17 – Athletic

This is the most athletic thing I have ever seen short of Cirque du Soleil.  These 3 people are absolute mutants (how do her legs not snap?)!  We went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival a couple of weekends ago.  This is one of our favorite acts.  They’re relatively new to the fest and they’re called Barely Balanced (click for web site…watch some of their videos and be amazed).  This is not my favorite shot of them, but it is the one that I think demonstrates the greatest athleticism.  You can check out some more of my pics from the fest in My FaceBook Album which I’ve made public just for y’all.  I Topaz’d the daylights out of those, cuz I like the surreal sort of feel it gives to the pictures…it gives them an otherworldly sense of place.  The festival is definitely surreal.

Shooting outdoors in the spring and summer in Arizona is insane.  The light is so harsh, and because it is so hot, there is artificial shade constructed everywhere which is very dark.  The lighting is so poor, and there’s no HDR-ing it because you’re shooting action rather land landscape or still-life.  There is no golden hour shooting here as it doesn’t open until mid-morning.  What do you do to compensate for a combination of harsh direct light and deep dark shadow in the same shot at the same time when shooting events like this?  I’m having a helluva time!

114 – Flowers

This orchid was a housewarming present that my friend received, from a family member.  She’s not good with plants anyway, but there was a particular irony in the detailed instructions given with this beauty.  There are 2 other plants in the approximately 8X8 basket this is potted in, and the orchid rises up and curves above them.  The instructions for the orchid indicate water is necessary about every 3 weeks.  The instructions for the foliage plants in the basket?  Water every 2-3 days.  Of course.

304 – Stop Sign

Reaching into the archives for this one.  Been mostly housebound lately, not taking any pics.  Caring for family members and then finally an illness for myself.  Remember when I said 2012 couldn’t be any worse than 2011?  Oh, Karma loves it when people say stupid things like that!  =P

This is a stop sign, of sorts.  This is SOOC from my little Sony Cybershot, which is several years old now and on its last legs.  This is one of those “Did I just see what I think I saw?” moments where you flip a U-ey in the road and go back to look.  I stuck my teeny P&S (P.O.S.?) out the window and snapped this, because it was too cute.  It tells a story about a few little secluded houses on a privately maintained road, who are all there for there tree-enshrouded privacy…and the city-slicking obnoxious tourists who were guided into this sanctuary by their faulty technology.

136 – Glow

This actually was taken this year…before we took the tree down, cuz we were a bit late at that.  This is the newest ornament I bought this year.  Yeah, we have a sense of humor about everything, including Christmas.  We found the Mr. Hankey Christmas Ornament at our Barnes & Noble just before it closed for good (economy).  The only reason I’m using this odd little tidbit for the challenge is because it gave me a good example to play with my other new toy, Topaz Star Effects, which I just bought the other day.

 Here is the final result, and below, the original image.  I love Topaz plug-ins.  They let me fake all the skills I don’t have time or motivation to learn in order to manipulate photos properly using Photoshop Elements.  😉

So fun!!!

Snag A Camera Giveaway from MCP Actions

I am a sucker for a sweepstakes.  I’ve won all sorts of things, I swear it works; won me & hubby a trip to NYC in 2005.  So, that being said, I entered for a camera upgrade from MCP Actions.  Follow this link to do the same:  Snag A Camera Giveaway

Photo Deals…

I just discovered that there is a version of Groupon for photographers.  It’s called Big Trigger and it features deals on PhotoShop actions, photo printing, web design services, digital scrapbook graphics, e-books, publications, etc.  Kinda neat.

What are your favorite places to find big deals for your photography wish list?

327 – Tourist

This is a portrait of the uninvited “tourist,” the invasive and prolific Quagga Mussel.  I didn’t even notice the little sand spider near the bottom middle/left until I blew this up…ewwwwww!  I punched up the detail and saturation on this with Topaz Adjust.  The dried water-junk leaves a white film on the rocks on the beach, making it hard to see the bits of color underneath, especially in bright light.  The biggest of these little critters is about the size of my fingernail, and I have teensy hands.  They’re everywhere.  You can hardly set your foot down without crunching their little dead shells on the beach, and there must be a zillion times that under the water.

196 – Motion

Teaching my 13yoa niece and 16yoa nephew how to skip rocks.  All that was done to this is crop.

