CM Monthly Challenge- Shooting Through Glass

This month’s Clickin Moms blog link up challenges us to shoot through glass. Off and on during the month, I would think of the topic, but never seemed to be anywhere where an idea just jumped out at me.  I did a few lame attempts at home, and finally settled for some shots at my church this week.  But I do offer up these photos from LAST month’s trip to San Diego where I took a few shots of the spectacular view of downtown San Diego from my son’s apartment.  I did not use a tripod (tsk, tsk) and shot at a very high ISO (6400!) so yes, there is digital noise! And what did I learn from taking these photos? Use a tripod! Check for reflections (they are almost impossible to edit out). Do it right the first time- our son has since moved to a new apartment, and I will never have the opportunity to retake these photos.

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To keep myself honest, here are a few photos I did take this week.  They are through glass, but not quite with the dramatic view. . .

Flowers as shot through the sliding glass door of the sanctuary at church:

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This is almost the same view- but with the focus on the door.  Hmmm, the glass isn’t quite clean!

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And here is the stained glass over the door, shot from inside:

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There are some wonderful creative photographers in our blog circle.  If you click on each link in each photographer’s blog, you will be able to make the complete circle and end up back here.  Start with Jennifer Bantle’s blog!

Cloud Illusions

Another shot from our trip to Tahoe . . .

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I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.

Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell

Sorry, but I just can’t stop playing with this!

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Beyond Beyond 11

We had a really fun lesson today that would have been so useful in my teaching and scrapbooking days.  Maybe I’ll be inspired to get back into digital scrapbooking or at least more card-making.  The lesson had to do with finding a bunch of objects in one color, taking a photo, and then making a layout using color swatches from the photo. Really, really fun!  There was also a lesson on creating presets of color hazes, which I actually already know how to do, thank goodness.  I used one of my haze presets for the first photo.

Because I was waiting for my houseguests (Debbie and Dale!!!) to arrive, I wanted to get my homework done quickly.  I actually skipped the first step of taking a photo and found two photos to use that had lots of shades in the same color family.

This is from our visit to Balboa Park in San Diego; I almost stopped traffic to get this photograph!

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And this one is from our own backyard (last week).

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I realize now that I shouldn’t have used a white background for the layouts- stretching the image to make the space at the bottom was half the fun for me!  I also figured out where to find square brushes- I don’t use many brushes in Photoshop.  As I said, a fun lesson!

CM Monthly Challenge- Interesting Perspectives

This month the challenge is interesting perspectives– which range anywhere from wide angle shots with leading lines and vanishing points to creative illusions such as someone appearing to hold the moon or a child’s hand with a toy in the foreground (making the rest of him smaller in the background).  I’m going with the wide angle shots, because it is something I love to do (and because I have a few in my archives. . .).  I shot all of these (except the last) at 18mm on my crop sensor camera and converted them to black and white in Lightroom.  The lighthouse photo also has a bit of processing in Silver Efex , which I then tweaked in Photoshop.

After you have looked at my photos, head on over to Lisa’s blog to start going around the complete circle!

Here is a beach shot in San Diego from this month.

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This is a wide angle shot vertically (tall angle? 😉 ) of the USS Midway, also from our San Diego trip.

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This is one from the archives-  the Point Arena lighthouse (from our trip to the coast last October).  I posted a shot or two of the lighthouse before,  but this one is from further back with a wider angle.

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And here’s another oldie but goodie that seems to fit the challenge (oldie referring to the photo, not the hubs, who is younger than me and thus not an oldie):

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Lake, Mountains, and Clouds

We spent the night at Tahoe Tuesday! My husband had a business meeting, so we spent the night before at the Sunnyside Lodge, where we had a wonderful dinner and a room overlooking the lake.  Before dinner, I took the opportunity to take photos in the afternoon and early evening.

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When it was time for dinner, I left the camera in our room, and went downstairs to the dining room.  Just before our meal arrived, I noticed the couple at the next table was looking at something outside, but when I looked out, it looked like just the same scene I had photographed before dinner.  Finally I got up to see the view from their vantage point and saw the MOON- reflecting on the lake.  I ran upstairs to get my camera and joined the lady from the next table as we tried to capture the beauty of what we were seeing.  She also had a Nikon (maybe a D5100?), and we struggled with settings as the moon slipped behind the clouds- and then was gone in a matter of just a few minutes.

So here is the moon as it went back behind the clouds. Sigh. And I have tried to ignore all the beautiful full moon photos (taken with cell phone cameras. . .) on Facebook.

I used my new Silver Efex Pro plug-in to convert this photo to black and white.

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Regarding Silver Efex Pro:  If you have purchased any of the Nik software suite within the last five years, you may have received an e-mail from them a few days ago, giving you the entire suite for FREE.  My e-mail was in my spam folder.  I am thrilled to have all these new toys- but have no idea how to use them yet.

