Signs of Life

Winter may be haunting us, but it isn't going to last forever. Here is a hearty mound of moss thumbing it's nose at winter.

Happy Leap Day and see you on Monday!

Techie Corner
It took me two days and 26 pictures to get just the right shot of this simple little scene. Whew! Did some routine post-processing and punched up the vibrance quite a bit.
Shot at 1/3 Sec @ F16, ISO 400

Running Dry

Today was a rather busy day, so I didn't get a chance to shoot pictures. Since my ideas were running dry, (and now it's snowing like crazy) I thought I'd post another one from yesterday. Why a dirty rain spout, you may ask? Why not?

Techie Corner
I actually did quite a bit of work on this dirty rain spout. Playing and tinkering with settings to see what they would do.
Shot at 1/1000 Sec @ F2.8, ISO 200

Frozen Springtime

As February draws to a close and springtime is getting nearer, I see hints of things to come. This gushing rain spout will probably be the norm come May, but for now it is a frozen sculpture instead.

Techie Corner
Custom white balance, a little sharpening, edge vignetting--that's it.
Shot at 1/180 Sec @ F2.8, ISO 200

High Bridge at Night

On the way home Saturday, we saw this photo opportunity under the Smith Avenue High Bridge. Comparing this to yesterday's image, the phrase "fire and ice" comes to mind. And like I said before, I love bridges, so this one adds to the collection.

Techie Corner
Night photography is always an experiment for me. It's usually a trick to balance the exposure properly. I made a point to watch the histograms, but I still spent quite a bit of time in Lightroom tweaking the lighting. If I had it to do over, I would want to do more bracketing with my camera.
Shot at 10.0 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 200

Frozen in Time

We found this ice formation in Taylors Falls on Saturday. To me it looks like a miniature waterfall frozen in time.

Techie Corner
I did a lot of post-production in Photoshop and Lightroom on this one.
Shot at 1/6 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 200

Photoshop Friday

As Friday ticks away, I've been totally stumped on what to do for my blog today. I've finally decided to practice portrait re-touching.

I took one of the photos from mom's portrait sitting the other day and did a little retouching, etc. I'm including the original image so you can see the difference.

See you on Monday!

Techie Corner
Made a new gradient background from colors in her face and sweater. Did some sharpening and softening. Retouched some red lines in her cheeks and whitened her teeth. Adjusted lighting. Did a little cropping.

Low Tide at the Stone Arch Bridge

I love bridges, so you're probably going to see a lot of bridge photos over time too. Think of it as a photo and history lesson today.

Every 20 years, the U. S. Army Corp of Engineers lowers the water level of the pool below Upper St. Anthony Falls to inspect a storm water tunnel. This leaves part of the Stone Arch Bridge naked. We went down there yesterday to photograph its nakedness. The only hitch was a windchill well below zero, which made it impossible to take more than a few photos before my fingers and my camera were frozen. Bah!

The Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883 and was a working railroad bridge until 1978! You'll notice the arch on the left is reinforced with concrete. Wikipedia says "...in 1965, floodwaters undermined three of the piers and caused the bridge to sag. The bridge was repaired by strengthening the piers and reinforcing underneath two of the arches."

It was neglected during the 1980's, but was rehabilitated into a pedestrian bridge in the early 1990's. According to the nps.gov site, it "is the only bridge of its kind over the Mississippi River. It is made of native granite and limestone, and measures 2100-feet long by 28-feet wide. The bridge consists of 23 arches, and spans the river below St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, MN."

Techie Corner
Since this is an old bridge, I decided to give the image an old-time feel too. I converted to grayscale and did some split-toning to make it look sepia tone.
Shot at 1/90 Sec @ F32, ISO 200

Hastings Sunset

We popped down to Hastings on Saturday and I got this image of their infamous bridge (same structural design weaknesses as the I-35W bridge.) I really like this style of bridge. It's a pity that some of them weren't designed properly. The 1950's and 60's seemed to be a low point in structural soundness.

Techie Corner
The original image was kinda drab considering the sun was almost gone. I punched up the vibrance, saturation, and blacks quite a bit. A slight crop and sharpening also.
Shot at 1/10 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 200

Vibrant Rose

With a subject this pretty, I have to indulge one more day.

Techie Corner
Same lighting and filter as the last rose. This time I kicked up the vibrance in Lightroom to make the colors pop and I did some sharpening, vignetting, and softening in Photoshop.
Shot at 1 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 400

Sweet Smelling Rose

My husband got me roses for Valentine's Day, so I couldn't resist the photo opportunity.

Techie Corner
Took a custom white balance so I could use a ceiling light instead of a flash. Used my +4 Close-up filter. (I've had those close-up filters for over 15 years, and I've gotten more use out of them in the past month than I ever have!) Very little editing: a slight crop, a little sharpening and softening. That's it.
Shot at 1 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 400

Heavenly Peace

I had to stop by my church today and I decided to make it a photo opportunity. There is a nice stained-glass window in the back of the sanctuary, but it is in a sad state of disrepair. I still like the one inlay in the window, so I decided to showcase that in today's picture.

It's Friday already! Can you believe it? See you next week!

