Purple thistles abound in our area! We have a lot of weeds and native plants in the strips along the roads and sidewalks and in fields near our house, and this time of year is great for finding them in bloom. And every year I photograph thistles.
I added textures to these thistle photos and then took them into On1 for frames, stepping outside the box a bit when I chose these cool emulsion borders.
Perfect imperfection and impermanence!
I was at the right place at the right time last week and was able to bring home this sweet bird nest that had fallen out of a tree at a friend’s house. Sadly, little egg shells were nearby. I intended to spend all of Mother’s Day morning in my garage studio photographing the nest (and beautiful Mother’s Day flowers from my daughter) using different lenses and backgrounds. However, rain and hail put a stop to the project after an hour.
Here are a couple lensbaby shots of the nest. More to come!
I have a new favorite desert plant- the boojum tree. It is actually not an Arizona native, but it was planted at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. It’s related to the ocotillo, another favorite of mine- but it is CRAZY looking!
It’s REALLY tall! I would say this specimen is 15-20 feet high.
Below is a young one.
And another view of the trunk. . .
There was so much to photograph on our outing last weekend. I loved the contrast between the dark tree (mesquite?), the green leaves, and the yellow blossoms peeking through from the background.
Happy Earth Day! Go outside!
I had fun yesterday giving this butterfly a painted look with three textures and two different Topaz Impression filters. It somehow satisfies my childhood desire to be a painter.
Thank goodness I have some photos that have never seen light of day, because I have NOT been using my camera lately. Here is a shot of pussy willows from last month.
I’m back among the land of the living again! I haven’t quite returned to photography as yet, so today’s photo is a reworking of one I took last summer in Tucson. I played with it in Photoshop and added some textures to create a painterly look.
Here’s another blossom image for today- with a little Topaz Impression for a painterly look:
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I looked through my recent photos and decided to break with tradition and go with pink instead of green for today. I took these shots of the blossoms on our plum tree before we left for Palm Springs. I guess this was a smart move, because, now that we are back, the blossoms are all gone.
Here are a couple shots from V Bar V, where we saw the petroglyphs. It was the color contrasts that caught my eye.
My friend, Debbie gave me some pussy willow branches, which I placed in water in the kitchen window. The buds are starting to open, so I took a few minutes to capture this one with my Lensbaby Velvet 56 in macro mode.
… at the Desert Botanical Garden!
More branches in a jar. This was shot with the Lensbaby Edge 80 again, but then I used an oil painting filter in Topaz Impression and a Flypaper texture after that. Yup- just playing with sticks. . .
I found a couple other shots I took when I was taking my berry still life for my class. These were taken before or after- without a tripod, because I couldn’t get high enough with the tripod. I used a shallow depth of field for fun- and I guess I wasn’t very steady on the stepstool, because these would definitely not pass the sharpness test! I like them anyway.
BTW, my hummingbird passed muster yesterday in my new photo class. I wondered how people (especially the instructor) would respond to the background, which had been edited using Topaz Impression- but they were fine with it. If you read my blog regularly, you’ll recognize this photo from last summer. The only critiques were some thought the little twig under the hummingbird could be cloned out, and one person would have liked a closed beak. One thing I’m learning is that people have differing opinions of each other’s work- and it’s all ok. It’s a very nice group of people, which makes it all easier.
