Daily Image - Nov 2012 Archive

01 Nov 12. Our first Christmas together, that would have been in '67, saw us with our first Christmas tree. It was about 6 feet tall, had these lovely little cones, and smelled wonderful, filling our tiny school housing unit, an approximate 800 sq ft house, with a fragrant pine smell that, along with the cones, made the season. Walking among a lot of small evergreen trees coated in cones at our local nursery a couple weeks ago brought back some wonderful memories of those early years, in particular that first Christmas tree which I think may have been a Scotch Pine. I took a lot of shots of those small trees with cones in the nursery and thought I'd play with one of them for today's submission. This started out with a small amount of cropping to remove a distracting white edge on the right side, then I duped the base layer and applied a couple of filters to it, one to increase the micro contrast, and another to give it a very small amount of a warming glow. Then I duped that layer, and to it I added a bit of a creative darkening using a pre-set called dark night. With these two layers stacked one above the other, I applied the luminosity blend mode to the top layer and then reduced the opacity of that final outcome to 80%. And this piece of Christmas wrapping paper is what results. Nikon D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 6.3.

02 Nov 12. When we moved back to the PNW and began wandering around our Ballard neighborhood in which many of my images have been taken, we were surprised to see a lovely little shrub growing in many areas which sported an almost pop-it bead plastic look in the color of purple. I never had any idea as to what it was, but two years ago we decided to purchase a couple of the Beauty Berry plants in containers to plant when we moved across the sound. Now we are here and they are finally in the ground. Planted close to the house in a corner, I'm assuming they will winter well as they did manage to make it while sitting out in the open in Ballard. I thought I would share a shot of these pretty little plants but the idea was better than the results. So I took to doing a bit of manipulation of the photo to arrive at something I thought might be appreciated. Normally the leaves of the plant are green, and they are still green when the berries turn purple, but as I just recently took the photo the leaves have turned their fall color of yellow. Now even though the yellow and purple made for some nice color, it wasn't enough by itself to be all that appealing. So with a couple layers of manipulations blended with straight shots, I arrived at what you see today. The colors are only slightly saturated, and of course the wavy lines are what the software is generating, but they are based on the structure present in the real plant. Now I never knew the name of the plant until I decided to write this and did a web search for small shrub with purple berries. As it turns out, this plant is supposedly as good a deterrent of bothersome insects as DEET. So if you are tired of buying insect repellant in a bottle or can, you might want to consider purchasing a few Beauty Berries. D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200;ISO 400; 1/200 sec @ f /10.

05 Nov 12. We'll look at another from the Mt Baker shoot for today. This image may strike you as a little bit different in that the mountain should appear to be projecting forward. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the main one is that bright colors come forward while dark colors recede. Thus the mountain being the brightest part of the image appears to be closer to you than it might otherwise. I've also increased the detail in the mountain more than in any other part of the picture, so your eye is drawn to that detail. Starting with the original image, I made a copy of it, then blended those two layers using an overlay mode. I then reduced the opacity of the top layer to 80%. Then I used a plug-in filter to both bring out the detail and add a bit of a glow. Next I added a hue/saturation layer to increase the reds, and then reduced the opacity of that layer to 95%. The I did a second detail enhancement to the banks and the water, and then another just to the mountain the effect of which I reduced by 50%. A curves layer was then added to give for s slightly more contrasty presentation, and finally a levels layer to shift the highlight side of the spectrum a small amount. All that was then collapsed to a single layer to give you what you are seeing. Nikon D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 100; 1/640 sec @ f / 7.1

06 Nov 12. A few weeks back I shared an image quite similar to this one taken from the trail to Bagley Lakes. In that image I had done a bit of manipulation, you may recall, to enhance the sky which was rather bland at the time the photo were taken. This one is pretty much as it came out of the camera, save for a small bit of micro contrast enhancement. The main trail in the photo, the one in the center leads in a partial "circle"taking you in a loop above the grouping of small lakes. It is a relatively easy trail, nicely maintained, sufficiently wide for walking two abreast if you aren't carrying a lot of gear, and probably doesn't change more than 100 feet in altitude once you reach it from the main area parking lot. The trail to the lakes in the smaller one on the right, and it has perhaps a 300 foot change in altitude once you enter it from the parking lot. There is a steep drop from the parking lot over a potentially dangerous rock face to get to either trail. The small trail to the right of the big one in the center of the image, immediately to the left of the group of string of tall, skinny evergreens, is the path to the Bagley Lakes Trail, a portion of which can be seen on the other side of that line of trees. The colors in this image are very close to what we were enjoying that afternoon as we walked a small portion of that trail, our desire for capturing as much of what we saw as possible curtailing the total amount of real estate we traversed. D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f /11 on a tripod.

