Another Succulent in My Backyard

Canon 7D, EF-S18-55mm, 30mm, f/4.0, 1/250, ISO 100

This gorgeous succulent flower was in my backyard this morning. I just had to take a photograph. I like the way the light is hitting the top of the flower and shining through. Bringing this in to Photoshop,  I did up the saturation  so you could easily see the blues and greens and the reds around the edges of the outside petals. I don’t know what it is called. It grows long stems (look to the left of the flower) with flowers on top. There are no leaves, but I don’t know of any succulents that have leaves! I hope you enjoy it.

421/354

P.S. Lily is 5 months old today!

What Can You See When You Look Up?

Canon 7D, Camera Raw, 17mm, f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 200

This is my neighbors tree in their parkway. I noticed one day how intricate and intertwined the branches are. You can’t see any of this just looking at the tree straight on. I went in the house to grab my camera and Willie wondered what I was doing. When I showed them to him, he said he had never noticed this before. I did increase the saturation and contrast in Photoshop. It did not need a levels adjustment. I then cropped it some because the sky looked white at the two bottom corners of the photo. It was too distracting and I wanted you to be able to see all that is going on with the tree. I hope you like it. Tonight there is a full moon. I am going to try to get out and take a photo. Why don’t you do it too and we can all post tomorrow and compare. Also, go outside and look up to see if there is anything interesting to photograph!

412/365

Pink Calla Lily

Canon 7D, Raw, 59mm, f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 100

I was at Larry and Shelley’s yesterday to take some photos of Lily for her two month birthday. Shelley and I were in the backyard and she was very proud of this pink calla lily. The photo came out very nice and I really like the shadows falling across the lily. Since it is a raw image, I opened it up in camera raw and made a white balance adjustment. Then in Photoshop, all I did was a levels adjustment. Maybe I need to do something more exciting and artsy with my photos so I will have more to share with you.

411/365

A Solarized Tree in Central Park

Canon 7D, Raw, 17mm, f/9, 1/800, ISO 2500

The original photo of this tree came out exactly like I wanted. I did have to do some exposure adjusting in Camera Raw, but no cropping or anything else. When I got it into Photoshop, I decided I didn’t want to show you just another tree surrounded by green grass in the park. I started playing around with different filters and settled on this to give it a black and white, high grain solarized look. What that means is, parts of the “negative” are reversed. If you look at a black and white negative and it is reversed in post processing, that is one type of solarization. Did you learn something new today?

408/365

Geraniums Blooming in My Backyard

Canon 7D, Raw, 55mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 100

I do all of my shooting (well, maybe 98%) in manual mode on my camera. The meta data on this image seems to be pretty common for me. I really liked this photo because of the sharpness of the buds – you can even see little fuzzies (a technical term) on them if you look close. I did a slight levels adjustment in Photoshop, then I added a little of a vignette so the buds would stand out  more. We have many geraniums in our backyard, and this was my favorite photo from this day.

405/365

Purple Petunias

Canon 7D, Raw, 48mm, f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 100

I took this yesterday at Larry and Shelley’s when I was over there to take Lily’s one month photo. She is so cute! Anyway, they have some very nice flowers in their backyard and I went back to take some different photos. These were so pretty but I forgot to ask Shelley what they are called. Could it be a petunia? My Canon 7D takes such great photos I really don’t have to do much in Photoshop. The main thing I did was a levels adjustment which helps the white balance and then I did some noise reduction. I am a little unclear as to why it needed this since I shot it at a low ISO.

403/365

From the Desert, the Ocean or Both?

Camera Raw, 45mm, f/11, 1/100, ISO 400, Nik Silver FX Filter

I walked outside with my camera today and said to myself, “What are you going to photograph?” I walked around and then I saw this. Isn’t it gorgeous? How many little creatures do you think have lived in and on this rock? How old do you think it is? In post processing, I changed it from Raw to DNG. Isn’t the texture and the depth fantastic? I made a few adjustments in Camera Raw and then brought it into Photoshop. There I used a filter from Nik Silver FX to convert it to black and white. I then used a high pass filter to bring out the edges and changed my layer blend mode. That made all the different levels of this image really pop. 

