As the cormorants were busily building their nests, these two red-tailed hawks looked on- most likely with bad intentions!
By the Gate
This little gate caught my eye as we were walking to the petroglyph site the other day.
Happy New Year!
Thank you for letting me share my photos with you this year.
I’ll be back tomorrow to begin my SIXTH year of photo-blogging.
May your new year be full of wonder, peace, love and joy!
Upper Terraces, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park
The Visitor
I’m used to being surrounded by elk at my daughter’s house here in Yellowstone, but yesterday we had a special visitor! It was pouring rain, but I managed to take this photo through the latticework on the back porch. Yes, he saw me, but I was very far away and using a zoom lens. I chose to edit this photo in black and white, because a bison just doesn’t look right on a bright green lawn!
Water’s Edge
When we were walking at the lake a week ago, I was captivated by the green of this tree, which contrasted with the darker trees bordering the lake. It was hard to photograph because I could only see it through branches- so I didn’t. But I saw it again on our way back- with a little girl under it- and knew I had to try. I was already envisioning it as a painterly image. I took the resulting photo into Lightroom and then Photoshop for some cloning work. Then, I used Topaz Simplify to remove details and give it a bit of a watercolor look. I blended it with the original image, bringing back some detail- and finished it off with some textures. Playing with images is part of what keeps stress out of my life- and it’s so much fun!
Macro Magic
I bought a Clickin Moms Lensbaby tutorial series back when I only had my Lensbaby Mobile for the iPhone, (no Composer Pro, no optics), because I was so eager to learn how to use these cool lenses. One of the tips I learned was that the Edge 80 with macro converters does a great job capturing sun rays, especially when taking photos under leafy trees. I only have one tree at this point that has enough leaves to provide a canopy for the sun to just peek through, so I spent 10 or 15 minutes the other day crouched uncomfortably beneath the plum tree looking up at the sun. I thought I didn’t get anything much until I played with a few images in Lightroom and discovered that I did get some interesting effects from the sun- including sun rays. Fun!
The image below is the same as the last photo in the collage at the top of the post, except it has some Florabella textures added.
Remembering
We were in Chico, my hometown, this week, because of business my husband had nearby. It was a very brief and bittersweet visit, because I knew I might not have occasion to return, now that we live in Arizona. My college roommate, Carol drove up from Sacramento to keep me company; I have some fun photos from that visit to share with you tomorrow!
On the way out of town yesterday, we stopped at the cemetery, where the ashes of my mother and three grandparents are located. On my other visits, I didn’t take time to really notice how beautiful the grounds are- or maybe it wasn’t at the same time of year. This time I took time to soak it all in.
Beautiful oaks shade the lawn.
The artificial flowers we put in the vases by their vaults have disappeared. My mother would have disliked them anyway; she was a lady with impeccable taste!
melinda anderson photography 