Techie Corner
I was practicing some Photoshop techniques again. I also had to do some retouching because there were chips and cracks in the inlay.
Shot at 1/30 Sec @ F8.0, ISO 400

Soaring Wings

I looked out today and saw oodles of crows hanging around our backyard. I put my "big lens" on my camera and parked myself in front of a window. I used my tripod and panned the birds as they flew around and got this nice picture.

A silly little squirrel decided to run the line right through the area where all the birds were flying. He got halfway across and then stopped. I'm guessing he was thinking "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." But then his silly little buddy came along behind him and they ran as fast as they could to the other side.

Techie Corner
I set my lens to 270mm (digital equivalent), set the focus to manual, and focused out to the general area of the birds. I set the camera to continuous shooting so I could take multiple shots while they were flying. I did editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, including edge vignetting to make the crow stand out.
Shot at 1/500 Sec @ F16, ISO 400

Portrait of a Paw

Yep, we're back to the cat. She was amazingly cooperative today. I need to find some new victims...I mean volunteers!

Techie Corner
I did extensive editing in Photoshop and Lightroom. It was a fairly ordinary photo and I wanted to practice some editing techniques I've learned.
Shot at 1/60 Sec @ F3.5, ISO 400

Back to Portraits

I figured it was time to work on portraiture again. I had to run a lot of errands today, so by the time I got done, I had to settle for mom or the cat. That's a tough choice because they can both be difficult. I hadn't shot mom for a while, so she was today's guinea pig. She kept wiggling around, but I finally managed to get one in focus.

Techie Corner
I used off-camera flash with a reflector. I used a couple of Scott Kelby's Photoshop techniques (edge vignetting and softening), some sharpening, a little retouching, and cropped for 8 x 10.
Shot at 1/60 Sec @ F2.8, ISO 400

Hallelujah

I played hooky from my blog Thursday and Friday, but it was for a very good reason. (At least I think so!) I finally have a dishwasher (besides me) in the kitchen. Hooray!

Thursday I had to get ready for the install. Friday was the install. Saturday and today I've been trying to get everything organized again.

So today I thought I'd share a few documentary photos of the installation, and tomorrow I will get back down to business with my photography.

Many thanks to my wonderful husband and brother-in-law for all their hard work!

Dancing Pine Needles

I was sitting by a window reading a book this afternoon, when I suddenly felt something warm and my book got brighter. No way! It's the sun! I decided to go traipsing around the yard again and take advantage of it. The breezes were blowing pretty good, but I was determined to get pictures of pine needles, especially since the sun was out. I ended up trying to balance on a small hill with me swaying and the pine bough swaying. (Tripod wasn't going to work where I was.) I was amazed that this picture was as focused as it is and I'm pleased with the result.

Techie Corner
I used a +4 close-up filter, which has an extremely narrow focusing field. It made focusing on a moving target even more challenging! But I think the +4 and the movement really made the background interesting. I darkened the dark tones and did some major cropping in Lightroom, and did a little sharpening in Photoshop.
Shot at 1/180 Sec @ F5.6, ISO 200

Winter Grapes

I'm still on a close-up theme today. Being that it is nice and warm (32 degrees is warm? hmmm.) I decided to pull on my boots and head out to the backyard. I took a tentative step off the back porch thinking I was going to sink down in the snow, but was pleasantly surprised to find a nice firm walking surface. I tried to shoot some snowy pine needles, but the branch kept moving in the breeze. Then I remembered the grape vine and here is the fruit of my labor. (Oh, that was a very, very bad pun!)

Techie Corner
I used my +2 close-up filter again and focused manually. Spent quite a bit of time adjusting the lighting in Lightroom to get it just the way I wanted. Did a little sharpening to really get the grapes nice and sharp (even though they were already pretty sharp.) Cropped square.
Shot at 1/4 Sec @ F11, ISO 200

Jade Eyeball

I tried shooting several different things today, but my kitty seemed to be the most cooperative, wonder of wonders. This was a full head shot, but I decided in keeping with my close-up theme from Friday, I'd crop in on one of her beautiful eyeballs.

Techie Corner
I got the eyeball focused perfectly on this shot. No sharpening needed! I did bump up the blacks to get that pupil nice and dark. I also used umbrella and camera flash (as you can see in the reflection of the eye) which washed out the green some. So I took out some of the green luminance in Lightroom to bring back a nice dark green.
Shot at 1/60 Sec @ F2.8, ISO 200

Close-up

I haven't done any close-up photography in a long time, so today is close-up Friday.

My kittygoyle is the subject today. She doesn't complain no matter how many pictures I take, so I really had time to get the exposure just right.

Lighting was tricky since I was using sunlight for the highlights and the sun kept ducking under clouds all the time. I had to keep adjusting the mini blinds to get just the right highlights. Kittygoyle was content to perch on my slide light box and wait patiently until I was done.

I decided to just stick with the basic image today. I could tweak it in many different ways by adding a different background or whatnot, but I think I will save that idea for another day.

Have a great weekend and see you next Monday!

Techie Corner

As you can see in the example at the left, it was a pretty simple set-up. The lighted slide box was the main light, with fill light coming in through the kitchen window. The sunlight gave a yellow cast, so I desaturated all the yellow in Lightroom. The only other editing was a little sharpening in Photoshop.

I used a +2 close-up filter on my camera and a very small aperture to get in close, but still have most of kittygoyle in focus. Focusing was still touchy, so I did that manually.
Shot at 1/4 Sec @ F22, ISO 200