Texture Tuesday – Page 3 – melinda anderson photography

Still Life in the Morning

The other morning, I was reading the paper and drinking coffee, when I noticed that the coffee cup and newspaper made a pleasing composition. I started to pick up my iPhone, but then thought- Hmmm, if I pull the plant over a bit and get some strawberries it will look even better. I quickly made an arrangement, snapped ONE photo, edited it in Snapseed, uploaded it to instagram, and then continued to drink my coffee and read the newspaper (and ate the strawberries . . .). If only I could have still life composition ideas come to me that easily all the time!

I was about halfway through my coffee, when I thought of getting out my Nikon and taking the photo again. After all, one of the BeStill 52 prompts was cuppa. I got out more strawberries and tried to duplicate my iPhone photo- trickier than it sounds, considering focal length, depth of field etc.

So here are some Sunday morning stills, quickly taken. All have two layers of Kim’s grunge texture added.

And here is the original iPhone photo.

Linking up today with Texture Tuesday.

September 2, 2014September 1, 2014

Melinda7 Comments

Sunflower Monochromes

My grocery store sunflowers are starting to droop and turn brown on the edges, alas. I took a bunch of macro shots- and then turned two of my favorites to high contrast, split-toned black and whites, which I then textured with Kim Klassen’s golden.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

August 26, 2014August 24, 2014

Melinda15 Comments

Alas, the End

Today is the end of our friend, Joan’s visit to our home in Prescott. We are so sad to see her go- we had such a wonderful time with her! Yesterday, she got to experience a true “Retirement in Prescott” day.

We started the day with a trip to our fabulous hardware store, where we spent so much time browsing that we almost forgot why we were there (to buy picture hangers and a birdfeeder extender hook). Then we drove down to the square so Joan could take photos of the courthouse and some of the surrounding buildings.

She and Lonnie enjoyed walking the timeline of the history of Yavapai County.

We did a complete circuit of the courthouse building, which is undergoing some construction, with a security guard acting as tour guide for part of the way.

After lunch at home, we headed out to the movies so that Joan could experience the reclining seats. We saw Into the Storm (thumbs down for acting and plot, thumbs up for special effects), and afterward walked out into our own extreme storm- driving rain, thunder, lightning, and flooding roadways. Now Joan can say she has truly experienced summer in Arizona!

The sunset and flag photos each have textures added: ecru on both photos, and also waterfront 17 on the sunset (both by Kim Klassen).

Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

August 19, 2014August 18, 2014

Melinda6 Comments

Country Drive

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

August 12, 2014August 12, 2014

Melinda6 Comments

Summer Fence

This flower lined fence caught my eye as we were heading out of town for a drive the other day. After spending a couple hours taking photos of rural scenes and the countryside, I was too tired to stop and take photos of the original fence I had seen as we started our outing. We went back the other day, and I had a great time photographing all the flowers. You’ll be seeing more of them in the near future; today it’s just one photo of this pink beauty, textured with Kim Klassen’s touchof for Texture Tuesday.

August 5, 2014August 4, 2014

Melinda15 Comments

Catching the light

I photographed my huge Russian sage (although not a native plant, it seems to pop up everywhere), on two different days over the weekend- and what a difference a day makes.

Here is Saturday’s photo.

And here is Sunday’s! I have to give my husband credit for this one. He looked out the window while we were watching TV (still binge-watching Damages!), and exclaimed over the light in the clouds. While he paused the TV, I ran out and captured this one before the light changed.

Both photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s textures- golden and waterfront11 on the first, 1301 on the second.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

July 29, 2014July 28, 2014

Melinda9 Comments

Hi there!

We’ve had the most cooperative swallowtail in the yard the last few days! It allowed Carol and me to get however close we wanted while it sipped nectar from our butterfly bushes. Carol, true to form, looked up this particular swallowtail online and determined it to be the Two Tailed Swallowtail, Arizona’s state butterfly.

I took dozens of photos of the butterfly, but am partial to this almost out of the frame shot of it checking me out as it drank.

Textured with Kim Klassen’s 2203 for Texture Tuesday.

July 22, 2014July 20, 2014

Melinda18 Comments

White Roses

Textured with Kim Klassen’s touchof

July 15, 2014July 11, 2014

Melinda5 Comments

Shells and more shells

I am lucky enough to have a couple bags of shells my father brought back from the South Pacific after World War II- from the island of Eniwetok, to be exact. Alhtough I’ve used some of them in other photos, I got them out again yesterday to shoot with my macro lens.

I wanted the shells to be on a wood background, but I don’t like how the grain of my dining table looks in photos- and, truthfully, I didn’t want to lie on the floor. I haven’t bought any kind of tray for still life (still plan to) or wood to use as a background, but I came up with something that for me was a brilliant solution, if I do say so myself! I took the little drawer out from the dental cabinet where my treasures are housed, turned it over, and scattered the shells on top. The wood you see in the photos below is birds-eye maple, which is used for the inside of the drawers in the otherwise mahogany cabinet. I used side lighting from the sliding glass door- and a wide aperture with my macro lens to create shallow depth of field (BeStill 52 lessons).

