29 Oct 12. While sitting around the breakfast table this morning in the motel where we were staying for the APAC seminar, one of the other individuals joining us for the meal asked if we had ever been to the Tulalip Resort to look at the art work. We said no but as it was on the way home we thought we might give it a go, and we did. There wasn't as much art work there as was suggested, but what we saw was quite nice, nice enough to recommend it to anyone in the area who might be passing that way. But more impressive to me was the beautiful landscaping all over that campus and today it was in full fall display. An area directly in front of the main entrance to the casino is landscaped with several Japanese Maples that were about as brilliant a red-orange as I ever seen; while I have no idea if the color is how they always turn or if it is just special this year, it was most memorable.They were however situated such that the images of them are far too busy, so if I do share one or two it will have to be after severely cleaning them up. However, there were lots of leaves on the ground which were both colorful and sporting many drops of water on their surfaces. This shot has been severely cropped at the top, had a wee bit of structural enhancement added, along with a minimal amount of saturation increase applied to specific parts of the image. Otherwise it is basically straight from the camera. D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 7.1.
30 Oct 12 . With rain forecast for most of Monday, it was our pleasure to see a beautiful sky with fantastic clouds as we crossed Puget Sound to spend the day in the dental office. Not exactly what I would describe as my preferred use of a beautiful day - should be reserved for a nasty day - but it certainly did get it off to a wonderful beginning after a very stormy night. The clouds were of three different types with the sun breaking through in places even though much of the sky was clear blue. An very interesting bit of atmospheric display. Today's submission is one shot of those clouds. It is not exactly what the camera recorded in that I have selectively lightened the water about 10%, added some color to the section of clouds that the sun had blown out, and tweaked the structure of the clouds to show more of their detail. Plus I've removed a portion of both the top and bottom which really didn't offer any additional information. All of this, save for the structure manipulation, would constitute nothing more than general darkroom technique in the days of yore. D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 9.
31 Oct 12. Since my talk at the APAC Seminar was on how to improve any image with some creative editing, why not one for the group. Of course you've been seeing these "things" for several years now, but as they are what keep me having fun, let's do another. This began out as a straight picture of a hydrangea like flower to which I added a duplicate layer and then manipulated that layer to get a result that looked a bit like the petals had been electrified. I then blended that manipulated layer with the original normal layer by reducing the opacity of the manipulated layer to get the effect you see. Rather simple to do, but the hard part was deciding how much of the manipulation I want to affect the base image. In reality the manipulation took about 3 minutes, the decision for the final look was closer to half an hour. D300s; Aperture Priority; 18 - 200; ISO 400; 1/1000 sec @ f / 7.1.
