Another sign

Another sign of spring is that the kids are out a lot more.  On our block, even in the winter, the boys run around with no shoes/socks!  I think they move too fast to get cold.

But in the spring the girls come out and here's a couple - Sadie and MaryAnn.  For those of you that may have seen my Angel picture, that was Sadie.

Here's a couple of pics to update you on their growth!

How do you feel?

Here's some pictures that convey to me, a sense of how one might feel.  Today I felt like Claire, the girl with the "grouchy' look (I know, she could have just been tired). 

Some days I feel like one of my petals has come off and I don't know how to fix it.

Other days I am beautiful.

Pigeon Love!

Spring is here in it's many manifestations. A tree down the street is flowering, buds are sprouting out on roses and other plants.  And birds are in the mating game.

I shot this sequence as I sat in my truck in a parking lot - I happened to look up and see these two and marveled at them.  What a treat.  Of course, I really do not know what all the behaviour was about, but it looked like courtship to me!  Click on the picture for a better view.

What could this be??

So what in the world could this be a picture of?  Snow? soap in a pond?  Or sea foam?  or or

This is a cropped portion from a shot with a 6 megapixel camera.  The photo was captured in raw format, and a tripod and cable release used to minimize any camera shake or vibration.  This is sea foam, in all of it's beauty!

Then I worked with it in Lightroom 3 beta until it started to look like I thought it should.

You folks from Port Orford - this was taken at your place!  I believe it is Agate beach.

The natural world continuously surprises me.

Minnesota wanna-be!

Sunday evening we were sitting outside on the deck and Lisa could not warm up, despite many layers of clothing.  She finally said that she needed a cap to keep the heat from escaping, so we gladly produced the Minnesota cap for her to wear!

Purchased from Duluth trading company, from Duluth, Minnesota, Diana got me this cap for Christmas to wear on my walks with the dog.  Great earflaps and a very long bill make it a unique and definitely a Northern Minnesota cap.  AND it is wonderfully warm and comfortable, which makes it all worthwhile.

Lisa resisted at first but then put it on and was properly warmed!

Antelope Island

Murph and I visited Antelope Island state park this morning.  Our purpose was to photograph Burrowing Owls, but really, we go to just have fun!

There was one owl that I found and took a picture of - but he/she was not too cooperative for getting a really great shot.  Perhaps later in the season.  But the meadowlarks and chukars were much more cooperative and made for some great shots.  Plus Murphy also!!

Green Screen

In the PC world, the Blue Screen is the 'blue screen of death' on a Microsoft system!  In the photography world, the green screen is supposed to be a great background that you can then extract the subject and put them in whatever background or color that you want.  Or so I am told.  Well, I had to try it so got a little green screen kit and here's my first picture of a somewhat unwilling subject :-)

Stay tuned to see what I do with it - it's late and I think I'll go to bed and try working with extracting Diana tomorrow!

Death = Beauty

In death there is much beauty, as nature shows us every day.  Here are the tulip petals, shown a couple of posts before in their living glory, now shown as they have been discarded by the stem and lay on their deathbed in all their glory.

And what glory!  Incredible colors and shapes!

Very Exciting!

It is interesting how life just sort of ambles along, and then, once it seems convinced you are going in a certain direction, things just take off!!
Well, check out www.hawkwatch.org and see my picture on the cover of their annual raptor migration report!  Then click through on gifts and go to other gifts and find my cards for sale!  Very exciting!  The American Kestrel t-shirt (long and short sleeve) are my photo's also!


Plus, I now have two weddings - May 28th and May 29th!  Yes I will be exhausted but I find that I am pretty excited about the challenge.  And both will pay!  I'm already scoping out what equipment to rent from Pictureline so I have the best lenses without buying them!

Great time to be alive!

Rainy Day

A rainy day here in the valley - turning to snow now.  A wonderful day for being inside by the fire!  Actually, I'm down stairs cleaning my office and looking at pictures on my new iMac.  Seeing this beauty on the 27in screen is breathtaking!

Color

I was into color today and really liked these two. 

Can you see the water strider in the blue pic?  No, the tulips are not from our garden, yet!  But their color and the wall color went together very nicely (or not, depending on your preferences).

Spring snowstorm

Friday morning brought a snowpacked outdoors, with at least 6 inches at our place despite the warmth and melting.  Here's a couple of early morning pictures recording the scene. Low light and snow brings out the blue - I've removed some of it, as it gets to be a bit depressing.

The mountains had 20+ inches and good water content so that was a good step towards enough water for the summer.  More next week, so so 'they' say :-)

 

 

Katie

Katie's mom called - she loved the picture except for the blue tag hanging out of her mouth!  I really had to laugh at myself as I am so used to Murphy's blue tag that it totally escaped me.  so I removed the tag!  here's the pic without the tag.

Not sure I spelled Katie correctly, but anyway!!!  Dogs R Us is Murphy's doggie day care.  I've taken pictures on Halloween of dogs down there and they refer me to people who want pictures of their dogs!  Long story as to how I got this picture of Katie, a Great Dane.  She is a very gentle soul, and had just had her nails clipped when I arrived at DRU to take some shots.  She was skittish, and walked around almost constantly.

Finally, it was just she and I in the open area out back.  She leaned against me and we communed for several moments, just getting related.  Then she walked around the open area and stopped for a couple of minutes when I got this one and several others.

The background is the gray concrete and it had a lot of marks in it, including one just beneath her that looked like she had just peed!  I used a Photoshop swirl to stir up the background and then an Aperture 3 blur brush to reduce the distinctness of the swirls.  Had to do quite a bit of cloning for the small areas that came out like black specks due to the combination above, then a slight white vignette.

Now to see if her Mom likes it!!