Photo Collages

A friend has inspired me by her example, to make the effort to learn more of what my PhotoShop Elements can do.  Last week I played around with making a couple of photo collages with it, as well as a scrapbook page. 

I am sure someone could get very creative with this stuff!  PSE is a pretty neat program, though, if anyone is looking for a photo editing software :o}  I received mine for Christmas 2 years ago, took 2 on-line courses on the basic functions plus a bit of  fun, and promptly forgot much of it.  Oh dear........

Moonset

I snapped this photo of the moon dropping in the foggy, western skies on my way to work yesterday morning.

California Sunrise

My kindred spirit that lives out of the California Bay Area took some mighty awesome foggy sunrise pictures recently. With her permission, I am posting my favorite one here, though I took the original photograph and put a mirror frame on the first one, and a reflection frame on the second one.

What do you think? Is she a budding professional photographer, or what?

Good-bye 2009

Nest of Robins

Taken in the lilac bush outside my father's door.

The feller that brags about how cheap he heats his home always sees the first robin. ~Kin Hubbard

Moon Dance

The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.
~ Frederic Lawrence Knowles

The Eensy Weensy Spider.....

Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xsi

Shutter Speed 1/125

F/4.5

ISO 400

Focal Length 60 mm

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly; "'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. ~ Mary Howitt

Swallowtail Butterfly

Taken with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xsi

Shutter Speed 1/100

F/5.6

ISO 400

Focal Length 300 mm

Butterflies are self propelled flowers. ~R.H. Heinlein

Architecture

The chapter I read in my Photos That Inspire book last night was on photographing buildings.

It says that frontal shots of entire buildings are uninteresting. One should tighten up and take the shot of just the point that you thought made it intriguing to take a picture in the first place. This is a church I photographed today in Monroe. I find the entire building to be somewhat mysterious and intriguing.

But, okay. I tightened up thinking the facade as well as the 3 windows below it were what I really liked. However, I know the instructor in that book would say it is still too busy to focus on one thing. I agree.

So I tightened the shot up even more, concentrating only on the 3 windows on the brick wall. Do you think this is the best shot? Do you find it pleasing or interesting?

After that, I zoomed in closer on another window, but included some flowering rhodies to add interest to the composition.

Then I focused in on one of the 'towers' on either side of the facade. Probably still not tight enough. What is that on the very tip top? I didn't see it when I was snapping the photo with my Canon PowerShot SX100 IS point and shoot. (I almost always have that camera in my purse when I go out.)

When I got home, though, I noticed it on the computer screen, so enlarged just that segment of the photo. Dang if it isn't a big ol' black bird posing for me! Makes me wonder what all that white stuff on there is now..........

A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into. ~Ansel Adams

Have Camera and PSE; Will Blog

I love playin' with my camera!

Here is the original photo (with added borders) of my gumballs. Lots of glare from the glass.


I am thinking I will use some of the panning shots I take for bottom layers in PSE, to place other photos on or in.

Polar-Co-ordinate filter in PSE applied.

Here is yesterday's peacock with the polar-co-ordinate filter on it. That may be my new favorite filter for now :o)

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. ~Robert Adams

Photo Fun

Sunday we went to a Fleece Farm with Scott and Bethany. A teacher they work with, owns and runs it. It is not too far from our house, up here in the back hill country. Scott asked to use my camera almost right away, so the first picture you see here is one he took.....

Isn't this such an awesome photo of a peacock?!?! What a great eye Scott has! For more photos of the fleece animals, check out Bethany L's blog site.

I have been eyeing the sidewalk chalk at the store's checkout stand for several weeks now. I keep thinking they would make some great pictures, though I don't have any interest in making drawings with them, but making pictures out of them! Here you see a simple photo of them, but if you notice my blog header, I tried out a show shutter speed with a bit of panning, too. This header was my favorite outcome.

Every day when the rain stops, I wander outside to see what has bloomed, and practice with my camera. This is (I believe), a flowering quince tree/bush. Way back when we lived in North Bend and were starting to build the house we live in now, we dug a bit of this up from a wet gulch, brought it out to the property here and planted it. It has become quite large over the years, and when it blooms, it is a spectacular mass of beautiful blossoms.

