Buzzing

We don’t seem to have many birds in our yard right now. The hummingbirds are gone, and there are just ravens and some little mystery birds flitting here and there. But we do have bees and wasps. . .

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I desaturated this photo, because I didn’t find the colors pleasing, and then added a bit of split toning in Lightroom.  Because it is Tuesday, I added one of Kim Klassen’s textures, 1301 (a favorite of mine), which I also desaturated.  If you go to kimklassencafe.com, you will find links to some beautiful images using her textures.

Melinda6 Comments

Flowers in the Crannied Wall

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Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Alfred Tennyson

At some point soon-ish, these flowers will be gone, so I thought I should take some shots (in our front yard) before they disappear. Every time I look at them, the above poem goes through my mind- one of the very few poems I still remember from high school.  I like to think it was the deep meaning that drew me to this poem, but I think I might have just liked the word, crannied.

Melinda3 Comments

Orange

Next week I am visiting a photography group which I may join, and we are all to bring up to 4 prints to go with this month’s theme- orange and/or spider.  I got busy yesterday taking some orange photos (haven’t seen any Arizona spiders yet- yay!) to get printed before next week’s meeting.  I also will bring this spider photo (second one down) from last September. I went outside with my macro lens to take a closeup of one of the many marigolds we have growing, but there was so much wind that I ended up picking one and bringing it inside. The light wasn’t as pretty on the inside (darn tinted windows!), but I was able to get better focus.

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Deep Purple

I’m still getting to know the plants and flowers in our “garden” and am on a rush schedule now that it is October.  I’m anticipating that the flowers will soon be gone and that freezing weather will be upon us at some point; this will be the first time I’ve lived with snow.  Yesterday I used my macro lens to photograph this beauty with its deep purple petals. I textured it with Kim Klassen’s cool grunge texture, an oldie but a goodie, and am linking up with today’s Texture Tuesday.

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Melinda10 Comments

Echinacea

While I was in Yellowstone, one of my daughter’s friends gave her a small bouquet, which included coneflowers (echinacea).  I love photographing coneflowers (never knew they were echinacea!), because of their spiky centers. This photo I textured with Kim Klassen’s ruemarion and simplistic for Texture Tuesday.

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Melinda8 Comments

Summer’s End

I know summer doesn’t officially end for awhile, but the Labor Day weekend has always seemed like a milestone marking the close of summer.  As I walked around the front yard the other evening, I noticed that, as the daylight began to fade,  the purple blossoms of the Russian sage were fading as well.

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Textured with savor by Kim Klassen for Texture Tuesday.

Melinda5 Comments

Looking Around

Today I finally took some time to walk around outside with my macro lens attached to my camera.  Macro lens- oh how I’ve missed you! I found some flowers and plants I’m not familiar with- maybe someone (Carol, Debbie?) can tell me what they are.

There is a huge spiky plant in a bed out front. It is past the blooming stage (you can see the faded red flowers still ).

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I love this one- I think it’s probably an annual.

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Melinda1 Comment

Blooming

Last week’s visit to Benicia’s Community Garden yielded some nice flower photos- here’s one of my faves, edited with 3 layers of Kim Klassen’s 1301 texture.  I used all three of the “tweaked” textures I created for Sunday’s post.

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Melinda13 Comments

Giant

This sunflower is gigantic! I have visited it three times where it grows in the Benicia Community Garden. None of my photos have managed to convey its size, so I am contenting myself with showing details- no macro lens needed here!

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Textured with Kim Klassen’s 1301 texture for Texture Tuesday.

Melinda4 Comments

Beyond Beyond- Day 23

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.

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Melinda2 Comments