All the images are textured with two layers of Kim Klassen’s simple or simple1 textures.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

July 8, 2014July 7, 2014

Melinda9 Comments

Dark and darker

Edited in Lightroom with Kim Klassen’s dark mood preset (adjusted)

Texture added: Kim Klassen’s july, desaturated

I created an even darker version by desaturating the Photoshop version in Lightroom and adding some split toning.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday

July 1, 2014July 1, 2014

Melinda8 Comments

Farmers’ Market

It was my first visit to the Prescott Farmers’ Market. I took my camera and enjoyed photographing the produce almost as much as I enjoyed buying and eating it!

I did a basic edit on each photo for my layout and then took them into Photoshop, where I used the Oil Paint filter and one layer of Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1 texture. I used the Oil Paint filter, because Adobe has gotten rid of it in the newest update to Photoshop CC, which I have yet to install. Why??? It was a perfectly good filter- and I did use it occasionally (I like to play with effects).

But the main reason that I haven’t installed the newest update is because of the Mini-Bridge. I LOVE the Mini-Bridge! I use it every time I add a texture- it makes it SO EASY! Plus, I have written actions for many of my favorite textures that include the action opening MB and adding a layer of the specific texture. I haven’t always used Mini-Bridge. I learned it from Kim in one of the classes- and it made my life so much easier. I have my Photoshop workspace set up in a certain way (modeled after the way Sebastian Michaels has his in the Photoshop Artistry class), and I made sure to add the MB icon right at the bottom where I can easily click on it. Sorry for the rant, but I can’t see why MB has to go!!! I’m not happy with Adobe right now!

Linking up with Texture Tuesday today!

June 24, 2014June 22, 2014

Melinda4 Comments

Milk Bottles

When I was very young, we didn’t go to the store to buy milk; it was delivered to our house. On my trip to Chico a couple months ago, we walked through the antique mall, and I spotted an old milk bottle from Quality Dairy just like the ones that appeared on our doorstep in the 1950’s! Of course, I bought it, and I am using it to hold some of the Russian sage which is in bloom now.

I added Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1 texture to each photo (usually 2 layers at varying opacity) and am linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

June 17, 2014June 16, 2014

Melinda12 Comments

Old things that are falling apart

I am well aware that the title of this post could be referring to ME- so please resist making a joke! 🙂

On our drive in Paradise Valley (see yesterday’s post), I mentioned to Miles that I was going to be looking for barns and for old things to photograph. He commented that he LOVES things that are old and falling apart (again, please resist the joke!). I checked with his mother later, and it is TRUE- he is drawn to old, falling apart things- pretty cool for a six year old!

So look what we found!

Oh, I so love this barn! And the yellow flowers in front- so cool! This one was textured with 2 layers of golden by Kim Klassen.

And then there is the shot below of the same barn. I wanted the photo to look old too (although, realistically, the barn should look NEW in an old photo, right?), so I edited it and re-edited it- and edited it again- way too much time spent on this photo. Basically, I added a couple textures, brought it back to Lightroom and then decided I wanted a vintage look. Instead of starting over, I took the photo into Silver Efex Pro and used one of their presets to give it a tintype took. But the clouds had gone away! So I brought the new version in AS A LAYER over my original version in Photoshop and blended them. Then I kept playing with the textures (all Kim’s- mostly her older ones), adding and subtracting them until it looked the way I wanted. No point in naming the textures for you- I masked out and reduced opacity so many times- it would make no sense- ridiculous!

And finally- when we had finished our drive, we were in Livingston, where we took Miles out to lunch at his favorite Mexican restaurant. When we got into the car to drive back to Yellowstone, he pointed out something for me to photograph- he has quite the eye, huh? So proud of him!

Linking up with Texture Tuesday.

June 10, 2014June 9, 2014

Melinda13 Comments

Nature

We arrived home last night- so much to do! Laundry, groceries, miscellaneous to-do’s that can only be done from home- and catching up on my photography editing, posting, backing-up, blog visiting, and my still life classes. I am missing my little Yellowstone munchkins terribly; our 16 hour drive home only reinforced how far apart we are!

I’m posting some photos of new, green aspen leaves I shot on a drive the first week we were there. The snow had finally stopped and Spring arrived at the same time we did! I love the aspens in Fall, and this was the first time I had photographed their leaves in Spring. These were shot somewhere on Dunraven Pass.

The above photo is textured with two layers of Kim Klassen’s sybil, using color burn blend mode. The second photo is of the same branch, but I crouched down to get a blown out sky in the background- no textures.

June 3, 2014June 2, 2014

Melinda10 Comments

New Growth

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.