395/365

A Sign of Spring?

Canon 7D, Raw, 50mm, f/7.1, 1/250, ISO 100, Nik Film Effects Software

Do you think this is a sign that Spring will be coming soon? We have had a lot of cold weather and rain here in Southern CA and we are having more starting tonight.  I heard on the news yesterday that we will be having rain storms here until the beginning of April.  There was some sun and a new daffodil  blossoming in my back yard though.I am very happy that this pretty daffodil decided to take it upon itself to bloom towards the end of February. I took some photos earlier in the day that were completely in the shade. I liked this one I took a little later in the day. With the Nik Film Effects filter, I was able to get the look I wanted.

393/365

Is This a Hawk?

Canon 20D, Raw, f4.0, 1/800, ISO400, Imageomic Noise Filter, Levels

Willie was outside in the back yard and came running in the house saying, “Grab your camera and come outside! There is a hawk on top of the telephone pole!” Well, I grabbed my camera, but my wide angle lens was on the camera! I had to shoot as fast as I could! I took a few photos and Willie went into the house to get the telephoto lens. Of course, it flew away by then. I had to crop this quite a bit so it is a small image. Please forgive me but I wanted to show it to you. It is hard to be ready for what ever will come along! I do the best I can!

375/365

Happy Anniversary!

Canon 20D, Raw, f10.0, 1/60, ISO 800, 31mm, Nik Pro Contrast filter

I gave this post that name because today is our anniversary! We went for a little walk and came across this tree at the park. There is a lot of moss and some strange cuts on it. Plus it looks like it could be a space alien with those long tendrils coming out at you. No wonder Donnan barked at it!

370/365

A Great Black and White Photograph

I had a very busy day today. Willie knew I was busy and when I got up this morning this leaf was on the kitchen counter. He said he found it outside and thought I might like to photograph it. Isn’t he a sweety? I got my camera out and took it outside on my front porch. I have taken many photos on that front porch, many leaves and flowers. It is a good location. I really like the black and white and the vignette around the edges. I used a shallow depth of field also.

356/365

Is This A Succulent Jade Plant?

I am a little unsure of what this plant is. It is a succulent Willie has growing in a pot in our backyard. I am sure he got a little piece somewhere and stuck it in some dirt. Aren’t the colors beautiful? I broke out my Lensbaby with the +4 macro lens, put the camera on the tripod and the plant on the ground (a little hard on the back!). My sweet spot is still not quite where I want it to be, but it came very close on this photo. Willie looked at it from across the room and said, “It’s out of focus!” I pointed to where it is in focus and he came closer to look at it. He said. “ok.”  (Sidebar: When my mother was a little girl, she would get her mouth washed out with soap if she said “ok.”). I love the colors – they go from pale green to yellow to blue, purple and red. What more could one ask for?

Can someone tell me what the name of this plant is…?

Willie had me help him set up his own weblog today. It took us a while to come up with a name he liked that was available and then to select a theme. As soon as he has a post I will put up a link so you can check out his work. This is my first post I have written on my new PC. I have found that Vista is not that different from XP. It is just going to take me a while to get organized. Willie is feeling better today. I am sure he will be fine by tomorrow. We are planning to go to San Pedro on Friday to take some photos and maybe walk the dogs around. I am sure it will be a nice day. Until tomorrow…

315/365

A Rose in My Neighbor’s Yard

Well, I could not resist this pretty pink rose. I guess this has been pink flower week! But this was in someone elses yard, not mine. There were no macro shots today! Just a wide angle zoom lens. I need to figure out a way to include the meta data in these posts, without have to copy and paste it, which I guess would not be that bad. Anyway, I hope you like this rose as much as I did when I came across it on my journey through the neighborhood.

