Today I’m posting some photos from our drive through Peeples Valley and Kirkland a couple weeks ago. I love country roads and all the charms of barns and fences and horses- maybe it’s because I grew up in a small town in a rural area. 
Textures (all from Kim Klassen): top- waterfront 7; bottom- nutmeg and unleashed
Linking up with Texture Tuesday
On Saturday, dark clouds were beginning to fill the sky as my husband and I toured the Phippen Museum, a few miles north of our house. One of the docents nicely unlocked the door to the deck so that I could take a few photos of the view of the Granite Dells and the beautiful clouds. By the time we got home the monsoon storm had begun- thunder, lightning, and rain!
While my friend Carol was visiting (she flew home today, alas), we took the required drive to Sedona which we do with all our visitors. This time, we decided to drive to Cathedral Rock, because we had seen several photographs depicting the rock formation reflected in Oak Creek. We chose late afternoon/early afternoon for our visit, so that the light would be right. Unfortunately neither route recommended to us took us very near where we wanted to be, and the sun was beginning to set as we finally decided to do our shoot from the road. With only one small cloud in the sky, we took our photos. On my photography to-do list is finding the spot to get that reflection.
On Saturday, we took Carol to see the Granite Dells and Watson Lake. It was fun watching her experience this otherworldly landscape for the first time.
More from the Yellowstone archives- this time from the drive through Paradise Valley (remember that barn?):
Although I have been taking photos since I’ve been back from our trip, I keep finding Yellowstone photos that I haven’t posted here. (no wonder- I took hundreds!). I can’t promise these will be the last. . .
Since I’ve been back, I’ve been catching up on life, and my photography work has consisted of culling and editing photos from Yellowstone and getting images edited and printed for my photography groups. I was also 2 or 3 weeks behind in Start to Finish and Be Still 52 (Kim Klassen’s classes), but knew I would have time to catch up soon.
A couple days ago I started going through the lessons I hadn’t done and found myself feeling inspired again to create a still life. One of the more recent lessons included a preset called melancholy– and a suggestion to revisit the whole wabi-sabi idea, which I loved. I enjoyed creating this image, which is very different from my usual shooting and processing style.
And now for a couple random iPhone photos. I didn’t take many photos this week, but did enjoy processing them.
This is the bridge (over a dry wash) that we cross when we walk the trail at Willow Lake. If you look closely, you can see the white southwestern prickly poppies that are in bloom along the trail. The basic edit was in Snapseed- and then I used one of the filters in Glaze (an app that I really don’t understand) and added some textures in Mextures, which also gave it a vignette.
The photo below was taken in our front yard and is a closeup of the flowers (and fruit?) of a spiky foundation planting in our flower bed. Now that it’s blooming, I notice this plant everywhere we go in Arizona. Last fall I cut off many of the dried stalks and put them in my old milk can on the front porch. You can see what they look like dried here. I edited the photo in Photo Wizard, which is a great app for basic editing (it even has a curves adjustment!), as well as having a zillion special filters and effects, from textures and vignettes to motion blur and a bathroom glass filter. I have yet to explore it fully- guess I need to go on another road trip!
I’m linking up with App-happy Wednesday again!
One of my favorite Montana drives is between Livingston and Gardiner, Montana- aptly named Paradise Valley. My husband, our oldest grandboy, Miles, and I took a leisurely drive through the countryside so that Gramma could photograph barns and the beautiful scenery that abounds there.
There were country roads . . .
and cows, of course . . .
and beautiful red barns!
You might see a few more images from this drive in future posts; I took dozens of photos!
We are on the second week of our visit to our daughter’s family in Yellowstone National Park. A few days ago, we took our traditional drive through the park with our son-in-law as tour guide. This time we drove up to Dunraven Pass, where we enjoyed beautiful views of the spring meadows and hills, the snow capped mountains, and, of course, bison and elk.
As we got higher and higher, part of the burn area from the 1988 fire was clearly visible ahead. But as we drew closer, we could see the small green trees that have grown up between the skeletal burned pines, as the forest renews itself.
A small dried weed from last summer poked its way up through the snow.
All photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s canvasback and 2110.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday.
Our road trip to Yellowstone gave me plenty of opportunity to practice my iPhoneography skills. The road was long, but scenic, and I had fun editing shots as my husband did the driving. Of course my Nikon was my main camera, but nothing beats a cameraphone for instant results- photos edited with iPhone apps, uploaded to Dropbox during the drive and immediately available on my laptop to post to my blog.
We stopped at Hoover Dam on the way to Yellowstone- first visit for both my husband and myself. Both these photos were edited in Snapseed using the HDR filter. I also warmed them up and added a bit of sharpening and “structure.”
We spent the night in Idaho Falls, a familiar stop for us. After dinner we drove over to the falls, where I snapped this photo. I used Snapseed again for a simple edit (contrast and sharpening) and also used the selective adjust feature to add a bit of a vignette (lightening the middle and darkening the edges). On my wishlist for Snapseed is a vignette filter! I do love the selective adjust feature however; it is similar to the control points used in Nik software.
As you can see from this photo (edited with Waterlogue, we arrived at Yellowstone!
I’m linking up today with Barb’s “app” happy Wednesday. I learn so much from reading her posts and the others who link to her.
A view of the San Francisco Peaks (Flagstaff) from across the street
melinda anderson photography 