Kiss Me, I'm Irish!

Are you dressed all in green today? You may have noticed that I changed the color around here to reflect my Irish roots!

The weather here is so gloomy, dreary and gray; it's been like this since November. I was flipping through some of my older photos and realized just how much I miss the sunshine! Darling asked me why I take the camera with me everywhere I go, and I told her just in case there was something to take a picture of; then I realized the only thing out there are clouds, clouds, and more clouds!

But since playing a bit in Photoshop, I've discovered I can manipulate those clouds, and I've begun looking at them in a whole different manner. I was on my way to bible study just the other night when I began looking at the clouds. They were thin in areas, puffy in others, and just opaque enough to allow a little light from the sun to glow through. Fortunately for me, I had the camera along and started taking pictures! Unfortunately for everyone else on the road, I had my camera along and didn't pull over before taking pictures!

I'm not sure why everyone was getting their undies in a bunch. Sure, I'd managed to dip down to 45 in a 55 zone. Why were they in such a hurry? Didn't they see how perfectly lovely those clouds were? Don't they know I'm shooting photos for my blog, so that all of you can enjoy them? Didn't that guy in the ambulance recognize just how perfect your timing needs to be in order to capture the light just right before you drive behind a tree and completely miss the photo opportunity? I mean, really...sheesh! Some folks are just all about me, me, me!

In any case, I managed to get this picture below.
I'm sure you can see why I had to hold up traffic; aren't those clouds just divine? Look at them out there in the distance, with just a hint of gold showing through...

And the tweaked rendition! More gold, less road... So totally worth holding up traffic, don't you think?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go clad my body in green before the rest of the sleepy heads around here get up and realize they can pinch me!

More Pretty Pictures

Is it cute? Or is it cute?

Okay, you're right...it's cute!

This is Darling's horse, Quiet Storm! We've made a silhouette from a photograph of her, then had it printed onto t-shirts and buttons and such. And if you'd like to see a few more (and perhaps even order), you can check it out at my new Cafe Press Store!

Here's the original photograph. Its one of Quiet Storm running across the pasture. I've got to tell you, I was pretty excited to get her eye in focus as she was galloping past! If you're ever photographing something that's moving, just follow along with your camera as the subject is moving past. Don't forget to keep moving even after you click the shutter, and your subject will be clear and the background blurred.

This is the original image. Not only did the eye end up in focus (sheer luck, I assure you), but her stride has her looking like the Ford logo, don't you think? I used Photoshop to create a layer, delete the (ugly) background, and then change the color of Quiet Storm to red (and black and pink!)

I'd love to explain how to do this, but to be honest I'm just learning it all myself. The Geek Boy, aka Grammar Nazi, has had to show me how to do this stuff. Several times. Over and over. Again. I believe I've finally gotten to the point of not running from the room crying when I get frustrated with it all.

The most important thing that Geek Boy has taught me is to create a duplicate copy before doing anything else. That way when I screw up (and I will screw up), I've still got the original and it's unharmed. I've been altering my images strictly through clicking the little auto contrast button, and that's made a huge difference...or at least I thought it had been. But the Geek Boy has shown me something new. Something called layers.

Remember the beach photos from last week? Well, I began playing with layers. The above photo was altered slightly to give a bit of a sunset using layers. Between the Geek Boy and Betty Jo (who gave me a tip on a particular technique using my new found layer skill), I re-worked the photo to look like this:

The second photo is really lovely when it takes up the full screen; it's got such a soft, romantic glow to it!

Another feature that I like to use are the filters. You can give your photo the look of a painting, which is what I did with the hay wagon below. Isn't that the coolest wagon, btw? It may appear a bit too small on the screen to truly see the 'paint', but hey, the wagon was so cool I had to post it anyway!

This is a better example of a before and after on the filters. The original is first, followed by the 'dry brush' filter.

Okay, then there's this one. I LOVE this photo! It was taken a my friend Nancy's place (the wagon above is her's, too.) We've had a pretty wet winter, and her little shed here was sitting in water, just crying to have it's picture taken.

I used the same technique on this photo that I used on the second beach photo, but the blurred layer on this one is stronger.

And of course...Geek Boy the Grammar Nazi himself! And what is it he's framing his face with? A very, very old computer hard drive! Aren't you glad they don't make them like that anymore?