07 Nov 12. Our trip down the long incline at Falls View Park ended up in our finding a very disappointing "falls". Now to be fair, it was near the end of a very dry summer, so there wasn't a lot of water running anywhere. Three days prior, while participating in the Mt Baker retreat, several of the falls I generally shoot were either totally dry or just a trickle. So what we saw when we reached the bottom was more than what we saw at Mt Baker. Still, since we had to work for the Falls View stuff, it was a greater disappointment than was the Mt Baker area. I shot several different HDR series of what was there, and this started out as a four shot HDR series. I played with it for about an hour but finally decided that it was not going to provide the results I desired in color, so I thought I'd see what could be accomplished in B & W. I tried several different approaches to it and ultimately decided that what made for the best result was to view it as thought I had been using a deep red filter. The original setting was relatively dark with just the back end of the stream receiving any real pretty light. But by playing around with the micro structure and some curves layers that were masked out where not needed, the conversion to B&W went reasonably well. Nikon D300s; ISO 200; Aperture Priority;1/1 sec @ f /16 (middle of 5 exposures) on a tripod.

08 Nov 12. A short drive from our home is found Pt Gamble, an old lumber mill community dating from the 1850s. It's now a popular place to visit for some wonderful ice cream, a look at a large shell collection (both found in the general store), wedding and other ceremonies, as well as attending any of the many activities that are held on the local grounds throughout the year. Last summer even sported a Civil War enactment called the Skirmish of Port Gamble. Now there was never a Civil War battle fought here, but it certainly garnered a lot of observers, us included. Parts of the old lumber mill are still in existence, although they are totally dysfunctional and mostly in a state of decay. Along the shoreline one can easily reach part of the old mill, either by small craft or just swimming out to it. There is a set of pilings that are very close to the shore, and they are most easily photographed. While we were visiting a few weeks back, I thought it would be fun to play with them to see what I might come up with. Because of rather harsh lighting conditions, I chose to go with an HDR approach. That provided me with a marginally acceptable image, but not quite what I was hoping to achieve. So I applied a filter to the HDR composite in an attempt to give the image the sparkle that you often see coming off the water but which is hard to capture. The result of applying the filter got me a lot closer to my desired final result, although it still isn't the ideal mood I was trying to create. But I think it's close enough to convey the idea, as least to some degree. Nikon D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f/10 (middle of 5 exposures).

09 Nov 12. A very good friend, and highly acclaimed photographer, has often commented on competition results with the phrase, "what do the judges know?" Earlier this week I had an opportunity to reflect on just how accurate that phrase is/was. I entered two images into a local competition, the one you are receiving today, and the gray moody one of Picture Lake I shared about 5 weeks ago. That image I consider to be one of my very best while the image for today was one I did just for fun. The moody image scored in the mid 30s and this one in the 40s, on a scale of 1 - 45. The Picture Lake image took some degree of talent to achieve, including knowing how to work in the fog, while today's fun image of clouds required being able to punch a button, literally! So my thoughts on that evening competition was "what do the judges know?" And how about you? Nikon D30s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

12 Nov 12. No image for today, but instead, a pattern of random design. I'll explain. This past weekend was the annual NWCCC annual conference for which I was responsible for putting together a slide show of the winners of the digital competition. (I was also responsible for the competition, but that has no bearing on this aspect.) I wanted something original for the background for the text slides, so I made a background texture from scratch. Now while that may sound difficult, it is both amazingly simple and a little challenging at the same time. The easy part is the actual creation, the more challenging aspect is getting what you want. Since I was asked how I did it, I figured some of you might also be interested. Here is how it is done. Starting with a blank sheet of canvas, you select the gradient tool and then pick two starting colors. If you have a specific color in mind for the final piece of art, begin by using the opposite colors. Next, select the linear gradient (the others will work but it will be much more difficult to get something nice UNLESS you like hard edges, in which case do not use the linear option.) Next, select the foreground to background option for how the gradient will be applied, and finally, chose the "difference" mode. Now, with the gradient tool active, simply click and drag across your piece of canvas. You can drag in any direction, for as long or as short a stroke as you want, and it won't matter. It will however greatly affect how your project will look. If any one stroke is undesirable, simply step back one and it will be gone. You can mix and match colors, and gradients, but you MUST remain in difference mode. If you find what I'm sharing today to be of even mild interest, give it a try. ISO and all the rest irrelevant for this submission.

