rodeo). Dusty Jeans got a second place. A photo I took of prairie sunflowers did not place. And. . . I came home with 14 bucks for my efforts! We won’t mention that the printing and matting cost more than that. But I will re-use the mats.
It was raining cats and dogs- and, evidently, hawks while we were out at the fair on Saturday. We drove back through flooded streets while thunder crashed around us- and found this guy in the backyard.
I took this shot through the sliding glass door (which was covered with raindrops)- when I opened the door, he flew up the hill and disappeared.
Have a Heart!
The soundtrack for this blog post is Bonnie Raitt’s Have a Heart (can’t get it out of my head- and I love her!).
Did you see the heart?
Linking up with Friday Finds today.
And for your listening pleasure. . .
This version is less up-tempo than the the one in my head- but it’s Bonnie! And any song that begins with “Hey, shut up!” certainly gets my attention!
Gorgeous Light
I’m getting a lot of mileage out of this week’s bouquet. I thought I was done with it, but walked by yesterday and noticed the light- the rest is history!
Fall COLOR
It is FALL, but still no beautiful fall leaves. So here is some Fall COLOR for you. . .
Dark Side of the Moon
No, it’s not the moon- just lens flare- but I love the effect.
kk_chill texture added
Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.
Up the Hill, part 2
Here are two more shots I love from last week’s (short) walk up the hill to the top of our lot. I want to make clear that none of this land above is ours- and it does crack me up that it took me a year to walk through our weeds to get to the pretty ones above. Just know that I don’t like the possibility of snakes- or even lizards. Or frogs. I think that covers it.
Lovely weeds!
And here is a view of Prescott’s iconic Thumb Butte.
Up the Hill
Our house sits on a hill on a half-acre wedge-ish shaped lot with the most of the backyard on a steep slope, covered with rocks to keep the hill intact. There is a rickety stairway going up the hill on one side to an unlandscaped area that is mostly, um, weeds. We had the weeds cut down this summer, and this week I finally ventured all the way to the top of our property! Before, I had been concerned about what might be living in those weeds and didn’t really want to walk through them, chicken that I am.
At the top, I could stand at the edge of our uphill neighbor’s property and enjoy the view over our house to the hills and also see our neighbor’s fields at the top of the hill. Pretty!
BTW, I did play with the color in the bottom photo; the fields are actually pretty green. Artistic license!
I’m linking up with Friday Finds today.
Ajar
I belong to an amazing photo group in town which is full of accomplished photographers, many of whom are professionals or at least display and sell their work. To say the least, I am a bit intimidated by the level of expertise of the group. It took six months before I ever brought a photo to be critiqued, and it was not particularly well received. Since then, I’ve brought two more, and I’ve learned from the experience. I also learn a lot from listening to the critiques of all the other photos and from the speakers that are brought in each month.
Probably the most exciting thing for me as a member of this group was being able to participate an exhibit at a local cafe/nightspot. Two of the photos I submitted were selected and have been on display for over a month. It has been a lot of fun seeing my photos framed and hanging on the wall- with price tags. Only one photo out of the whole group of 40 some photos displayed has sold so far, which I’m told is about average. By the way, the two photos I have displayed are Golden Feather (the owl feather I photographed in Yellowstone)and Dusty Jeans (the legs and boots photo from the Gardiner Rodeo). The display ends this weekend.
This summer, one of the photo assignments was “unique door ajar”. When I was out and about I took a few door photos for the challenge, none of which seemed to me to be THE photo. I ended up being unable to attend that particular meeting, so never had to make the decision of what to submit (I probably would have gone back out for more shooting. . .). Lately, I have been spending some time going through and organizing and culling photos in my Lightroom catalog and came across some of the photos I took for this assignment. So today’s post is featuring some “unique doors ajar.”
Bedroom door ajar. . .
Doors ajar in Prescott. . .
And from a drive out in the rural areas nearby. . .
Lavender ICM
I’m fascinated by intentional camera movement (ICM) and the often abstract images resulting. It is harder than it looks, and I have yet to find the right combination of subject, settings, and movement to produce what I am trying to create. There is always an element of surprise, which makes it fun.
Here are two shots of lavender from my front yard, created by using slow shutter speeds and moving the camera.
melinda anderson photography 