Cottonwood sculpture

 One of the metal sculptures that line our main drag in Cottonwood. I call him "Cal"; don't know if he has another name. There are some "dogies" and a little dog, too. My photography class is going out on an early a.m. shoot on Saturday which I am looking forward to but a little nervous about.

foto fun @ the creek

Yesterday I went to nearby Cottonwood Creek to practice shooting water.  So nice to have a couple of days of good weather; this spring has been rainy, gray and dreary. Reminded me of my childhood days to go play by the creek; but now I have a good camera to go with ;>)

picmonkey.com

I used a new online picture editor called picmonkey.com to process this ordinary photo of tulips into something different.  Heard about this site thru picnik.com which is soon closing.

teehee it's me

I set the timer and went around in front of the lens; focus was incorrect but once processed looks ok. Got the free version of Perfect Effects and used framing and toning from their presets. Too much fun!

Blended photos

Found some great instructions at photokaboom.com to blend photos in myriad ways. The site owner is a photog teacher in nyc who gives well-detailed instructions for ps elements. My kind of fun!

Rain in the hills around Lake California

Yes, I love the dimensional feeling you can get when adding vignetting; tho I have learned in photography class that this is a fault of shadow from the lens hood or similar. As an effect to bring the center forward it works well from an artistic standpoint imho. This photo is of a recent stormy day here in Lake California; I was shooting from the east side of the air strip.

Clouds in Lake California

I love to see those wonderful big puffy clouds; this scene was shot near the airstrip in Lake California where big sky views are possible. The Canon t3i is quite enjoyable to use!

Crabapple blossoms with the new Canon t3i

I bought a new camera, a Canon t3i, my first dslr! And I'm taking a 6 week photography class @ the Red Bluff community center to help me learn to use it. This week the assignment is to learn how to set the TV and AV modes. Yay! I get it! [Pats self on head]
Here is a shot of our crabapple tree in bloom; thankfully the rain took a break today so I went out to shoot a bit.

flowering quince with bokeh

if i set the "scene" to "macro" and focus on something close it sometimes comes out nice like this.

Soft sky with branches photo

I think branches against the sky create a lovely pattern. This photo has been processed with the colored pencil filter in pse 9 to give it softness; razor sharp focus and brilliant color is not always preferable to me.

Nature dried flower

A natural dried weed flower found on a walk. I used pse 9 to add vignetting; I think it brings out the subject nicely. My camera, a Nikon coolpix, takes pix @ a 16:9 ratio, this does not translate fluidly into print sizes but would look good on my monitor. This crop is ok as a 6x4". I wonder if photo labs will add a paper size that works better with the 16:9 aspect ratio?

I am lichen this one

lichen on a rock today. so decorative, almost like a pattern on fabric.

shadow me with leaves

or could be called "Shadowbox". I call it expressive. makes me want to see more ;^)

clouds are fun, too

Oooh more fun with pse9 and Perfect Photo Suite 6, with Pandora radio for sound.

love puddles love taking photos love playing in photo software love a monday off love Pandora radio love this photo I took today.

fun with my photos and photoshop elements and Perfect photo Suite 6. Addictive but legal.

Moonrise backyard

Fun fiddling with fotos. tho technically a poor photo, I like the way it looks.

Nice abstract look at reflections in our Lake California, down by the boat launch/clubhouse area.

yay! photoshop elements 9 has layer masks. i wanted more dimension on the birds and wires so used some photoshop magic, but then it seemed so typically "birds on the wires"that i used a layer mask to erase one section of the filtered effect and liked the result. i just got a new wacom create tablet and pse 9 came with it. my creative juices have been stirred; another yay!

sun in a puddle

weather in a puddle, sun and clouds with concrete. trying to see more abstractly and create an interesting photo. added warming filter in photoshop and cropped to 8x5", an atypical proportion.