A busy week and more wind had me grabbing whatever was at hand to check off the box that I did my image of the day. I did like the way these bottles came out though hindsight says I should have arranged them a little differently with respect to the background.
Well, I had my three hour zoom watercolor class this morning and by the time I could get outside it was too windy to do any serious photography. So I headed into the studio and just started playing with things I’ve been accumulating to photograph, including these type blocks, and the Lensbaby Spark which is not really at it’s best for closeup photography but I kind of liked this image. I then added a texture to give the background some color and a vignette to darken the edges. It still needed something so I took it into Topaz Studio for a grungy look.
Our quote today is from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.
So, yes, I was getting pretty bored with the neighborhood. I took a drive out through the orchards and into the Applegate Valley where I found a few interesting things to photograph, including this farm equipment. I started out with the standard shot of the whole thing but then started zooming in further and further looking for interesting shapes and lines. I rendered this as a black and white but then lowered the opacity on that layer to bring back just enough color to keep it interesting.
Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of today’s quote:
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
I noticed coming home from the grocery store this morning that one of my neighbors had added some prayer flags to her back gate. The Home sign was already there. Of course, I should have photographed it then and there as the morning light was much better than the afternoon when I finally got around to it. But it still almost meets my vision. I added a grunge texture and a border to give it a little more of an arty look.
Today’s quote is from Nancy Rotenberg my favorite photography guru:
“…all you need to do is create a mind capable of receiving and the images will come.”
On the coast road from Sutherlin to Reedsport is this barn which I have photographed a number of times. Sometimes the sheep are present, sometimes not. But the fall color made it particularly scenic this time. I had the Velvet 85 on the camera so I just went with it. It was pretty soft out of the camera so I thought to give it an impressionistic look but in scrolling through Topaz Studio, I came across a filter called clear day which actually sharpened things up a bit for a look I really love.
I took another camera walk in Medford today, still working with the Velvet 56 mounted on the EOS R, but the light was flat and nothing really inspired me so as I was walking past the antique mall I thought, “Oh, why not.” I got a few strange looks but no one threw me out. Did I mention that I paid $50 extra to get the silver version of the Velvet 56? It is quite the attention getter… I have gotten more comments on that lens! I’m starting to think black might have been a better choice. But, getting back to the antique mall, I was especially taken with some Pollyanna style lamps with hanging crystals. I added a high pass filter and brightened things up a bit. And, since yesterday was new texture day at the texture club I chose a subtle grunge texture that added just what this image needed.
I had an OLLI class in downtown Medford yesterday so I decided to take a camera walk around the area and found this bronze chess player in a plaza which, if memory serves, was a parking lot back in the day. I realized I haven’t spent much time in downtown Medford since returning to the valley. Though I have fond memories of shopping at J.C. Penney with my Mom and cruising on a Friday night in Connie Cook’s Mom’s Cadillac (’68ish I think… the Cadillac, I mean, more like ’72 or ’73 for the cruising) I can’t say I ever really spent much time in downtown Medford. Well, there may be a poem there… but in any event I found the area worthy of further exploration so I look forward to the next five Wednesdays to check it out…not to mention the multitude of food trucks converged on the area.
So, this image was challenging because of the position of the sun putting the chess player in shadow. I opened up the shadows, and desaturated the reds and blues to remove distractions from the background. I then decided that it might benefit from a texture. I chose one with a bronzish tone to it. I was blown away with how well it not only highlighted the bronze tones of the statue but also helped to downplay the shadows on his face.
It was a busy rainy day and I am starting to feel a little frustrated that I am not getting a lot of new work done. But, I hope this too shall pass. I was sitting down working out my schedule for this week when I realized I hadn’t posted anything yet for the 100 days project. I have some new stuff from the coast but I won’t be able to upload it until tomorrow. So, I went back to the archives for this picture from the Jacksonville cemetery taken last month of some civil war graves with flags. I took it into Topaz Studio for a more vintage look. I wanted to keep some color, especially in the flags but I didn’t want them too bright either. This look is called desaturated grunge and fills the bill perfectly. This was taken with the Sweet 50 intentionally keeping most of the headstones and flags out of focus.
So today I went to an antique show. I think some of the dealers through I was a little crazy taking pictures of their stuff but it was much cheaper than buying everything and bringing it home. I was using the Trio28 on the M100 which is the most unobtrusive set up I have. The Trio also has a fairly close focusing distance at 8″ so works well as a wide angle macro lens. the lights and other objects all fade into blur and bokah. I added a texture for a little more interest in the background. Guess I should have got the front leg all in the picture.
It’s only 10 am and my energy is already flagging so in the interest of getting caught up I decided to offer up one more image from my camera walk with the sweet 50 in Arles. In this case I added clarity and vibrance and a little saturation and then added a texture which I think added a little interest. I made quite a study of street lamps in France. In Arles for some reason all of the glass had been removed but the frames remained decorative.