13 Nov 12. A picture puzzle for today which started out as a shot of fall foliage in the parking lot of our motel in Abbotsford, B.C. a couple weeks back. The original had some nice colors but they were a bit garish, so I duped the original, cropped out some bright areas that were very distracting, enhanced the fine detail to give it a more structured look, added a vibrance layer which was adjusted until I got the look I wanted, merged those two layers together, then reduced the opacity of the adjusted layer to 87% and with a mask in place, painted out the effect from selected leaves to make them prominent in the image. Finally, I duped that layer, painted out the remaining few bright spots and flattened it all. Each of the adjustments was of a minimal amount, but the resultant image is quite different than that with which I started.Now all you have to do is paste it onto some cardboard and have it cut into 1,000 pieces. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 500; 1.125 sec @ f / 6.3.

14 Nov 12. Having been in attendance at several photo conferences in the past 30 days, it is becoming increasingly obvious to me how little I know about this world of digital imaging. Each venue I've attended lately has only served to make me aware of my lack of skills in working these digital creatures, but they have also created in me a strong desire to try and fix that. Hopefully, once we get this house closer to completion and the holidays have passed, I can devote my full attention to the task of getting a better grip on digital editing. In the meantime, I have set a goal of attempting to work on one image a day in hopes of bringing out the very best of what there is in it. Having just finished reading both The Killing of Kennedy followed by The Killing of Lincoln, and having been a visitor to the D.C area earlier this year, I pulled up a shot of Lincoln - one of quite a few taken early one very chilly March a.m.- and tried to create something from it that I felt made a statement. Today's submission is that image and this is what I did. Starting with the base image, I duped the layer, ran a detail enhancement of it, then masked it and painted onto the dupe the enhancement effect to bring out Mr Lincoln from his surroundings. I then duped that layer and changed the blend mode to multiply, cancelled the mask, and reduced the opacity to 60%. I then flattened those two layers, duped the resulting layer, and removed a few little annoying bright areas. That layer was then flattened with the previous layer. Then I added a color adjustment layer, reduced the saturation of the yellow to -93 and the red to - 72. Then I converted what I had to a B&W image with a high overexposure look, reduced the opacity of that to 48%, and ran a noise reduction on that. I then did a tiny amount of brightening the eyes. Since the noise reduction also tried to remove my detail enhancement, I masked out the noise reduction on the area of Mr Lincoln. Finally, I ran to consecutive curves layer to darken the overall image but reduced the opacity of the second cures layer to 43%. Finally, I flattened it and converted it to jpg format for sending over the web. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 8 at 0639 for the original shot which resulted in an overall very rich yellow tint.

15 Nov 12. My assignment for today, should I choose to accept it, was to take a reasonably nice color image and convert it to the best B &W I could. I so chose. This image of the shoreline of a lake in Juneau, was primarily green at the top (tree reflection, water, and plants) and blue and white at the bottom (clouds, and sky reflecting off the water's surface). It looked like it might make a nice B&W print, so my goal was to see how close I could come to making it one. Here is what I did. Starting with the initial image (background layer) I duped the layer and increased the details in the reflection part of the image by painting on the effect. That created its own layer which I merged with the duped layer. I then duped that merged layer and cloned out all the parts of the original I found distracting. Then I cropped that image to get the look I wanted. Next I ran a B&W conversion starting with a high structure smooth preset, added a red filter, increased the structure in the clouds and reflection, and decreased the structure in the lily pads. I also added a very slight white vignette. At that point with all 11 zones of Adan's "zone system" present, I flattened the image. I then ran a curves correction to lighten the top portion of the image and another to darken the bottom portion. Those layers were then flattened, the imaged converted to the srgb color gamut, and saved as a jpg image. The result off all that is what you are seeing which, by the way, I think would make for another nice puzzle. Nikon D800; 70 - 210; Aperture Priority; ISO 100; 1/80 sec @ f / 7.1 on a tripod.