 

89 – Embark

The original photo was actually taken by my 16yoa nephew using my camera.  Yeah, I’m using it anyway.  I cropped it way down and added some effects with Topaz.

The sky was so plain.  So I opened up Lens Effects and used the Graduated Neutral Density preset to add a little interest to the sky.  Most of the naturally graduated color/light was cropped out in this.  There was no land or other point of reference to go in the frame.  This was at 300mm zoom and has been way cropped besides…the thing was just out in the middle of the blue directly above.

Then as I’m playing with Lens Effects I notice the Toy Camera presets…this one (Memories II?) gave it a very Instagram-y effect that I quite like.  I know “real” photographers think Instagram and similar programs are ruining the art of photography, but for cripes’ sakes let shutterbugs have a little fun.  Especially the ones that aren’t trying to earn a living at photography.  A well-equipped darkroom is to photography what an acoustically superior location is to music (that may not be the best analogy as I know precisely zip about music…only thing I can play is the radio…you get my drift though).  In the digital age, image manipulation programs are to photography what AutoTune is to music; what constitutes “art” is subject to popular culture and for me if it pleases my eyes, ears, etc. then I kind of don’t care how it’s made (so long as it’s not made by skinning babies alive or something).  If you do not like what is made, stop looking and listening and quityerbitchin!  😉

Welcome to 2012, all.  It certainly can’t be any worse than 2011!

24 – Bloom

Ok, so these blooms are fake…and this is a morbid interpretation of this theme.  Welcome to October.

65 – Cupcakes

Lemon pudding filled lemon cupcakes with raspberry buttercream.  These were based on recipes I found for Limoncello filled cupcakes with Chambord buttercream.  However, because these were for a work party they had to be N/A.  Sad, no?  🙂

109 – Floor

From the wide world of things that make you go, “what the?!?”  A little chunk of floor, from an old bank (obviously) which has been laid up against this tree so long it’s grown over…  I went back and forth between B/W and color on this one, and various shades of in-betweens.  Finally settled on the “crisp” preset to give it some subdued moodiness…because that seems like a good fit for pictures of old junk.

73 – Dessert

I made this Irish Whiskey Cake (link to recipe) for our friend’s birthday, who was born on St. Patrick’s Day.  This thing was so loaded with booze the leftovers wouldn’t freeze!  It was amazing, though…

217 – Pasta

I actually probably take more pictures of food than anything else.  This is Kraft’s Pizza Pasta Salad (link to recipe).  I actually thought it was pretty good, despite the fact that I’m not a big fan of pasta salad, Italian dressing, or salami.  I must say it was quite edible.

294 – Symbols

These petroglyphs appear in the Kaibab National Forest.  Apparently they were vandalized a few years ago and the sand blasting that removed the paint caused the symbols to lose some of their luster.  It’s still pretty neat, though.  Arizona has a lot of more impressive petroglyphs than this one, but I’ve not yet been to them.

26 – Blurred

This is one of my frequent photo faux pas…  I like to use the action mode on my camera to take multiple shots quick and (theoretically) freeze the action really sharp.  However, usually when I’m doing this I’m in the woods and the autofocus zones in on a branch between me and what I’m looking at, and I end up with this.  Still kind of cool.  I mean, how often do you get to see a bear fight?  It went on for about 10 minutes.  Bearizona, of course.

8 – Architecture

Creepy old chapel in Flagstaff.  Took a bunch of pictures of this thing in the middle of the night with no tripod and nothing but my built-in flash.  I actually got some cool, creepy shots, much to my happy surprise.  This is my favorite.

Photo Editing Software Deal

For a $40 donation to UNICEF you can get $326 in photo editing software.  Granted, most of these I never heard of…but some of you more savvy types probably have.  See here:  Bundleytic Software Deal from MakeUseOf

 

The site itself also has some good photography/camera operation/photo editing articles and manuals.  It’s not limited to photo either.  They publish “For Dummies” style guides on all kinds of subjects.

145 – High Contrast Shot

This was not a high contrast shot in the least.  It was totally blasted out from the afternoon sun and the fact that these agaves (or yuccas, whatever they are) were dying and faded.  I was going to try to punch it up for the repeating patterns theme…I was playing around with it and got this version with the sketch presets, which I’d previously decided were worthless.  Now I’m loving it.

