2011 blog

Check out my new 2011 blog

Sadness

Doesn't he just break your heart!
Kayla and her best friend were upstairs playing and ignoring him.
The rest of us were downstairs ignoring his begging for treats.
Poor baby!

Thanksgiving

She told her daddy not to cut up the drumstick -- she wanted a whole one.

Halloween pirate

Well, I had this notion that Gregory the pirate ought to be seen on a pirate ship, and it took me more than a week to locate the photograph I wanted to use. Actually, the ship is the Constellation in Baltimore's harbor -- a photo from 5 years ago that had been downloaded to a disc and it took some searching to find it.

But for Halloween it needed a little spooky-ing up, so I added a grunge layer and edging.

Halloween ballerina

Here's my favorite 6 year old dressed up as a ballerina for Halloween -- dirty knees on the tights by the time I snapped her -- no front teeth.

Photoshop is a wonder! This was taken in her living room with toys on the floor and a smaller child in the background. So I cut out Kayla using refine edge to get strands of hair, and put in a background using a modified paper, a star, and a heart from Digital Scrappers. Sorry I didn't pay attention to what issues they came from.

Sunset

As I got on the highway to go home from my daughter's house I saw the most breathtaking sunset -- but there wasn't a safe place to stop and get a good view for a photograph.

Halfway to home the tops of the autumn-colored trees were lit and the trees below were already dark -- another awesome sight that I couldn't just stop to shoot.

So I stopped at the off-ramp near home and took this shot instead. The clouds were still lit from below by the setting sun, but nowhere near as beautiful as the shots I missed.

Sun flare

I've been trying to capture the starry sun flare for quite some time and yesterday morning as I started to drive out of my garage I thought I might just be able to catch it!

This was processed in Lightroom to crop it a little and add a vignette, then in CS5 using content aware fill to cut out the edge of my car window which I wasn't careful enough to spot in the viewfinder -- and add a "frame" and some text as well. Content aware fill also let me cut out the roof of my neighbor's garage. :-)

Wet

Summer's almost over, but there's still some hot weather to enjoy playing with the neighbor kids in the back yard with their rocket hose.

Ignition:

Liftoff!

Splash!

And look what you can do when you put your finger on the nozzle!

Daylilies

My daughter has some lovely daylilies! These are two different colors (pink and purple) and shot with two different cameras. I tried the reverse macro thing but couldn't get a handle on it.

Red

Petunias

and geraniums

Blur

Inspired by Hector at the Elements Village...

Once again I tried most of my lenses and this shot is a crop from the 75-300mm lens
Aperture priority, ISO 100, F5.6, on a tripod

I tried the 60 mm but didn't like the color.

baby in a flower - 1 year old (part 2)

baby in a flower - 1 year old

Derek is a year old now.

Baby sleeping in a flower

Playing with "baby in a flower" again.
Baby Derek was just a few weeks old last year when this photo was taken.
The clematis is a new shot.

The photo above has a warmed skin tone and the baby is highlighted.
Someone had commented that the baby just blended in...

Singing in the rain...

We had a garage sale today and it rained off and on
but Kayla had fun singing and dancing in the rain!
And I had fun playing with a film strip...

Two photos below in a larger size.

Crowded

The white spiderwort in my garden didn't flower well last year,
but this year they are crowded!

The first shot with the 70-200mm lens was kind of blurry, but I like the look.
For the second shot I switched to a 60mm S lens and a tripod.

It's a bright sunny day and with the sunshine hitting the white blossoms they came out washed out -- overexposed -- so I stood between the sun and the plant to make some shade.

Close to home

I like the bokeh shooting this ivy geranium from this direction. The grass and dappled sunshine in the front yard makes a nice soft background.

Blossom

I don't know what I did any different with this shot, but the water came out dark as you can see. The day was bright and sunny, and the other shots at the lily pond were overexposed, actually. I was playing with a hood and a polarizing filter, but it's a mystery to me...

Young and old

A clematis flowering near the ground.

Well, the bud is still young and the open flower is getting old!
OK -- kind of a stretch isn't it.

I was experimenting in CS5 with the content aware feature and "fixed" the open flower where some critter took a bite out of a petal. It's pretty amazing. And there was a dead leaf in the upper left that I removed with a big selection and content aware --pouf!

And I'm still playing with making "frames" with loose brushes. This one isn't half bad...

Yellow -- and white

Honeysuckle growing near the river.