16 Nov 12. Nothing fancy or creative for today, but something both fun and perhaps seasonal. During our career in the military, we were especially fortunate to be stationed in Historic Bucks County, PA, an absolutely beautiful part of the country. Not far from us was a rural Colonial style shopping center located on a gorgeous farm. Every year at this time it hosted an open house with all the Christmas decorations one could hope for and a ceremonial lighting of all the Christmas lights. During our 11 years in that area we never failed to visit Peddler's Village for that festive evening. One year we were blessed with a light snow fall which really set the mood. During our stay in other parts of the country, west and south coasts, we never experienced anything to compare with it. The closest we ever came was a fair grounds in Frederick, MD which had an annual Christmas Craft Show where merchants came to display their crafts. On one of our 7 visits to that Black Friday weekend we also had snow. The MD show was nice, but it paled in comparison to the Peddler's Village extravaganza. This evening one of the local merchants in nearby Kingston, Henry's Hardware, had a very nice open house with dinner and music provided while one shopped for Christmas. It reminded us of our other adventures on the east coast and made my ponder as to why all the other merchants don't get together and put on a real first class show. As we were driving home I couldn't help but think how nice it would have been to have had some atmospheric conditions prevail to add to the enjoyment, say something like what we experienced yesterday when we had a beautiful ground fog beginning around 1630 and continuing past dark. We were coming home from shopping when we encountered it and Jan encouraged me to go shoot it. By the time we got home and I got the camera it was rapidly becoming quite dark, so I hightailed it down to my cousin's farm to see what I might encounter. My thought was that with all his cleared farmland there might be some nice fog hugging the ground. I wasn't disappointed with the fog, but I might have been better off had I taken along a tripod and not had to shoot hand held. On the other hand, had I been messing around setting up with the tripod I might have missed most of the shots as the light was fading really FAST and I had to work in a hurry. The result was that I got a few shots I liked and am sharing one of them for today's submission. The original had a bit of a color shift in it, something akin to reciprocity failure in film, so I did a little work on the capture. Starting with the original image, I made a dupe layer, cropped it to get a better presentation, and then removed the noise. I duped that layer three times and made three different renderings, using a specific plug-in. One version was to adjust the color, another to emphasize the color shift, and a final version in B&W to which I also added some micro contrast to bring out the detail in the structures. The three very different versions were created to see what I liked best. In the end I selected the greatly emphasized color shifted one, and the B&W one, with the B&W layer positioned above the color shifted layer. I then reduced the opacity of the B&W layer to allow for just a hint of color from the color shifted layer to seep through. Then I flattened it all, switched the color gamut to srgb, and saved it as a jpg. Nikon D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 800; 1/5 sec @ f/ 5.6 hand held.

19 Nov 12. During our trip last Jan to the Mexican Rivera we made our return home north along the CA coastline, visiting friends and doing some sightseeing we hadn't taken in during our three tours of duty in southern CA. A location we hadn't heard of before was Pigeon Point Light Station, located roughly half way between Santa Cruz to the south and Half Moon Bay to the north. As we had visited both cities previously, I was a bit surprised to see the gem of a location with a light house to boot! We spent about an hour there before deciding that it was both a bit chilly and that our stomachs thought our throats had been cut. Neither of those conditions however detracted from the beautiful sight to be seen as we walked along the paths on the grounds. Depending on where you were standing in the park, you could watch birds, mammals, or just the calming undulations of the tide. Located on the rocky banks of the area were various hardy plants, of which my favorite was ice plant, which in this part of CA often turns red. The red and green shoots which can be found on the same plant suggest to me that it should be called a Christmas Plant. I did a little manipulation of this image comprised primarily of a detail extraction layer and a couple curves adjustments. After finishing it on the graphics box and bringing it to this mail box it seemed really lacking in color, so I added a brightness/contrast layer and boosted things just a bit. Nikon D300s; 18 -200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

20 Nov 12. Back in another time, when Jan & I were dating, there was an open air art show held in the Bellevue Square Shopping Center in Bellevue, WA as a part of the annual Seafair festivities. It ran for 5 days and virtually killed all the shopping in the center for that period of time as it occupied the majority of the parking between the stores. For several years there was an artist who worked in oil and who painted seascapes, whose emphasis was on the breaking waves. He captured the translucent lighting on the cresting portion of the wave such that you felt like you were looking at an actual body of water. I've never seen anyone else come even close to his talent. As I was working on the image for today, I thought about this man's ability to capture a part of nature in oil better than I've been able to do with photography. His talent was amazing. This shot was taken along 17 Mile Drive in some rather bright light that tended to make it a bit too contrasty, so I've used a couple of curves layers to bring the contrast under control, isolated the sky and increased its structure some, and used a hue/saturation layer to tame down the yellow of the sand to make it look more like sand usually does. Plus I cropped off a portion of the bottom edge that didn't add anything to the picture. My main goal when taking the shot was to show off the lovely ice plant in its red cloak, so the adjustments were made to highlight that aspect. According to the current stuff on the web, this plant is an invasive species; if so, its invasion along the sandy banks and formerly pretty much barren dunes is, to my way of thinking, a nice addition to the landscape. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /13.