60 – Costume

We were at the Arizona Renaissance Festival this spring with some friends.  There are performers everywhere looking for recognition and tips, and then there are weirdos from everywhere that just show up in crazy-ass outfits.  Sometimes they’re legit reenactors (“I reenact, therefore I was.”), sometimes they’re just morons or emo kids in slutty fairy outfits.  This year, though, there was a real gem.  These two extremely clever kids, who were just there dressed up for their own fun, let me stop them and take their picture.  They got right into character and posed for me.  I tipped them, as they outdid most of the “pros” this year.  If you don’t get these getups, I feel sorry for you because you are missing out.

They are King Arthur and his loyal servant Patsy, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail which is the “Holy Grail” of British comedy, if not all comedy.

“Patsy” even has Terry Gilliam’s scowl down perfectly, and “Arthur” nailed Graham Chapman’s smug face. They galloped off in perfect form. Highlight of my whole day.

The movie was very dark and dismal looking so I tried to impart some of that onto the photo which was otherwise extremely bright & cheery. I used the neutralize filter and tried to vignette some of the distractions out.

7 – Aqua

Little water lily in a little bitty pond.  Psychedelic preset.

365 – Yellow

Yellow flowers in a field, used Spicify preset to bring back some color.  Hazy day, as you can see by the “fuzz” behind the first line of trees.  😦  So it goes.  Northern AZ (where else?).

207 – One-Two-Three

One, two, three, they climbed the log.  Another gem from my favorite wildlife park.

125 – Garbage

This is the side yard of a little shop/gallery called the House of Joy.  It used to be a brothel.  Didn’t get to go inside, as they keep very limited hours.  There’s a collection of the most eclectic garbage (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) outside though.  I took a picture and jazzed it up in Topaz.  I took several angles, of which this was the most suitable.  There was just no getting it all in one shot.  There’s stuff on the stairs leading down to it, on the wall, on the fence, everywhere.  🙂

53 – Coiled

What better exemplifies this scene than a snake?  We found this little feller crossing the road in Northern AZ so we stopped to take his picture.  My buddy who is a reptile guy says he is either a Prairie Rattler or a young Arizona Black Rattlesnake (as they are not black until they are mature and this was a little guy).  Hubby thought it was a sidewinder because that’s how it moved but my reptile guy says most young/small rattlesnakes move that way.  I decided to forego a longer exposure, trying to get his rattles blurred because he was moving so much, and as luck would have it my quick shutter caught his tongue out.  I know I look like I’m up in his face but this was with 300mm zoom.  🙂

I intended to do nothing but crop this because it was great.  The colors were nice and everything was the way I liked it.  Then, just because, I started playing with Topaz Adjust and of all things the recover highlights preset really made it crazy beautiful.

56 – Comfy and Cozy

Confession:  I am a cat person.  We have 5.  This little man is El Duderino, or Dude, named after the character from the movie The Big Lebowski.  He is not my prettiest cat, but he is definitely my most photogenic cat.  The focus could be better on this but the bokeh is great.  I like this shot.  Duder is laying on the back of the loveseat, daydreaming out the window.

233 – Reaching Up

I took this picture sticking my zoom lens out the cracked window of a car in a drive-through wild animal park, Bearizona in Williams AZ.  I had to shoot into a very bright backlighting situation with the sun behind thin white clouds.  I cropped as much of the sky out as I could and used AutoCorrect in Photoshop Elements to make this more palatable.  I also sharpened with Topaz InFocus because the focus on this is baaaaaad.  Topaz’s claim that it sharpens out of focus pictures without adding extra noise, better than Elements, is crap.  Maybe I need to spend some quality time with their online tutorials and figure out what I’m doing wrong but it doesn’t seem like all that.  But I digress…  Voila!  A black bear, reaching up…

332 – Through A Window

I like this picture.  It’s probably crap.  It’s split right in half, no rule of thirds appled here…I guess it could’ve been a good one for the Breaking The Rules theme…  This was a neat vista to me but the dry grass was the same color as the concrete walls and trying to oversaturate the colors had a poor effect.  So I subdued it even further which I think added to the moodiness of the scene:  the broken building, the graffiti, the desolate scenery, the monsoon-dampened sky…

That bridge runs over the headwaters of the Verde River, and the view from the other side of this building used to be Sullivan Lake, which is now dry except briefly in floods (see link).

