The Japanese Garden in Ashland’s Lithia Park was in full glory this week. But I found myself fascinated with the raindrops lingering on the ends of the leaves. I did one sweep through the Garden with a wide angle lens then went back to the car and got the new 180mm macro which won the day with this image of Japanese maple leaves with a raindrop and a beautiful soft yet colorful background.
Well, I guess it is a good thing when I am too busy photographing to post the image of the week. I spent a long weekend at a photo workshop in Olympic National Park. The fall color was stunning but the rain didn’t let up for too long at a time. I found myself drawn to the mushrooms which were present in all colors shapes and well, mostly small, sizes.
This one was right along the edge of the road near a steep bank so it was all I could do to get a shot framed and some serious cropping ensued. I added a little saturation, some sharpening and darkened the edges.
I almost waited to long to get down to North Mountain Park to photograph the milkweed seeds this year. But there were still a few worthy of my attention and this was my favorite of the lot. I cropped it ever so slightly to maximize focus on the seeds and pod. I added detail and saturation in Color efex pro but was still not happy so went back in Photoshop and added vibrance and a smart sharpen layer.
I spent a little time in the Portland Rose Test Gardens this week while on a tour of the northern part of the state. Lots of good images to plow through from there and other destinations. This one got the basic sharpening, saturation and darkening of the edges in post processing. And a little cropping to place the center of the rose off from the center of the image.
I have been neglecting my photography in favor of genealogy lately so I made a special trip to North Mountain Park this morning. I was thinking birds but the bees were more cooperative and cone flowers (aka echinacea) are always so photogenic. This one had the usual post processing in Color Efex Pro. A little detail, a little saturation a little darkening of the corners.
Who knew Milkweed in bloom could be so pretty.
I finally got that 180mm macro lens I’ve been jonesin’ for. Took it out for a test run at North Mountain Park this morning and I have to say I am very pleased with the results. Only took me an hour and a half to tear myself away from the gardens. The birds will have to wait for another day.
This image was cropped a little from the top. Added detail and saturation in Color Efex pro and some sharpening in Photoshop.
I was playing around with some of the fun software and some old images and came up with this one I really liked using a combination of Topaz Simplify and Topaz Glow.
I found this cool snail shell in the forest when I was looking for mushrooms. Good thing because otherwise I would have come home empty handed. I photographed it on my granite counter top to create an interesting background. Then I took it into Nik Color Efex Pro for detail, saturation and warmth. Next into Topaz texture efects where I started with the oily hands preset and added a light leak and some scratches. Ended up back in Color Efex Pro for a border.
I can’t get enough of photographing California poppies. This one looked pretty good out of the camera but I did a little magic in post processing by adding detail and saturation and then treated it ever so slightly in my new Topaz Glow software.