The sunset was beautiful as we went out to get into our car last week when we were on our trip to Arizona. I went back inside to grab my camera and got this quick shot of the pines by our friends’ house.
Image enhanced with Jessica Drossin’s Mumbai texture
We are moving out of our house in 2-3 weeks and into the new at the end of August. Despite the presence of creatures like the one below found on my friend, Debbie’s window screen, we are getting so excited about moving to Arizona!
We bought a house!!!! It’s just what we were looking for- smaller, one level, low maintenance, and beautiful! We will finally exhale when all is finalized with the sale of our home in California- but it looks like we will be living in Arizona by the end of August! This will be a HUGE change for us- especially leaving all our friends. We expect lots of visitors!
Today’s photo was taken in the backyard of our ever-hospitable friends, the Thomases, who live in a gorgeous home in the pines of Prescott. We’re hoping they won’t be sick of us by the time we move here!
I went over to my friend, Kathryn’s yesterday to help her learn some photography basics so she can move beyond AUTO on her Nikon D60. We had fun shooting with different settings, and I especially enjoyed photographing her backyard vineyard. Kathryn is a quick learner, so I am looking forward to seeing some of her photos.
I added a couple of Jessica Drossin’s textures to this image, which give it some warmer tones and a nice vignette.
I’ve gotten behind in my Beyond Beyond lessons. 😦
In Lesson 23, Kim showed us a desaturated flower edit and gave us her “recipe” as a preset as well as a step-by-step version in Photoshop and Lightroom. The steps involved desaturating the image, giving it a matte edit and haze, adding some subtle split toning and a texture. I tried these steps in a couple flower photos I’ve done recently, but wasn’t satisfied with my backgrounds. I finally went back to some of the orchid photos I took at Tra’s house and found an image where I could apply the techniques successfully. I also added just a bit of a white vignette to lighten the background.
Today I am having a brief moment of “fame”, thanks to WordPress, the site that hosts my blog . My jellyfish photo from a few weeks ago was published in an article about serialized posts, such as Texture Tuesday! The WordPress editor, Ben, didn’t write about Texture Tuesday itself, but included my photo as a demonstration of how to bring readers to your blog by having regular features that would draw in more visitors. The article appears in the daily WordPress blog, which I confess I had never read before (I’m going to start reading it RIGHT NOW!).
Now, back to photography- here is Jackson, our constant companion in Prescott. He is the very goofy, playful and extroverted kitty belonging to Debbie and Dale, our wonderful hosts in Prescott, where we house-hunted.
Here’s a view of flowers blooming on the balcony of our hotel room at Lake Gregory, where we stopped on the way to Arizona last week. This photo is textured with two layers of Kim Klassen’s kk_1301, one at soft light blend mode and one at color burn.
Check out some more photos using textures by Kim Klassen by visiting her site at kimklassencafe.com
Mama Bunny is a regular visitor to my friend, Debbie’s backyard in Prescott, Arizona. Baby avoided my lens, but I managed to zoom in for this shot of Mama.
We took a drive yesterday and checked out some model home sites in Enchanted Canyon (in Prescott). It is a beautiful area, and one of the attractions is petroglyphs on Indian Rock. There are several other areas around Prescott that also have petroglyphs; I hope to check them out someday.
I haven’t posted this week, because we’ve been busy visiting our friends in Prescott, Arizona- and looking for a house to buy. I’ve barely taken time for photography, much less gotten my laptop out. It has been a wonderful visit, and although we haven’t yet bought a house, we’ve fallen in love with Prescott again.
The day before we left for Arizona was the day of the horrible tragic deaths of the firefighters in the Yarnell fire (just outside of Prescott). The town is in mourning and coming together to help the families of those who were evacuated and/or lost homes as well as the families of the fire crew who lost their lives.
Fire was on our minds as we drove Hwy. 40 from California into Arizona. Just past Kingman we saw another wildfire- the Dean Peak fire.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen a wildfire- and experienced lightning, thunder, a hailstorm and flash flooding! We’ve seen lots of lizards and one javelina- think I’ll go sit outside now and hope a herd of javelinas come through the yard before dark!
This little guy still won’t let me get close. He has no problem buzzing around my head- basically telling me to BACK OFF from his feeder. But he won’t come near the feeder itself unless I’m 8-10 feet away. He is basically king of the yard this summer.
We were challenged in this lesson to go outside and shoot some photos with blurry backgrounds. This type of photo is what got me to purchase a DSLR in the first place. I had tried and tried to do this with my little Canon Powershot- but to no avail. After I had my DSLR a couple months, I bought a 35mm 1.8 lens, and then EVERYTHING had a blurry background! It is still my favorite way to shoot.
Here are a couple shots from my backyard yesterday afternoon. The lavender photo has Kim Klassen’s sybil texture added.
for Texture Tuesday
edited with 1 layer kk_1301 and 2 layers kk_sybil
Kim Klassen started a new link-up a while ago called Friday Finds. I hadn’t planned to participate, but I found fresh lavender last night at Trader Joe’s- does it count if you find it on Thursday?
I used a matte edit- not my usual style, but I think I like it here.
melinda anderson photography 