232 – Raindrops Keep Falling

Waiting to get out of our car the other day, as the rain is pouring down…I took a couple of pictures.  I tried to scrunch way down in my seat and shoot at such an angle that the tint strip across the top of the windshield would lend some color to an otherwise white overcast background with no definition.  You can tell that I couldn’t get the tint strip quite all the way across despite my best contortionist efforts, but whatever.  Pre-Topaz, you could not really make out the yellowed grass in the foreground/bottom either.  My nephew says this looks like an iPhone screensaver.  I’m not sure what that means, but it sounded complimentary.  🙂

144 – Hiding

This is totally hidden in what is essentially high, dry desert.  We’re walking through this mountaintop town, Jerome AZ, when we hear rushing water…we follow the sound to a spot at the bottom of the town, where a tiny river is flowing.  It’s apparently the town’s drainage…to accommodate the rainy/snowy seasons at higher elevations and keep from washing the town, which is precariously perched on steep hillsides, away, they run the water down the mountain and UNDER most of the town.  It finally surfaces from here, this lush green oasis full of English ivy that is totally out of place.  And yeah, I Topaz’d it a little…but very little.

39 – Celebration

First time I tried catching 4th of July fireworks.  These are taken with a telephoto zoomed to 300MM because we were nowhere near them.  I was surprised how well they turned out, considering the 1.5 miles between me and them, and the headlights going by on the highway pointing right at my camera.  I cropped this from horizontal to vertical and used the Spicify filter in Topaz Adjust.  I had never done this before, and it was ridiculous.  We get to our fireworks-watching spot only to discover I’ve left the memory card out of the camera, again…race home to grab it and get back, set up…frantically Google “taking pictures of fireworks” on my Droid and…voila…  Not too bad under the circumstances.  I took a few I was happy with, but none so much as this one.  Our small-town fireworks display is not this cool, I promise.  All of this did not go off at once.  Thank you, long exposures!

184 – Motion Blur

I used Topaz Lens Effects to make this the panning shot it shoulda been.  This is Tillman the Skateboarding Bulldog.

If you’ve never heard of Tilly, watch this:

This is what English Bulldogs do.  They have an aptitude.  Check out Tyson, Darla, or Rosie…just YouTube “skateboarding bulldog” and you will be floored.

Our bully has his own skateboard, a present from his “grandma.”  He’s a huge male and he’s too wide for it, but that didn’t stop him from riding it right into the wall and putting a dent into the drywall.  The skateboard became an outside toy right quick.

123 – Fuzzy

I had to reach the camera up over my head and down into our rose tree to get this.  Lots of these turned out like crap because I could not see to shoot.  The little guys thought I was their mama and started clamoring for food.  They were sooooooo fuzzy!  My girlfriend at work, after seeing the birdy pictures on my FaceBook, informed me that they actually looked MOLDY.  I could not look at them the same way after that!

300 – Textured

Close-up of a snoozing rhino…that skin…amazingly textured.  I did run this through Topaz Detail but the adjustment was very minor.

This guy has a pretty neat story, actually…read below.

And then can I just tell you how cool the Out of Africa Park in Camp Verde is?  Because it is!  Go on predator feed days, and be on the lookout for a manager named Bill who is like the coolest dude on the planet (and our close personal friend in case that wasn’t painfully obvious by the shameless plug).

 

175 – Macro Shot

About time to put a picture up with only mild edits, such as this one.  I sharpened it a teensy bit.  That is all.

177 – Metallic

I have ALWAYS wanted a car painted in mega-metallic like this…you know, the kind of paint they use on carnival rides.  I’ve never seen one though, until now.  It’s for sale, too…

Here’s how this image began life…the car was parked under a tree and it had been drizzling.  This car was DIRTY and you really couldn’t tell much about the paint before Topaz…

37 – Car Parts

We tooled around this cool antique mining exhibit the other day.  I haven’t been since I was a kid and hubby had never been…it hasn’t changed much.  The owner is basically a hoarder with a gimmick, and charges admission to see his junk.  Genius?  I think so!  When I see a busted old vehicle like this with paint in 100 colors, I can’t help but do that cartoony HDR effect to it, because it looks bad-ass.

If you get the chance, go check this place out.  It’s called the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town and it’s right outside of Jerome, AZ.  Stop & talk to Don when you go.  He has led an amazing life and tells the best stories; he’s also extremely knowledgeable.  Plus, it’s next to dirt cheap to get in!

