The textures of the various plants, moss, and rock caught my eye. The hardness of the rock, the softness of the moss, the glossy smoothness of the the blade-type plant coupled with the variegated shades of the three-leafed plant attracted me. I converted to B&W to focus on the various tonalities and textures. Just experimenting …
Wildflowers – Snow Mountain Ranch
As I walked along the trail at Snow Mountain Ranch, I stopped frequently and just looked around enjoying the countryside. Almost every time, something caught my eye. This simple image of rocks and flowers was one of those moments.
Photography has taught me to see the beauty and interesting things around me. Today, everywhere I look, I see something interesting that makes me step back and enjoy the moment. When I become engrossed on a photographic subject, I feel like I become part of it. I am no longer just an observer.
Sagebrush – Straight Out of Camera
This is an experiment to try to create an image that was in my mind when I shot this photo. The above image is the base image I captured. The sagebrush seems to blend into the background. I lost the 3D feeling that I had when I saw this bush. I first tried to add structure to the bush and delete structure from the background. That did not achieve what I wanted. I then tried black and white. That merged the brush with the background even more. I then tried to blur the background. That looked to “fakey” to me. I then blended the blurred B&W to the color image to come with the image below.
Sagebrush – Processed
This came the closest to what I saw in my mind.
Wildflowers – Snow Mountain Ranch, Cowiche, WA
Today is a special day. It is a day to celebrate the wonderful life Karen and I had together. What a better way to celebrate than to take a nice walk and enjoy the wildflowers of early Spring. It was a beautiful day. The hills were covered with brilliant wildflowers … yellow, pink, purple, blue and the lush green of spring grasses. Peace surrounded me. It was a wonderful time to reflect on our lives and what is right in this world.
It was a day to CELEBRATE !!!
Forsythia Tree in Our Back Yard
This Forsythia Tree is the first Spring bloom in our yard. It signifies new life, a new beginning, and new hope. Easter brings the same feeling to me. Our Lord through his ultimate sacrifice, brings new life to all of us. HAPPY EASTER!
Colorado Blue Spruce Abstract 1
Sometimes it is just fun to play around with images. I knew that I would use various ways of post processing when I first took the image. Here is one version. Playing around a little more, I came up with the following abstract :
Colorado Blue Spruce Abstract 2
Colorado Blue Spruce Tip – New Growth
As I was walking around my yard, I was just looking for images to pop into my sight. I have photographed new growth on evergreens more times than I can imagine. However, I have never made an image on new growth taken from a head on perspective. A tip of new growth from a Colorado Blue Spruce just jumped out in front of my eyes. So I looked around more to try to get one that was the most symmetrical. My mind started to think what I could do with this from an abstract point of view. I plan to apply some creative alternatives in a future post.
Like my friend John Barclay (www.johnbarclayphotography.com) emphasizes. Do not force a photograph, let the image come to you. This one did …
Fuji X-T1, XF 18-135mm @ 18mm, f/8.0, 1/550 sec, ISO 800
My photography has not been very creative lately. When I get this way, I like to walk around and just practice. I do not have high expectations and just stop to photograph what catches my eye. I usually do not carry a tripod with me during these practice shoots. I use them as a scouting inspiration/exploration endeavor to come back and shoot at a better time. This image was taken in mid-day light at the Washington Arboretum Japanese Garden in Seattle. I spent 2 to 3 hours just walking around and enjoying the beautiful garden. I shot for less than an hour.
Once home, I just started playing around with different processing techniques on a few images. Again, more practice. This was one of the images that caught my eye. The original image was full of bright yellows, greens, and some oranges. I almost did not even try black and white processing. I wasn’t happy with the standard B&W images either, so I decided to experiment (play) some more. This sepia with a reverse vignette was the result.
Multiple Exposure: Dogwood Blooms and Asphalt Pavement
I got a little bored shooting in the garden. Nothing was “Popping” for me. So I thought I would have a little fun with multiple exposures. This image is a combination of a Pink Dogwood branch and a texture photo of a section of asphalt pavement. Magic happens.
To finish it off I decided to experiment a little with Topaz Impression. Here I used the Impasto I preset. Something a little different.
Canon XT-IR, Tamron 18-270mm @ 65mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 400
Cherry trees are in bloom and brilliant green leaves are emerging at the Yakima Arboretum. It is a great time to get out my old IR converted Canon Rebel XT and try out some IR imagery. It was a beautiful spring day and I had a little time in the middle of the day to get out and explore. I chose to work in B&W using Infrared. The Arboretum was showing its early spring pink and white blooms of the cherries and pears as well as a few trees with emerging brilliant light green leaves. Tomorrow I will go again with my normal camera.