Playing with my phone

I’ve learned two important lessons about photography in the last four years (and I’m not talking f-stops here. . .):

1. Light is everything.

2. Beauty is everywhere.

I know I used to know about the second one when I was a child; I’m sure all children do.  I noticed everything and took note.  Then I grew up and got busy.  Now that I am retired I notice again.  And take note.  And appreciate!

The other day I was walking through my bedroom and noticed the vertical blinds-probably the least appreciated item in our home.  I don’t like vertical blinds and plan to replace them someday.  But that day, I noticed. And took note. And appreciated.

 

Photo Sep 06- 11 02 25 AMPhoto Sep 06- 8 40 25 AMI love the play of light and shadow.  Yes, there is beauty everywhere!

I then played with some of the images.  I started by making a collage of two of them in Pic Stitch.Photo Sep 06- 8 55 21 AMThen I brought the collage into Pixlr Express and had fun adding effects with the Effects panel.

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Great fun!

The next day was the day of the beginning of the Mother of all Monsoons- torrential rains and flooding fed by Hurricane Norbert pushing inland.  I stayed inside (when I wasn’t running outside to make sure the hill wasn’t sliding away. . .) and set up a still life for Be Still 52 (the one I posted yesterday).  I was proud of myself for remembering to take some iPhone shots as I was getting things ready. This one had a basic edit in Snapseed, with some adjustments in tone.  Then I added a texture in Mextures.

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I couldn’t resist taking a photo with my Lensbaby Mobile.  Edited in Snapseed. Love that blur!

Photo Sep 07- 10 27 17 AMLinking up with App- Happy Wednesday today!

 

 

 

Melinda8 Comments

Blood Moon

Like everyone else, I was riveted to last night’s lunar eclipse AKA blood moon.  I set up a chair in the driveway, and settled in wearing a stocking cap, gloves, warm socks, and a fleece jacket, accompanied by my camera, tripod, cable release, binoculars, flashlight, and a Lisa Gardner thriller.  It was so cold! And I was a bit concerned that a coyote ( or perhaps a scorpion) might come by.  I snapped photos every ten minutes, and was enjoying myself- but then the moon turned a beautiful orange-ish color, looking three dimensional like a painting of some distant planet. Unbelievable! I took a few (very dark) photos, but mostly just sat gazing at it until I could gaze no more.  My photos do not begin to capture what I saw.  But that’s okay.  I SAW it!

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Melinda5 Comments

Tulip Macros

tulips-2Gorgeous red and white tulips decorated the tables at the party given by our friends, Debbie and Dale to celebrate their daughter, Aryn’s marriage to Jason. The young couple currently live in Holland, so tulips were definitely the perfect choice.  I had fun being the photographer for the event and managed to have a lot of fun while taking photos. Debbie gave me one of the arrangements to take home, so of course they will be making several appearances on the blog!

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On the rocks

My husband and I tried geocaching this weekend! Armed with a GPS and an iPhone with the geocaching app, we searched for three geocaches (out of hundreds to choose from) in our area.  We started with an easy one at Lynx Lake, where we had lunch- I think it took us about 20 minutes to find.  Then we went out to Willow Lake and quickly found another (a tiny one this time), although it took us about 20 minutes also, most of which was spent tromping through weeds and climbing an embankment to get to the location.

Our confidence high, we tried to find a third one hidden on or around the granite boulders closer to the lake itself.  It was an educational geocache in that there was a quiz as part of it, based on the information the cache hider provided about the Liesegang bands or rings found atop the granite rocks at the location.  These bands are concentric circles or rounded squares formed by a chemical process involving erosion and minerals and other things beyond my comprehension.  And they are pretty amazing to look at!  I can attest to how cool they are, because I spent a good hour and a half looking at them as we searched for the cache. I kind of gave up about halfway through, because the iPhone battery gave out (why didn’t we bring the new portable charger I just gave my husband for his birthday?).  My husband had become pretty obsessed, though and was charging around determined to not be beaten.  But beaten we were- at least for this weekend- but we’ll be back!

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P.S. If you are interested in finding out more about geocaching, go to geocaching.com and set up a free account.

Melinda4 Comments

A Birthday Walk

Special breakfast treats, presents, phone calls and facetime with kids and grandkids, and a walk at the lake were all part of my husband’s special day yesterday. And evening brought a delicious dinner and cake at Debbie and Dale’s house.

We puzzled over the big white bird we could see in a tree by the lake, but it was too far to see clearly, even with the zoom lens.After, looking at it on the computer (and asking my bird expert friend, Carol), we have decided it is a black-shouldered kite, which isn’t supposed to be in our area.

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Textures by Jessica Drossin and Kerstin Frank

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings from Yellowstone, where we are spending our Thanksgiving with our daughter, son-in-law, two grandsons, and our son. Photography is taking a backseat to family time, but I am attempting to edit photos and upload them from my husband’s iPad. I hope this Thanksgiving finds you healthy, happy, and surrounded by those you love!

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Sedona- with clouds!

My friend, Carol and I had a wonderful time photographing beautiful Sedona yesterday.  Carol, Lonnie, and I arrived in Sedona in late morning and used the midday (horrible light) hours shopping and eating lunch.  By 3 p.m., clouds had started to move in, and by 4pm the sun was lower in the sky, making the light so much better for photography.  We started out on the paths to Bell Rock and the Courthouse, and ended up at the Chapel of the Holy Cross.  I never get tired of these red rocks!

Chapel of the Holy Cross and surrounding rocks:

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The Courthouse and Bell Rock:
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Fill’er up!

We took Carol to visit the town of Jerome- one of my favorite Arizona “must- sees”.  While there we got a call from Susan, our college roommate, and we ended up having a great lunch with her and her husband, Chris at Grapes, a local eatery.  Although Carol and I took photos, the emphasis was on visiting and reminiscing about our college days. Along the street, I snapped this photo of an old gas pump, which I edited in Perfect Effects 4 with a pseudo HDR filter.

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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

CM Monthly Blog Link-up

I haven’t participated in the Clickin Moms Monthly Blog Group’s link-up for the last two months, because I was so busy with getting ready for our move from California and then with moving into our house in Arizona.  But this month I am BACK!

The topic for this month is a difficult one for me- Humanizing the Non-human (huh?).  After reading the details and see examples I have chosen three photos to post. Two are pretty abstract and open to interpretation (I’m offering no explanations- not sure I have any!); the last one is a pretty literal response to the challenge, at least I think it is- but maybe not.  Anyway- here are some photos for your enjoyment!

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Check out what the other photographers in the group have done with this topic! Start with Lisa Jones and then follow the links around the circle.

Melinda9 Comments