Pacific Beach

We enjoyed beautiful weather with temperatures in the high seventies in San Diego- it is much cooler now.  On our last day, we drove over to Pacific Beach- warm sand, crashing waves, and fun people-watching!  I had a great time photographing Crystal Pier and, according to my family,  was causing the lifeguard some concern as I was crouching in front of the waves trying to get the best photographic angle. I was in photography heaven and had no idea he was watching me. I would love to go back there at sunset one day.

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Orchids

The Botanical Building at Balboa Park was one of the highlights of our San Diego trip. Orchids were everywhere! For Texture Tuesday, I textured this image with 3 layers of Kim Klassen’s Sybil (my new go-to texture. . .) , using different blend modes and opacities.

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Baby Panda!

We returned last night from a short trip to San Diego to visit our son, Matt.  One of the things we were most looking forward to was a visit to the San Diego zoo to see the seven month old baby panda, Xiao Liwu.  We arrived at the zoo early, knowing that the baby was only on display for three hours in the morning, and we headed directly to the Panda Pavilion.  There were short lines to walk by baby and mama, and we were able to go through twice.  There were some unbelievably long lenses in the crowd- but I think I was able to get good shots with just a 200 mm.  The shot below is probably my favorite.

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Baby is learning to climb trees, and, according to the guide, falls many times a day, thus learning about gravity (!).  He was up pretty high when we moved on, and we were glad to miss the expected tumble.

Photography/computer note:  Before we left, I bought a new external hard drive for photo storage, because the old one was almost full.  Unfortunately, I don’t have enough room to upload all my San Diego photos until I get the new hard drive hooked up.  Expect to see more San Diego photos in the week ahead, as I get them uploaded.

Still

This week’s Texture Tuesday’s link-up features Kim’s new texture, minus 43, which was the temperature (including wind chill) where she lives in Manitoba when she created it.  I wanted to have some SNOW in today’s image, so I had to go back to a photo I took in November, when we were at Yellowstone.

It was a gray day with flat light- but still beautiful in the stillness of late autumn when the park is closed to traffic.

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I used one layer of texture, which I desaturated slightly, and reduced the opacity.

Day 341- Sacred Space

The Meditation Garden at Unity of Tustin was one of the highlights of my visit with Nevin.  She and Darrell have found a spiritual home there, and she was eager to show me around the amazing grounds today.  I was especially drawn to the labyrinth, which I find such a deeply beautiful spiritual symbol and practice.  This labyrinth was outlined with stones, and a magnificent angel was placed near the entrance.

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I have many more photos, but exhaustion is starting to set in.  It was a whirlwind of a visit- 3 appointments for my husband, hours of wonderful conversation, the meditation gardens, driving adventures, a lunch with a view of the ocean, and my husband’s iPhone being left in the rental car- and mysteriously disappearing within ten minutes of turning in the car to the company.  But this last event hardly put a damper on a wonderful two days- iPhones can be replaced, friends can’t!

Day 340- Nevin!

Look who we’re visiting today!

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We’re down in SoCal for business, so we took the opportunity to visit Nevin (and Darrell too) in their new home in Irvine.  They are so happy to be living close to family and are making new friends (but she misses our Rapunzels!).  We’re leaving in a moment to go out to dinner with them and catch up on all the news.It’s good to see them so happy- but it confirms for me that they aren’t moving back. 😦

Day 329- Travelers

We’re in that weird in between place where one has just crossed 3 or 4 states in two hours, is getting unpacked, washing clothes, and confronting all the things that must be done after a vacation.  The snow clothes are put away- and I just changed into capris to celebrate the California sunshine.  We sure are missing those little boys- and their parents too. . .

My camera gear seems to have made the trip unscathed- no thanks to me!  I wasn’t paying attention when the security folks somehow flipped my think tank over to put it through the scanner.  Yikes!  Since I had taken the laptop out, the camera, lenses, speedlight etc. were free to bounce around when turned upside down.  The camera is working; I haven’t had a chance to check out the other gear.

Here are a couple bonus photos from our drive yesterday.  Yes, that is the coyote I wrote about yesterday!

 

Day 328- A Snowy Drive

Our son-in-law took us on our traditional drive through the park today.  The snow isn’t deep yet, and the contrast between the rich hues of the willows and grasses and the white snow created beautiful scenes for our excursion.  We saw lots of bison and three coyotes (the kids’ favorite moment was when the coyote pooped on the hill beside the car. . .).

I took many photos; this one is my favorite so far.

 

Day 323- Gym Time

We spent much of the morning at the community center gym, which is filled with equipment for the kids. It is in the same building as Miles’ preschool, so Caitlin was able to get a bit of work done too.  Miles’ favorite activity right now is swinging on the rope; Henry likes the balls and being pulled around on the scooter board.  Both boys had a great time playing firefighters and hiding from “bad guys”.

Happy Henry!

 

Miles is so proud of being able to swing on the rope.

 

“The bad guys are hiding under here, Henry!”