This rose is so pretty in pink…

Sorry for the John Hughes reference, but it applies! I was out doing some errands this morning and it was cloudy and rather humid – maybe there are some storms down in Mexico. Quite often that is when we get a lot of humidity. Donnan’s tummy is bothering him some. I feel bad that they are going to be alone a lot this week-end. We will be out in Riverside in Corona for our nephew’s wedding. It is also Larry and Shelley’s one year anniversary on Sunday. They will be up at Green Valley Lake, I am sure with a lot better weather than one year ago! Have a good Memorial Day week-end, if you are here in the USA. Otherwise, just have a great week-end whereever you are!

262/365

 

Happy Mother’s Day

It was a great day here in Huntington Beach. A little overcast, but that is ok. We went for a walk with the dogs and ended up at Central Park and walked through the Shipley Nature Center. It is a very nice place and a lot of volunteers work very hard there. I thought this was a very interesting walking stick holder. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it and I would love to have one just like it!  It is very clever. Maybe next time we go up to the mountains I will send Willie and the dogs out to collect some sticks and twigs to make our own. Sorry for the snapshop today! Tomorrow will be better.

A very unique walking stick holder…

Larry helped Willie in Long Beach this week-end so it gave me some time alone (with the dogs). I do not get that very much and I ended up spending the time on the computer working on a new web design. They got home earlier than I though so that kind of ended it! Oh, well – that is ok. Larry gave a very nice card and said we can go out to lunch or dinner next week-end. I got a call from my friend Gayle to wish me happy mother’s day and a nice email from my friend Annette. It is nice to know that people are thinking of you, isn’t it? Until tomorrow…

250/365

Welcome to Fantasy Island!

Do you recognize this, or are you too young to remember Fantasy Island? I was going to name the post, “De plane, de plane!”, but I decided against it. I took this photograph at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, located in Arcadia, CA. It is a fantastic place to visit. Since I grew up in Pasadena and Glendora, a school field trip was a common event to the Arboretum. We took Larry as a little boy and Willie and I love to go and walk around with our cameras. Because of the close vicinity to Los Angeles, it is used quite a bit for movies and TV shows. Many of the Tarzan movies in the 1930’s and beyond were filmed there because there is an area that replicates the jungles of Africa.

The lagoon next to the Fantasy Island house…

There is so much to see there and we really enjoy going. If you look at the link I gave you above, you will find a lot of information about the area and the history of this house plus the carriage house. It is another beautiful day in Huntington Beach. I worked on my “LinkedIn” affiliation and invited many people to join. I signed-up for a few groups myself. I was accepted into the “Women in Photography” group. I need to do some research to see how it will benefit me. I am hoping this will be a good thing. Larry and Shelley are having a great time up in Mammoth snowboarding and romancing (I assume) on their one week vacation. They will be home on Wednesday night. Are you having a good week-end? Let me know what you are up to!

235/365

Shadows and Texture

I enjoy photographing shadows and textures, especially in nature, so I am pleased with this image. I used my 50 mm lens at f8 and I am surprised there is not more depth of field. I will have to ask someone about that. I am really enjoying taking all of these photos to share with you and I like exploring and looking for new things to shoot. Some days it is hard to do, but so far I have not missed a day, even though there have been a few snapshots thrown in!

Jasmine roots wrapped around a bakers rack…

Yesterday in class I heard my instructor telling another student not to post photos of your dogs or cats. He said no one else really cares. As the owner, you have an emotional attachment to the animal and you see how cute and loving they are. So, I guess that makes sense and I will not post any more photos of Kyla or Donnan (unless I feel it is totally irresistible!). Really, I guess I get a little carried away sometimes and I am sorry! We never got to speak with the birthday boy yesterday but we left him a message on his cell phone and sang Happy Birthday to him.

208/365