24 Jun 13. Something very simple for today but in my eyes very elegant. Walking along the road from our home to the beach we pass through what would have been underbrush before a section was chopped out to make the road. As such, the sides of the road are rich in vegetation, much of it fruit producing and protected by stickers! The fruit comes in yellow, orange, and red colors, but the plants producing the fruit are all green, and many hues of it. If you look very closely at the leaves you will notice that there are occasional portions of the leaf where the sugar manufacturing engine is not functioning, and you get a hint of how the leaves will look come Autumn. If you tease that color a bit with software you can create a rather lovely representation of how things will look come October, or thereabouts. To accomplish this I first cropped and cloned out any element not necessary for the final image on a dupe layer, then added a clarity layer to enhance the fine texture, and finally did a hue adjustment for the hues yellow, orange, and green to accentuate the color that was lurking underneath the green. All simple and easy adjustments. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.
25 Jun 13 . It was supposed to be a wet Monday but it waited until today when it came down as if we should be scouting for an Ark. So I've chosen a subject appropriate for the day. The original shot was taken a few days back and towards the approach of twilight, so the colors were a bit on the muted side but the clouds and their reflection on the water made for a nice composition. As the scene was one of an approaching front, I thought it might tell its story more poignantly in B&W, as opposed to color, so I converted it and liked what I got. This is another easily created image; base image was duped and that was cropped to give just the perspective I wanted. Another layer was added to which I did some contrast enhancement, then another layer that became the B&W conversion, and a final layer in which I applied some slight noise reduction to soften the overall appearance. Since noise reduction algorithms create their effect of noise reduction by slight blurring of the image, they can be used creatively for softening any image. This photo will likely view better from a distance as opposed to sitting right in front of your screen. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.
26 Jun 13 . A 20 minute ride from here is Valley Nursery, a wonderful full service nursery that is very photographer friendly. I find that I'm there several times a month to play with the flowers in bloom while Jan is frequently finding things there to bring home. That may be the idea behind being photographer friendly; if not, it works well on its own. With 6 acres of grounds stocked with everything you can imagine, and then some more, there is ample opportunity for finding something of interest any time you visit. Even better, they allow you to move things around, as long as you are careful, to get the shot you want. Hard to find a business like that these days, and I do my best to make certain that I am as careful as possible and stay out of the way of those shopping while I'm photographing. So far I've been fully welcomed. I've offered them my work but it has been turned down saying they have their own photographer, but I plan on just giving them a disk of photos to do with as they like. Who knows, they made need a coaster to place near the till. Today's shot is of a plant I can't accurately identify, but it is likely a member of the family that includes Hibiscus. This image is along the creative line in that I've taken a sharply back lit subject, softened the petals somewhat, and added a white vignette. I've left the rest of the plant in sharp focus for balance. Again, a simply created image that goes as follows: background layer which was duped for cropping and cloning; then a layer for the localized softening, and finally a layer for the vignette. All flattened to create the final output. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 7.1.
