…….well a few Buttonbushs to be exact. Any normal year they would be here within a few weeks but it looks like the harsh Winter has but them in delay pattern. What to do till their arrival? Look at and post pics from last year. Here is one of these great little pollinator filling stations at work!
Life got you stressing? Does it seem like all the fun is gone from (Fill what applies to you here) ? Need revived? Here looks like a great place to do that so come on over and take a load off!
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!
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.
I took this shot several years back and just rediscovered it, and several other shots, while moving stuff off my old Dell. I was aware enough to ask permission to take a few shots but forgot to ask the owner what year and make it was……welcome to my world!
I normal shot in B&W with my ol’ point and shots but have made several attempts at Color-to-B&W conversions. Here is another such attempt and the subject is an abandoned one room building I found several weekends ago. It was to cold then, and the Sun was not checking then, but it showed up to give me a hand yesterday. See what you think.
The combination of crappy weather ( Insert: We have had a real winter for once, in say the last five years: Here), a bad cold, a bum leg and general life things have had the net effect of mucking up my photo-mojo as of late. On the few occasions I did get an opportunity to grab a shot or three I have really stunk up the pixels, if you know what I mean. Today was one of four ops I have had this month and I stopped by and revisited a bush I had taken several shots of earlier in the month. The first photo is of a few seed pods encased in ice, representing this next of the woods as of late. The second is a few unencumbered pods on the same bush, of which I took today. As I was looking at the seed pods today I noticed they were all open. I assumed that, by the pictures earlier this month, they have been closed until recently. Since I know not what type of bush it is this thought that flittered across my mind: To Seed Or Not To Seed, that is the question.
The following photo is of an unidentified pod emerging from its ice cocoon. Though not a great shot technically I still like it a lot. Enjoy!
Daffodil Hill Photography 