Post-Processing Help

Ok, time to put this to the masses…

What does everybody use for post-processing software?

I’ve been using Photoshop Elements 8 for about a year and just recently started researching plug-ins and actions and presets and such.  I shelled out a ton of money for the Topaz suite of plug-ins and after much playing with it, I’m not sure it’s what I need.  I like/use about 3 of the effects, definitely not worth $250 for the apparent use I’m going to get out of it.  I think it’s a bit over my head, and I got it in the first place to simplify my fine-tuning of pictures because Elements is a bit over my head (I just don’t have the time or motivation to pour over the Elements lessons I also subscribed to at www.elementsuser.com ).  I’m now looking at the OnOne plug-in for Elements ($50) but I can’t use it until I upgrade my video card (stupid old computer).

Obviously I’m not a pro and I’m just looking to have some speedy ways to achieve nifty effects in a few clicks, instead of learning how to do it properly.   I want a cheap, easy way to “fake it.”

Do you/did you share my dilemma?  What are you using?  Are you happy with it?

Input greatly appreciated!

225 – Point/Pointed

Yeah, it’s an arrow.  Clever, huh?  I edited out part of a car door that infringed on the left side of the pic using the spot healing brush in PSE8.  I used Topaz Adjust to do a detail pop which gave just the right contrast adjustment to the white paint peeling off the gray metal on the sign; it made the photo too dim though so I upped the saturation boost by .5.  I like vintage lighted signs.  I’ll post some of my Vegas pics sometime.  😉

Is anybody out there?

I was looking through some of the other blogs that were participating in this challenge and saw I’m not the only one that fell off the wagon, so to speak.  Looks like lots of folks have lost interest.  I hope a few of you are still around.  It’s been a rough year around here, but I’m hanging in and I’m gonna try to finish this damn project!  🙂

47 – Chimneys

This is a very cool spot where several old ranch line cabins have burned to the ground, leaving only their chimneys.  It would have been sweet to get all the chimneys in one picture but they’re too far apart and the trees are too thick.  This is the neatest one, though…you can walk right up the front steps, through the “door” and into the cabin.  A few more good rains and the tipping chimney will fall over backward.  We had the unfortunate experience of showing up at a super-bright time of day, where the position of the sun caused the tree (in the immediate walkway of the steps) to cast super-dark shadows on the entry.  So a lot of my details were either washed out or too dark, and my colors were very blah.  So I ran this through the HDR Pop preset in my Topaz Adjust filter to get this…

This is the old Bar 37 area of what is now the Yolo Ranch outside of Prescott, AZ or Bagdad, AZ (depending on where you’re coming from).  It happens to be for sale right now (see link) for $12mil+.  Hell, at that price, I’ll take two!

Random fact:  My great-grandparents worked on the Yolo in the 50s.  My granny was the cook at headquarters and my grandpa was a wrangler.

155 – In The Distance

I am standing at around 3,000 feet in elevation, looking over 60 miles to the snow-capped peaks which are over 12,500 feet.  That’s where you find Snow Bowl, one of a couple of ski resorts in Arizona.  Yes, ski resorts (plural)…yes, Arizona.

I took four photos , pivoting right to left, and used the Photomerge Panorama feature in PhotoShop Elements 8 to put them all together.  I love these kinds of contradictory shots.  There are layers of landscape from low desert foothills, to red sandstone mesas, to finally the pines and snow.

This one isn’t quite as shocking as one a few years ago that I took from down low of a prickly pear cactus, with snowy hills in the distance…but it’s the same idea.

 

176 – Matched Pair

This is one of the few photos I have taken so far this year.  I thought it would go well under this heading.  I baked two gorgeous cherry pies after a terribly stressful prep and baking process which included the demise of my brand new food processor.  Unfortunately there was no cheating to be done; all from scratch, all by hand.  The most ironic part: I don’t even eat cherry pie.  These were gifts.  I hear this recipe is amazing, though…I’ve made it twice now, to rave reviews both times.  If you like cherry pie, or any baked goodies really, I recommend you hit up Stephanie Jaworski at the Joy of Baking web site.  She can do no wrong.

Welcome!

Promise to start snapping, editing and posting soon.  Please rate, comment and critique what you see.  I’m here for self-improvement’s sake so let me have it right between the eyes with both barrels!