A New Orchid

I bought a new orchid @ Trader Joe's. It was difficult to choose ONE, the store in Redding had so many lovely orchids to pick from. I now have two orchids, so it's the beginning of a small collection.  ;)

A Duotone for Thurs

An unusual bit of fog this a.m. due to some actual precipitation here in N California.

And always fun to play around in Lightroom.

Red Amarylis Photo

Big change in this bud in just one day.

Emerging Amarylis Photo 2014

I received an Amarylis bulb from my sis for my birthday in December and when I took the bulb out of the box it was already growing! Yesterday I noticed the red starting to show so decided to document the emerging bloom for this blog. It is so lovely and sculptural; I love nature's artwork! In the foreground is my 22 yr old grape ivy.

Available breakfast light Canon T3i w/ Canon 100 mm macro L 2.8 IS, edited in Lightroom 4.

Look at the Sky

Branches lace with sunset imminent behind, Lr edits.

Oh One, Oh Two!

The sky is fun to shoot, always different. And with winter's bare trees you get an additional dimension.

I used the 17-55 lens and spent some time on cropping this one; there were some distracting roof protrusions.  What I liked was the contrails framing the tree so I removed what wasn't that story. Hey, I found words for it!

Day One, Oh One

Yay! I took a photo and edited in Lightroom.

Just the top of that tree was in sunlight. I saw it as a nice warm and light contrast to the dark tangle below.

Tomato King

Sometimes when using Photoshop I forget the simple approach, like adding a layer and painting 40% black over some distracting elements.

I like the speckles and green-ness of  this "Tomato King".

Fun with Filters

A sweet filter effect from Filter Forge, a plug-in for Phtoshop.

Realistic Unnatural Color

I added the yellow to the grass at the bottom of this photo in Adobe Camera Raw just to add some interest to the photo. Another empty lot shot from earlier this year.

Natural Lens Flare

The empty lots scattered around Lake California are great spots to practice photography or painting. This is a shot from last spring that caught the wildflowers and a nice lens flare.

Sunflower Variation

My dslr, Photoshop cc and Lightroom 4 are providing me with endless photo variation entertainment. I created 4-5 versions of this sunflower crop in as many minutes!

Lake California Landscape

Looking west from the clubhouse parking lot where there's a bit of a rose garden.

A recent photoshop effort. There are so many choices of paths and tools and styles and brushes and textures and filters that The digital artist can almost endlessly restyle every project. I bought some wonderful brushes from creative market today, by artist Kyle's Pro Design Tools. They are actually presets that make inking, drawing, painting, and coloring easy in photoshop. Totally worth the few bux he's asking!

Have been compositing in Photoshop CC, yes, decided it is worth it for $20 a month.

Also taking a class online here which has been sooo helpful. Plenty of tuts on youtube as well. Hours of fun for the digital artist.

Dragonfly on a (Barbed) Wire

On the way to Davis to pick up my (college student) son, I stopped at a rest stop I had never stopped at b4. There were a lot of dragonflies and it was breezy; a bunch were hanging onto the barbed wire fence. Only had the 17-55 so I couldn't get very close; this is cropped in. It looks so fragile as it delicately holds onto the barb.

The Moon in June

A color photo of the weekend moon. Looks like it's gonna roll down that hill! I love raw files and non-destructive editing.

Big Moon in Black and White

I went out last eve to shoot the supermoon, as tonight's forecast is cloudy. Editing in Lightroom 4, the pros make it look easy, but it's a complex program. In this version I removed color and some foreground trees; it looks a bit otherworldly to me now. I used the Tamron 70-300 vc to bring the moon in close.

Fuschia Hollyhocks

Some pretty fuschia hollyhocks from the backyard. Photo taken a month or two ago; it's too hot for hollyhocks now.

Close up Granite Column, UCDavis

Another example of the 50mm reverse macro (granite); there is a lovely refraction near the center of this shot. I hadn't realized b4 that granite has a crystalline structure.