I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it. ~Author Unknown

Doodling with Bugs

I wanted to show you just a few of the many filter techniques you can use with PhotoShop Elements, or you probably have some similar things on your own editing programs, if you don't use PSE. Here is a photo I took at the Reptile Zoo of cockroaches in a tank. It is overexposed in parts, so first I increased the contrast up to 45%. It did the job of correcting that issue. Then.....

For this one I applied the 'Glowing Edges' filter. Looks like neon transparent bugs!

This one I used the 'Extrude' filter on. Looks more like a piece of impressionistic art.

This filter was called 'Poster'. It seemed to make the photo sharper and like it has a glossy finish on it. Not sure what it is supposed to do!

My favorite is this guy. The 'Polar Co-ordinates' filter made my bugs into a wonderful piece of modern art. Maybe I'll hang it on the wall! It's all in the Mind's Eye!

Signs and Wonders

Even though we woke up to another white winter wonderland this morning, the sun extended its rays towards the land today, shooed the snow away and, wonders of wonders, signs of spring and new growth appeared. I took this unique opportunity to grab my cameras and put into practice some of the 'how to's' I am learning in my on-line photography course. The Heather shrub (Calluna vulgaris) is the first flowering shrub in my yard in early spring each year.

Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus), known for emitting a strong skunk-like odor, is another early spring bloomer. It grows in bogs and soggy ground, which abound in our area.

A reflection in the bog nearby of the pink clouds of tonight's sunset, as well as trees.

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. ~Oscar Wilde

Accordian Photo Books

Okay, Folks! For all the curious that asked what that cute mushroom fabric was for.......

Here is craft project #2 finished

Mine, from my photos of flowers from the yard.....

Miss M's (and the awesome fabric)

......of family photos of Miss Livi, her younger sister

I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost - that is important.
~Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Playin' Around

Micaela, Olivia, Owen and Zach in Hawaii

I am taking an on-line course to learn how to use my PhotoShop Elements. Having fun :o)

Christmas Gift

I have a lot of learning to do with this!

Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.
~General George S. Patton

The Bees and the Spiders....

Out in my garden:


Did You Know:

• A bee has 5 eyes. Three simple eyes on the top of its head, and 2 big compound eyes on each side of the head. They cannot focus their eyes because they have no pupils.
• Each of the bees 6 legs has 5 main joints. Imagine having arthritis if you were a bee!
• A bee can fly forward, sideways and backwards, as well as hover in one place.

When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer; you may want to visit the bee's house some day. ~ Congo Proverb

On the kitchen deck:

Did You Know:

• A strand of spider silk long enough to circle the Earth would weigh less than one pound.
  
• A spider web is stronger than a steel wire of the same thickness.


• When its web gets old, torn or is no longer sticky, a spider often eats it and turns the old silk into fresh new strands.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming with a goal in front and not behind. ~ George Bernard Shaw

If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive. ~ American Quaker Saying

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, read Charlotte's Web aloud to us. A chapter each afternoon following the lunch recess. I buried my head in my arms on my desk and cried when Charlotte died. I loved that spider!

"I will not be going back to the barn," she said.
Wilbur leapt to his feet. "Not going back?" he cried. "Charlotte, what are you talking about?"
"I'm done for," she replied. "In a day or two I'll be dead......
Hearing this, Wilbur threw himself down in an agony of pain and sorrow. Great sobs racked his body. He heaved and grunted with desolation. "Charlotte," he moaned. "Charlotte! My true friend!" (I felt every heave and sob of Wilbur's.)

Then, a few pages later:

"Good-bye!" she whispered. Then she summoned all her strength and waved one of her front legs at him.
She never moved again. Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans and the entertainers were packing up their belongings and driving away in their trailers, Charlotte died. The fair grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.

Man. Still brings a tear to my eye. All these years later. Good grief! I have to admit that I was never able to read this book out loud to my own children. Nope. They had to read it themselves.

So think twice next time you scream in terror and wallop that friendly spider in the bathtub with a magazine!

Moonrise

How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature's Close-ups

White spider making its egg nest in preparation for the winter (Go, Charlotte!)......... Ladybird Beetle basking in the late summer sun.............
Lily lining up to shoot out pollen to insure its own propagation...........

My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God's lurking places, to attend to all the oratorios and the operas in nature. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Beauty from our Mountainside

Long live the sun which gives us such color. ~ Paul Cézanne