Category: Lensbaby

Day 53 – Civil War Graves

graves

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.

Day 50 – Glass of Wine

Wine

Playing with my food, or in this case wine, again. It was a long drive to Pacific City and about half way in I realized I had forgotten to put my tripod in the car. I prayed that I had not unloaded it the last time. No such luck. I take this as a sign from the universe that I need to work on hand held and more Lensbaby. Not to worry, the sunset pictures from my balcony turned out just fine. Elbows on the railing trump a tripod any day. But the view was such that it called out for a glass of wine (or two) . I became fascinated with the bubbles on the edge of the glass and out came the Sweet 50 to strut it’s stuff and I thought it did quite well, all things considered.  I added clarity and vibrance and that’s about it. Oh, yes, and here’s to being halfway through the 100 days of Lensbaby project.

Day 49 – Gargoyle

Gargoyle

Oh, sigh, here it is 10:30pm and I had to jump out of bed because I forgot to post a lensbaby image. I was working with my France pictures to make a scrapbook and came across this one yesterday that I had forgotten about. It is rare in Lensbaby world to get exactly what you want in focus. In this case I nailed it with the Sweet 50. I just adjusted the exposure a bit and added clarity and sharpening. It might look better with a vignette but I need to get my beauty sleep so I can go to the coast tomorrow and stock up on more Lensbaby images. I can’t believe I’m not even half way through this project. Whose idea was this anyway?

Day 47 – Milkweed Seeds

Milkweed

This is another one from my Sunday morning walk at North Mountain Park. Milkweed seeds are one of my favorite things to photograph this time of year. I think the Sweet 50 gave this just the right combination of sharpness and softness. Of course I did have to do a lot of work in the digital darkroom. the exposure was off quite a bit because of the mostly white subject. I added a high pass filter and also added detail in Color Efex Pro to bring out those fibers. I also added clarity and saturation using the Camera Raw Filter.

Day 46 – Morning Glory

1_MorningGlory

I’m finally getting over jet lag and had some time this morning to visit North Mountain Park with the Sweet 50. The Morning Glorys are always, well, glorious, this time of year. I added a high pass filter, darkened the center. Added a lightroom preset which basically increased contrast and finished it off with a texture which I masked out over the main flower.

Day 45 – Toy Horse

ToyHorse

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.

Day 44 – Airport Abstract

Abstract

Every day I think I really need to get out there and take some new images. But I haven’t been able to think of much that I haven’t already done. And every day jet lag kicks in a little later but it still knocks me out by 4pm. So, then I start rooting around in the archives for something interesting. Any guesses as to what this is? Well, the answer is it is a stainless steel wall texture at the entrance to the ladies room. I blew out the saturation and vibrance to emphasize the colors reflected in the otherwise silver wall. I’m not sure at this point if I was using the Sweet50 or the Trio28, probably the latter.