21 Nov 12. The left coastline of these united states has to be one of the most spectacular parts of the country. Not to take anything form the eastern one, especially hurricanes, the west's abundant supply of rocks, and rocky formations, in the intertidal zone make for areas of unique beauty. Everyone who has traveled up and down this coast has their favorites I'm certain, but there are a few places where the water and rock are simply compelling, two among them being Canon Beach in OR and Monterey Bay in CA. No doubt I'll hear from several folks after this mailing saying I should check out xxx and yyy which I'm sure will be equally nice, but these are at least two places that should be on your must see list, in my opinion, if you tour the left coast. We spent several hours in Monterey when we visited last January just watching the waves crash into the rocks and doing nothing else, save for taking a photo or two. If you are among those who like to listen to environmental sounds for relaxation or something else, bring along a good quality sound recording device and make your own "music." Although this original image captured the scene as I wanted, it did not capture the impact of the crashing waves as I would have desired (the 3rd dimension), so I did a little work on it to make your eye go directly to the water dancing on the rock. Starting with the original image, I made a few corrections for lens and color in ACR. Next I duped the background layer, did a detail extraction which I painted in on just the portions of the image in which I wanted greater detail. Duped that layer and converted it to a B&W image and, using a control point to affect the entire image, did a selective colorization and structure increase and then changed the blending mode of that B&W layer to lighten. Duped the layer and ran a noise reduction on the sky. Next a levels adjustment on its own layer to further adjust the sky, and finally performed two curves contrast adjustments in separate layers. D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /11.

23 Nov12. Today's image was taken on an overcast/rainy day in Seattle last year as a part of a NWCCC outing. We all met at the aquarium on the water front and then dispersed out all over the downtown area meeting at Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard to complete the day. While I was waiting for the group to assemble (I was the leader of the outing) I took a few images of the art work in the vicinity of the aquarium. Just outside the main entrance is a small fountain comprised primarily of a coppery material with water flowing over it. With the cloudy conditions the fountain recorded less brilliant than it should have, so I tried doing something a bit different with this image to get the result I had originally desired. First I opened it up in Nikon's NX2 digital editing program, placed a control point on the copper and adjusted just that portion of the photo to get the copper looking how I wanted it. Then another control point was used to turn the water to its proper white. The NX2 software is matched exactly to the color model (Nikon rgb) used in the Nikon cameras, so it allows for better control of the colors and in this case it was just the ticket. Then I opened it up in Photoshop and used a plugin to add a structure layer to being out the detail in the metal, followed by a curves adjustment to get the balance I wanted, and then finally did a serious cropping to remove a couple features that I was unable to deal with appropriately in the original. Of course all this was flattened and saved out for presentation on the web. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/13 sec @ f / 25 on a tripod.

26 Nov 12. Several years ago - well about 40 - I came upon a small orange fungi growing on a friends alpine property not to far from the location of the filming of Northern Exposure. I hadn't seen this particular fungi since then until about two months ago when a crop of them suddenly sprang up parallel to the patio in the rear of the house. While they are not anything really special, I appreciate their intense orange color, which gives them their name of Orange Cup. The specimens I saw 40 years ago were about the size of a $0.50 piece, but these range in size from maybe a $0.25 piece to 3-4 inches across. They hug the ground, so it is difficult to do anything really creative with them. So, to show them off as best I can, I started with a base layer, duped it and selected just the fungi. These were given a detail enhancement, then that layer inverted and the ground, mostly evergreen needles, blurred, and the the combination was sent to a filter for a sparkle effect. That effect was reduced from its full application to about 60% giving what you see. For a size comparison, note the needles resting inside the cups. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 500; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.

