Happy Veterans’ Day!

Today we got to experience a Prescott (Everybody’s Hometown) Veterans’ Day parade.  It included veterans from every war back to WWII, more vintage cars than I’ve ever seen before, more Marines than I’ve ever seen before (my husband was one of them), a jet flyover, many, many patriotic organizations, a couple beauty queens on horseback, and Senator John McCain.

I enjoyed this little group who presented the colors at the beginning of the parade.

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I didn’t notice these ladies IN the parade, but they were watching it from near the reviewing stand.

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This was probably the most enthusiastic Marine in the crowd- he waved that flag constantly (to many cheers and “oohrahs”).

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A real slice of Americana!

 

Melinda1 Comment

Willow Lake at Sunset

Our local newspaper had an article yesterday about the water fowl and raptors that can be viewed at Willow Lake, just a few miles from our house.  We have been talking about going there, so the article gave us the nudge to get in the car and head on over.  Since we had only driven by before, we had no idea where to park or what trail to walk, so we weren’t very prepared. We parked in one area and asked a cyclist, who suggested we park closer to the lake. Since the sun was low in the sky, we took her advice and ended up parking near the water.  The lake is full of ducks and other water fowl- all very skittish around my camera.  We didn’t see any shore birds or raptors, but enjoyed the views during the golden hour and at sunset.

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Linking up with Friday Finds at Kim Klassen’s site.

 

Melinda9 Comments

Is Your Mama a Llama?

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No, I haven’t gone crazy since moving to Arizona- at least I hope not.  I am continuing to practice my Photoshop skills and going WAY outside my comfort zone by doing photo compositing (that IS a word!) with THREE photos and two textures to create this image, which is a sort of visual summary of the highlights of our day in Sedona last week.

BTW, Is Your Mama a Llama? is a book that I used to read to my first graders.

Melinda5 Comments

My Roommate- and Bonus Sunflowers

Here’s a shot of Carol (former roommate from college and beyond) on the way to Jerome the other day. It was incredibly underexposed, because I accidentally left the exposure compensation set to -2.7 (I can’t believe I still make beginner errors like that!), so I had to do a little rescuing in Lightroom.  And by the way,  NOTHING is straight in this photo- it was a sloping wall, uneven terrain, hills of different levels- yikes!

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As we watched TV the other night, I put took one of my sunflower photos into Topaz Simplify to give it a bit of a painted look for fun.

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The Camera in my Purse

After the first year of doing my Project 365, I stopped carrying my camera with me all the time.  And I always seem to come across beautiful scenes like this one, when all I have is my iPhone. I used to turn up my nose at iPhone shots, but no more.  It is a perfectly adequate little camera, certainly better than not taking a photo at all- so, if my big girl camera is at home, out comes the iPhone.

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I added a texture (Kim’s reentry) for Texture Tuesday, but the basics of the photo (including the colors) are just as recorded on the camera.

Melinda3 Comments

One Photo, Three Ways

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Photo taken on walkway at Bell Rock, Sedona

 

Top: standard Lightroom edit (exposure, clarity etc.- basically the top part of the Develop module)

Middle: standard edit with Kim Klassen’s autumn preset applied

Bottom: standard edit, then converted to a black and white with some split toning

Melinda2 Comments

Bell Rock

I almost didn’t take any photos in Sedona last week; I felt I couldn’t do justice to the intense colors and beauty of the amazing landscape, especially with the harsh light and shadows of late afternoon. And of course, I was right.  But, I couldn’t resist taking some shots as we walked around the area of Bell Rock and its neighbor, the Courthouse. I wasn’t planning to put them on my blog, because both images suffer from horrible contrasts, washed out colors and a cloudless sky.  I know that if I go out there at the right time of day with some nice clouds, I will get a better result. However, these photos gave me an opportunity to practice my editing skills in an effort to salvage something to remember this outing.

The first photo was first edited in Lightroom, adjusting highlights, shadows, clarity, vibrance and more- but then I did some work with luminosity masks (a way of adjusting the luminosity/brightness of a certain range of tones using channels in Photoshop), a technique I re-discovered when visiting a local photo group. I had read about this on Clickin Moms a year or so ago, used the technique a couple times- and then forgot about it.  At the photo group, someone mentioned adjusting the luminosity of a photo- and a chorus of voices called out “luminosity mask.”  In fact, they may have said, “TK luminosity mask.”  This week, I googled luminosity mask and came up with Tony Kuyper’s wonderful tutorials on using this technique- and I bought a set of his actions, which were MUCH more extensive than what I had done on my own before.  Although not difficult to do, it made me realize how much I still have to learn about Photoshop. I love using Lightroom so much that I usually don’t bring my photos into Photoshop except for cloning/healing and adding textures.

So here is Bell Rock. If you look closely, you might be able to see people walking the trail up to the top.

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The second photo was also edited in Lightroom- then taken into Photoshop, where one of Jessica Drossin’s textures, Mumbai, was added to bring out the colors and add in some contrast that was lost when bringing down highlights and bringing up the shadows.

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Melinda4 Comments

Oak Creek Canyon

My fall color photos today aren’t from my neighborhood.  Friday we took a drive through Oak Creek Canyon, a beautiful area between Sedona and Flagstaff.  It was the middle of the day, definitely not the ideal time for photography, but the scenery was breathtaking- much more so than these photos show.  These were all taken at Slide Rock State Park.

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Melinda2 Comments

A Fall Walk

There is some beautiful fall color in our neighborhood now!  Arizona is not all cactus, you know. . .

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And I couldn’t resist some more weed photos (my sunglasses are in there somewhere!).

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Melinda2 Comments

Yes, it’s Fall!

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This was shot with my iPhone last night as we walked downtown along Granite Creek before heading to a restaurant for dinner.  There was beautiful light coming through the fall leaves; it was definitely the golden hour!

 

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Good News, Bad News, repeat 2X

Good news:

We’ve lived here for almost two months, and today I took my first walk in the neighborhood.  I know, I know- I should have ventured out with my camera long before now.  I’d had my eye on this field down the hill and decided to take a walk to take some photos of weeds.

Bad News:

After I took a few shots as I walked down our hill, I decided to put my sunglasses on. As I remember it, I had started out with my prescription sunglasses on, but then took them off and hooked them on my shirt as I took my first photo. When I reached for my sunglasses, they were NOT hooked on my shirt.  They weren’t ANYWHERE.  I retraced my steps- no sunglasses.

Good News:

I decided to continue my walk- those sunglasses had to be where I had stopped to take photos, and I would find them when I walked back up the hill. I walked a couple blocks and met up with a woman who had also just moved from California.  We had a nice chat, and then I started back home to find the sunglasses.

Bad News:

I searched everywhere I had stopped on our hill- no sunglasses! I went home, and dragged Lonnie out with me to look- no sunglasses.

Good News:

We met a neighbor we had not met before, chatted for a bit, said good-bye, and then Lonnie found the neighbor’s husband’s AARP roadside assistance card in the weeds!

Bad News:

The sunglasses are still missing. I am hoping that I imagined the whole thing about wearing them outside and that they are in the house somewhere.

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Melinda4 Comments