Looking for a subject that I could photograph throughout the day, I settled on this silly frog. Normally, it sits on a rock, but I decided that putting it about eye level in the Palm tree would help with consistency when shooting (which it turned out not to really work this way). Also, the Palm tree itself offers nice texture.
First shot was taken at 6:25 pm… this frog is facing west, into the setting sun. Something is making a shadow in the photo… is it me?
I have only the one theme left for the month of March! I’ve struggled with this one because I am uncomfortable with the word “blessing” as it is not a word I commonly use as it usually has a religious connotation. So I looked up the meaning of “blessing” to see if the photos I took last night couldn’t work for me in some way, and here it is — “Blessing: Something promoting or contributing to happiness, well-being…”
And now for the more expected use of the word “disorder….”
This is a photo that I took earlier this month for the theme “disorder.” It’s taken at on of the discount food tents of which there are several in Quartzsite during high season. If you don’t mind out-of-date foods, some real bargains here. And you were wondering what happens to all the stuff when they reach their expiry date?
Let’s see… I processed this in PSE 8, I added one layer to burn in color.. then made a copy of the layer and played with the “correct camera distortion” just to add a little more focus to this photo.
Also, this being Quartzsite and the end of March… this tent and most all the hundreds of other temporary businesses are now gone. Winter residents are leaving in droves.
From my Mac built-in dictionary:
disorder |disˈôrdər|
noun
a state of confusion : tiresome days of mess and disorder.
• the disruption of peaceful and law-abiding behavior : recurrent food crises led to periodic outbreaks of disorder.
Maybe I read or see too many dystopian books/movies! I look a this photo and the refrain “Four Dead in Ohio” goes through my head…
This was not staged… a friend was showing us this toy, driving it over piles of rocks to show what it could do, and I was snapping pictures. I saw this shot coming about and well… I got it!
I processed this in PSE 8 — burned in the blue color a bit, cloned out a pesky bungy cord lying under the big truck, added a layer and used the Water Color filter at 50% transparency and cropped to this odd (disorderly) shape.
Also of note… since the photo was taken just after 3:30 on a slightly overcast day… enough to keep the harsh sunlight out.
Of course, it if was February, I would have used this for “Big and Small” and kept my civil disorder observations to myself <grin>.
Any guesses on what this is? No… not it’s not a MOMA abstract painting. It’s a macro view of of a piece of blue glass slag that I found at the Rock Shop. Please looke at the large print to really appreciate it. What do you see in it?
This is processed… First I did the High Pass Overlay to bring out the patterns. then I added another layer and placed it under the High Pass Overlay and worked on the levels and also burned in where ever I saw an abstraction that seemed to look like something to me. I turned off the original background layer… and then saved it in a lightly larger photo size than I normally do so that it fills more of the screen when it is enlarged.
Blue rocks fascinate me. It seems like such a non-rock color to me. I fell in love with the blue mineral in quartz matrix which is called Kyanite the first time I saw it many years ago. In fact, it starting me on a small collection of blue minerals back when I was a collector. Although some people do make jewelry with Kyanite, it typically is not considered a gemstone. It has some industrial use… and of course is of value to collectors.
The background rock is a geode. This photo was taken surreptitiously, thus I thought it was lucky to catch the same colors in a different type of rock right there in the background.
Tuesday morning was overcast and I was able to see these Argentine Cactus blooms mid-morning. They are night blooming thus if it had been a bright sunny morning, the blossoms would have wilted.. in fact, many were all ready “gone.”
I realize that this is a bit of a distortion on mini assignment #3…
The double photos below were done in Adobe Photoshop Elements (which I already own and should be happy with) and Lightroom 2. I’m driving myself crazy evaluating applications.
Photo Below: Processed in Adobe Lightroom 2. Used Preset: Tone Curve – Strong Contrast. Used brush to bring out bee in flower, but not all that successful. Actually tried about 1000 things since I don’t know what I’m doing and am just evaluating this copy. But this is what I settled on.
Below: This is my photo of “gone blossoms.” I really didn’t do anything to this photo.
Not having anything for the theme “thin,” and feeling that all my photos of the African Daisy were looking oh-so-boring — I decided to change the perspective and try to take some of the photos from the “thin” side of the petal.
Later when I looked at the other photos, I realized that no matter how these photos are taken, these African Daisy petals look like the late 60s/early 70s “flower power!”
We don’t have a lot of flies here… but when we do they seem unusually large… and clever.
This one was buzzing around and avoiding my attempts to shoo him out the window that I nicely opened just for him. But he wouldn’t leave, just kept at annoying me. So, I stopped being compassionate… and got the flyswatter out. Rather than hiding, he went up into the overhead lamp where, by its very shape, there was no chance of swatting him.
So, I got him with the shutter of my Canon SD95o IS in digital macro mode instead.
I took several shots as he was intent on taunting me by cleaning his legs and remaining in such a conspicuous and unreachable place.
This shot was the best one. Shutter was 1/80; aperture f/5.8; focal length 28.5; ISO 200.
I used the blur tool to saturate the color, used the overlay with the High Pass filter, cropped the image, and then adjusted the levels. I love getting to know how to use PSE better!
While standing in the road having a conversation, one of my friends lit a cigarette. Just struck me as ironic that she should have money in her hand.
I processed this by first doing auto levels in PSE, then I used the Sponge to Saturate the burning end of the cigarette and the nicotine in the filter. I then selected the hand, cigarette and money and made a copy of the background layer. I changed it to a ”Difference” layer and cut out the selected area. Each of these 3 photos have the opacity of the diference layer set at a different level (top at 100%, middle at 75% and bottom at 50%. The bottom is also feathered.
I like the effect of all 3 together, given the nature of the subject matter.
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