Photographs

Pink Rose from a wedding bouquet.

I've become quite envious of some of the photos I've been seeing out in blogland of late, so tonight I attempted to play a bit with Adobe Photo Shop a bit more. I've come to a conclusion...I ought to just hire it done! There is such a huge margin between what I'd like to do and what I do, that I get frustrated.

Okay, so I've only been at this photo shop thing a couple of weeks. But I've been looking at the loveliest photos of horses, and their manes are simply floating in front of a black background. Now, that background wasn't black to being with, so someone had to come along and do the whole editing and layering thing.

Inspired, I pulled up a photo of Quiet Storm. She has this annoying habit of sticking her nose into my camera lens whenever it passes by. So, being the sort to make lemonade when I'm handed lemons, I decided tonight to fiddle with one of the famous eyeball shots.

Here's the first shot. Her nose is right alongside the lens, no doubt wondering why I haven't brought her a treat. She refuses to stand even two feet from the camera. Some wild horse she's turned out to be!

Below is my shoddy attempt at deleting the yucky barnyard background and putting in a sophisticated black. Um...yeah...well, it could use some work. I like that long eyelash that comes down beneath her eye; I managed not to botch that one up so bad. But there's still something not quite right, and I'm not liking the hair up near the ear. Perhaps I'll take the black in a little closer to the eye and see how that looks...but not tonight, as I'm half blind just from this.

Another one I've been working on tonight is of Sunny. This has been twitched in a couple of different ways... It's been cropped way down, I changed out the background and then created a painted look using a tool called 'dry brush.' I also played with the lighting angle. Actually, I rather like this one. Giving it the painted look covers up a multitude of photo shop sins!

Well, that's it for now. Darling isn't feeling so well tonight; she's got a migraine. It used to be she'd get them all the time, but we got this little blue wonder pill for her. Her pediatrician gave us three refills, but since they hadn't come very often the past few years, it took her three years to use up that one bottle.

Now she's out, and the pharmacy won't refill it because it's been so long. And to make things more difficult, her pediatrician retired! We tried last month to get a refill, but even though it was the same clinic, no one would call us back. So tomorrow I'm going to call the naturalpath and have him do it for us. I'm guessing Darling won't be going to school; she used to get terribly sick with these headaches. (Amazing how the headaches stopped when she started homeschooling, and now they've started again when she's back in school...coincidence? Guess we'll find out as time goes on!)

Work, work, work, all day long..

Crank it up
Back it up

Bring it on home...

I must say, that was the most delicious sleep I think I've had in a long time. I really didn't want to climb out of bed this morning; the blankets were wrapped all around me and I was so toasty warm! But out into the chilly bedroom air I went, because of course the critters wanted breakfast.

When I got back into the house I began pondering my first day back to work. Soap? Lotion? Hoof trimming? Then it struck me...who starts a work week on a Thursday??? Certainly not me! So, being on good terms wit the boss, I called in and said I wouldn't be working today, on account of the sun was shining and I really just didn't feel like it. Being that I'm an understanding and sympathetic employer, I gave myself the rest of the week off.

Now, on to the stupid thing I did. Yes, stupid. Drove all the way up to Rockport to see the eagles last week. Got there and, dingbat that I am, didn't realize I had the wrong lens on my camera. Okay, I need camera help. I mean, it should have been obvious as the lens says right on it what it is, but I never pay attention to that sort of stuff. I came home last week and told City Boy, "City Boy, I need a telephoto lens so I can get really close up pictures." And City Boy replied, "What about the one I already bought you...where is it?" And I looked at him, and at my camera, and said, "Right here!"

That's when I got the same kinda look I got when he told me the possum wasn't playing.

So today, since my boss kindly gave me the day off, I grabbed Darling (who groaned)(loudly) and off we went. We only saw one bald eagle on our trip upriver today, but somehow managed to take tons of other silly shots. Here are mine...

Baby bald eagle wasn't as happy to see me as I was him!
(Perhaps that's because he was a she? I've no clue!)

Cross on top of the Wayside Chapel near Marblemount.

I just love the old roadside diners and cafes along the way!

This photo needs a caption!
Not sure how it ended up in the drink...perhaps it washed down in the floods from last fall?

Taken just outside of Hamilton, the picnic table is just to the left of this photo.

Just above Rockport along the Skagit River.