Grapes

grapes

So, on my mission to find my 2nd Great-grandfather’s grave in Lower Lake, CA last week I suddenly realized I was only 30 miles from the Napa Valley. While I should have planned better to spend a whole day photographing there I couldn’t resist the temptation to at least poke my nose into the north end of the Valley. Most of the grapes had been harvested, of course, but there were a few clusters left for show near one of the winery parking lots. Backlighting from the sun gave some of the grapes a stained glass look.

I actually had to do a lot of work in post processing because of the backlighting and some very distracting spectral highlights. A combination of cropping, content-aware fill, and clone stamping got me to this point.  I also did my usual tricks in Color Efex Pro; detail, saturation, and brightening the center while darkening the edges.

Grunge Abstract

Grunge_Abstract

It’s always fun to roam the back alleys of small towns to find the old buildings with patches on patches and with a little graffiti thrown in it makes for a pretty interesting image. I tried this one rotated in all directions and finally ended up back where I started. The colors were a little dull so I took it into Topaz Restyle for a makeover. So many good options! Bur I ended up choosing dingy attic. I wanted to add a grunge texture but I see I have have not yet uploaded my textures to the new laptop. Always takes a few outings to get the bugs worked out.

Meadowlark

Meadowlark

It was back to the Klamath Basin again this week. I was particularly struck with the detail in the feathers of this bird though it’s colors have definitely fades since spring. I also like the way the autumnal foliage blurred into a beautiful tan background.

In post processing I cropped in some, added detail and saturation and a little highlight on the bird. And as always finished with some sharpening.

Milkweed

Milkweed2

Well, I’m now the proud owner of a Canon 7D Mark II. I took the Mark I out for a spin on Tuesday, turned it on and nothing happened. “Oh, must be a dead battery. Good thing I have a spare in my pocket.” Switched out the battery and still nothing. Well, red flags were going up all over at this point but I was still hoping I had forgotten to charge both batteries, though it seemed unlikely.

So, I went home and charged one battery and sure enough when I put it in the camera nothing happened. It was not until this point I noticed the message on the LCD screen saying “Camera cannot communicate with battery.” So, I went upstairs to the office and typed that into google. Turns out this is not an uncommon problem with the 7D (Mark I only I HOPE). It seems there is a screw that comes loose and causes the camera to loose communication with the battery. The camera still works, it just can’t report on battery life. And there is some risk that the screw now rattling around inside the camera could cause the circuit board to short out.

I did find a U Tube video telling me how to fix the problem and I got as far as taking all the screws out of the bottom plate but I couldn’t figure out how to get the plastic plate off without breaking it so I decided that since I had been planning to upgrade to the Mark II soon anyway, I might as well go ahead and order it and use the Mark I for backup.

Had it not been Yom Kippur I would have had the new camera the next day but as it was B&H got it to me by Friday which was still pretty impressive, and they paid for shipping. I headed back to North Mountain Park this morning and found the milkweek seeds still near peak from a photographer’s point of view.

Many of the switches and buttons are the same on the Mark II as the Mark I but it does have a few more bells and whistles which I will have to study up on. At least I figured out how to turn off the annoying beep that just about drove me crazy this morning.

Sea Lions

Sea_Lions

Well, I’ve been busy as a bird dog this week. I just started teaching Introduction to Digital Photography for seniors through a life long learning program. Hence, no new captures but still some nice images from the coast. I used the longest lens I own for this one and still cropped some. But I like the variety of poses and expressions and some rocks and water for environment.

In post I did not have to do much. A little detail and saturation and darkened the corners ever so slightly.

Dahlia

Dahlia2

Sorry I didn’t get an image posted last week but it was my birthday and I was out shooting. One of the places I love to go for flowers is Shore Acres near Charleston, Oregon. Unfortunately the staff has gotten huffy and planted little hedges around all the flower beds thus making it nearly impossible to get close enough to the flowers to do macro photography. I got out my telephoto lens and did what I could but it was disappointing not to be able to do the kind of close macro abstracts I like. Still, it is hard to go wrong with a dahlia.

Post processing brought in detail and saturation and lightened up the center while darkening the edges.

Snowy Egret

Snowy_egret

It was back to the Klamath Basin for my monthly visit yesterday. I made it a quick trip as I expect to spend more time in September and October during the fall migration. Still, in spite of a very hazy start and a very windy finish it was a pretty good day with at least 25 species noted.

But as far as photographs, I liked this Snowy Egret for the reflection and, though you may not be able to see it on the smaller version, you can actually see his yellow feet in the shallow water. That and the drops of water falling off his beak and the ripples where he just made stab at hunting make this a definite keeper for me.

Blue Guitar

Blue_Guitar1

I was hanging out with some musicians this weekend and was taken with this blue guitar leaned up against a tree. The afternoon light was a little too harsh and there were some nasty reflections on the face of the guitar so I knew I had to simplify it somehow. I liked the idea of a monochrome treatment that still preserved the blue of the guitar so I took it into Topaz Black and white effects where the tea green fall off preset gave me just the look I wanted. I then added back a little saturation in Photoshop to bring out the blue a little more.

Redwoods in Fog

RedwoodsinfogI’m still processing images from the Redwoods trip. One thing I learned was how hard it is to properly expose dark trees with white fog. It didn’t occur to me until afterward to try HDR so I’ll have to save that for another time. In this case the exposure was pretty good but there were a lot of  extraneous branches and distracting detailsso I decided to try Topaz Simplify to see if I could boil it down to the essence of Redwoods. I think it worked well. Now we have tall straight trees with green foliage and of course the ever present fog. I added a rough edged border to reflect the texture of the tree branches.

Seascape

Harbor_Impression

I spent a few days exploring Redwoods State and National Parks on California’s north coast this week. It wasn’t until the last day that I allowed myself a stroll through the Crescent City harbor area and now I’m wishing I had spent more time there. How often do you get fishing boats and a lighthouse all in one picture?

It was early morning at the time so this image needed some brightness and saturation added. I finished it off with a Cezanne treatment in Topaz Impression.