This Bumblebee was flying around our Apple Blossoms and eating well. The thing that amazed me was it was about two-thirds the size of the blooms. Big as it was it was quite agile and very elusive! Every time I tried to line up a shot it would take off! This was the best shot could get of it, it was like it was saying ” I will Bee heading out now!”
I have no idea what kind of bird this is but he posed, and is cute to boot, so that is good enough for me. Say Hi to a little bird.
After years of doing very little to no photo-editing of my photos I begun the search for a good, solid editing and management tool. This was last Fall when this journey began but life has a way of setting our priorities and mine did. Now I finally have the time, and truthfully the energy, to try again. I am leaning heavily towards Adobe Lightroom and adding other software as plugins. Till then I dug around some photographers I respect and see what they are using. Steve @ daPonte Photography uses OnOne Software so I looked at their products and decided to downloaded their freeware Perfect Effects 8. The first photo I used Perfect Effects 8 to give it a light HDR/Grunge look. The second is the original with a brightness/contrast adjustment applied with Paint.NET, a software I stumbled upon while digging around the web..
Next week I am hoping to test drive TopazLabs free trail of some of their software. My buddy Mike @ Mike’s Look at Life does some amazing things with his already solid captures using some of their software. Till then here is Two To Compare.
This is a bloom just coming out on grandfather apple tree. It is a sign of Apples to-be!
Sorry for such a lame title but it is what it is: Carpenter Bees flying by trying to establish a beachhead in my front porch’s rafters. I discovered a little trick in the process, one which I am sure all established photographers already know, and that is I tracked the bees with the eye not looking through the view open. This allowed me to track the bee(s), you will see two at first, and when I had the manual focus right the bee(s) become one. Cool stuff I think! So here is two bees on the fly.
Things are not really blooming on our place yet so I find my opportunities else where till they do. Here is a bloom of the Bradford Pear and it is a White Delight.
I was trying to get a few “into the sun” shots of our Violets when I was once again interrupted by my puppy, er cat Butterfly. Where I goes she goes and though I usually do not mind there are times that it is a problem. As I tried to take a few shots more of the Violets, with her walking on me and the rubbing up against my hand and camera, I looked up and spotted something dark against the Blue sky. It was a Vulture riding the wind that is coming into our area by an approaching cold front. So I have two very different subjects but I find each to be very beautiful in their own right.
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Daffodil Hill Photography 