27 Nov 12. The image for today is designed to showcase an inexpensive filter that I frequently like to employ when working on the creative images, or when needing to add just a little bit of glitz to enhance what was already there. Fractalius is a windows only plugin, but I'm thinking one day soon it should be available for other OSs. The filter has about 12 different settings with each of those having an infinite amount of control in creating the desired effect. If you are a windows user and like to play with your images, this might be the perfect Christmas gift to yourself. The author states that it is designed to pull out "the so-called hidden fractal textures of any image." The leaf I'm sharing today has a number of droplets of water on it that were sparkling in the on again / off again sunlight that was filtering through the clouds the day I took the shot. My goal in the image was to both highlight the water droplets in addition to showing the macro structure of the leaf, much as you might see if you were to hold it up to a bright shaft of light with the rear of the leaf facing you. The leaves comprising the perimeter show this better than do those in the middle, while those in the middle show off the water droplets. To get this result I first built a detail manipulation layer on top of the base image, reduced the effect to about 50%, duped that layer and ran the fractalius filter backing it off to about 65% for this result.Then I painted out the effect on the water droplets, and finally ran a curves adjustment to darken the overall image somewhat, masking the darkening from areas where it didn't help. The final manipulation was then flattened and saved for the web. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

28 Nov 12 This morning I had an opportunity to watch a training session given by a photographer who us known for her flower photography. Kathlen Clemmons does her work primarily in camera using a lens baby as her primary tool for capture of her flower images. In her seminar today she talked about using digital techniques to make fine art out of what would have otherwise been tossers before the advent of digital editing tools. Sponsored this morning by nik, she was demonstrating two of their plugins, Viveza2 and Color eFex 4, to achieve her fine art images. Having watched her work with several images that were nothing great to start with, but which looked rather nice when she was done, I thought I'd try to emulate, to the best of my ability, this being my first attempt, one of her examples. So starting with a not fantastic shot, I duped the background layer, then cropped it to get the tight image I wanted ( something she never does), and ran a detail enhancement on that layer. Duped that layer, selected only the green background, and ran a Gaussian blur on it so as to make it a non competing element in the picture. She would have achieved this effect using the lens baby attachment to her camera body. Duped that layer, ran a filter to lighten the center and darken the edges (think vignette) and also warmed it up a wee bit. Dupe that result and then did a structure enhancement on just the very center of the flower. That layer was then duped and I ran a noise reduction to get the final result. One of her comments was that there should be no distracting elements in the image; I've left two in to provide for a size determination. Probably doesn't add any to the photo, but sometimes I think it good to show relative sizes. Did I match her result; nope! But I got pretty close, especially considering this was my first attempt at so doing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/50 sec @ f / 5.6.

29 Nov 12. Today's submission is a just for fun type. Back when I was in grade school one of the things folks did for arts and crafts was to paint using what was called "Paint By Number" kits. You got the canvas with the picture outlined with the colors to be painted in numbered. There was a set of associated jars of paint with the corresponding numbers, and of course a paintbrush. I tried doing several of these and my results might best be categorized as varying degrees of awful. But they did serve to occupy time even if not productively, unless learning what one can't do can be considered productive. While playing around with a piece of software today I came upon the idea of making a paint-by-number looking image, and so I did. The original is of Picture Lake and in truth looks much better than anything I ever managed to do with those kits of the 50s. ISO 100; 1/50 sec @ f /14 on a tripod.

30 Nov 12. It's that time of year when the large waterfowl return to Fir Island and I'm thinking it's time for me to go in that direction to see what might be available this year. On one trip there this past Feb I was treated to not only lots of geese, but plenty of Trumpeter Swans as well. Not to mention the raptors. As we were driving around to see where best to shoot the geese, I spotted this vibrant clump of trees that were anything but the color I would have expected, and behind them a vast display of evergreen in a complimentary color, courtesy of a bit of haze. With a color combo such as that, I decided I'd try to make the best of it. What I got was O.K.and certainly will bring back fond memories every time I look at them, but the shots were not quite what I was hoping to get. Still, I liked the idea of the complementary colors in the tress, not something you come across every day. So rather than go with a less than satisfactory image, I thought about trying to apply a technique to the image that was accomplished when I was just getting into photography, that of placing a section of nylon stocking - feminine attire type - over the lens to create a particular type of soft focus. I did mine in computer by first creating the best color rendition I could of the original, then ran a filter on it to get a nice soft image, a creative layer, then reducing the opacity of the creative layer to get my desired result. If sharp images are your thing, you likely won't appreciate this approach, but it was a very popular technique ( the original way) back in the 60s & 70s. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 9.