Having come back from the Great Smokey Mountains with nearly 1500 new images in my files it was pretty hard to choose and image of the week this week. This one may not be the best but it was hard won as I had to hike a ways up a steep hill to get to the falls. It was worth the trip, as you can see, and I even had them to myself for all of five minutes. Not bad for a national park.
Finally finding some time to process images from the April trip to the coast. I was playing with this one as a possible black and white and after cloning out some trees I like the simple effect but I missed the color. Tried some blend modes to bring it back a little and found that luminosity did just what I wanted.
This particular lighthouse is hard to photograph because it is so accessible. There is no photographing it from a distance as a landscape element. But up close there are lots of fences and signs to contend with. Not to mention the trees I photoshopped out. So I’m pretty happy with this intimate portrait feel of just the top of the lighthouse with some sky showing in the background.
The Oregon Coast project is still alive thanks to a brief window of halfway decent weather this weekend. As I am currently teaching a class in Macro photography I felt compelled to put my pixels where my mouth is. Though I had a very successful day shooting tulips at Shore Acres, it was these mushrooms from a patch of forest near the Oregon Dunes that stole the day. I shot it handheld but it took six tries to get one that was properly framed and focused. Well worth all the contortions I had to go through to get down to their level.
I’m so happy that spring is finally here! So many flowers, so little time. My newest Lensbaby lens is the Burnside 35mm which has a really close focusing distance so though it is a wide angle makes for some new and interesting approaches to flower. I added one texture to ad a little more interest to the background.
Unbeknownst to me by March trip to the coast happened to coincide with the Beach Labyrinth schedule (https://www.sandypathbandon.com/public-schedule). It is these kinds of serendipitous events that keep me motivated on a project like this. I had shown up at the beach to photograph the sunset and initially just took a few grab shots of the labyrinth and walked on by. But as the clear sky sunset set up to be very boring indeed I realized that the labyrinth was the main event and went back to see what I could do with it. I especially liked the decorative circles like this sun. I processed it in black and white to downplay the flare in the upper right corner. I supposed if I worked at it I could hide it a little more but I kind of like the wabi-sabiness of it… Imperfectly perfect.
I was about on the verge of thinking I would have to bag the Oregon Coast project because the weather has been so bad I couldn’t get over there in February. But a very brief window of fair weather followed by a warm weather system allowed be to get to Coos Bay for a couple of days. The first day started out well but by sunset the clouds were so thick there was no color to be had. The next day was characterized by steady rain. I had chosen Coos Bay on purpose for the variety of indoor activities. I got soaked getting from my car to the Marine Life Center in Charleston but as luck would have it, it stopped raining for a few minutes just as I was leaving so I had a chance to photograph in the Boat Basin, one of my favorite places to shoot. There was a boat with a load of fish that had the attention of some seagulls so there were plenty flying around. So, once again proving that half of photography is being in the right place at the right time. I treated this image with an impressionistic painting filter followed by a texture effect for a painterly look that somehow makes the weather look a lot better than it was.
It was pointed out to me this week that I haven’t been posting much lately. I acknowledged that this was true. But when I went and looked at my files and realized I hadn’t taken a single picture in February and the month was half over I resolved that something needed to change. Between the weather and a ridiculously busy schedule for a retired person I just haven’t had the time or opportunity to do what I love. So, this morning I headed into the tiny studio with some sea shells and a flashlight to see what I could come up with. I rested this sand dollar on top of the flashlight and was pleased with the result. As always I thought I didn’t need a texture but when I put one on it did seem to improve the image.
I’ve been slacking again on the image of the week. But in my own defense wi-fi in Baja California is sketchy at best and since returning I have been hard at work sifting through the images I made there. This one of a baby whale coming to the surface is one of my favorites. This baby and his mama hung out with our boats for quite awhile, and no, I didn’t use a telephoto lens.
I’m breaking with tradition this year and not posting the image of the year from 2018 as the first image of the week for 2019. For one thing I am still going through the images from last year and at last count there were about 10,000 before editing out the clunkers. For another, the one I would probably choose appeared here just a month ago. It was so overwhelming I decided not to use it as the sidebar image this year either but chose something simpler. But, perhaps most importantly I wanted to feature a new project I am starting this year which requires me to visit the Oregon Coast for at least two days every month in 2019. I wanted to start it off right so scheduled a trip from Jan 2-5 with fingers crossed on the weather. I lucked out and had three beautiful days with rain starting just as I was ready to go home. I arrived in Gold Beach a little late due to circumstances beyond my control but had time to hustle on down to the Rogue River Bridge in time for sunset. Not sure why they need those tall metal poles in the river but otherwise not a bad shot. Handheld with then new EOS R mirrorless. Starting to really love that camera.
I’ve been thinking about photographing skaters at the ice skating rink for almost a year now. I didn’t make it over there before it closed last year so I finally made a point to go play with my new camera this weekend. Most of the skaters were pretty slow at best or wall huggers at worst, forcing me to back away from the wall where I was trying to photograph. But this guy was into it and created some good motion blur. I treated it with a duo tone effect… not quite black and white but almost.