Jeanne Hoadley Photography – Page 74

Spring Blossoms

It has been raining almost every day for the better part of two weeks. So, I was forced to spend some time in the digital darkroom. I had shot this image back in April just down the street from my house. Though I liked the composition and subject,I was shooting up the light was not on the blossoms and it needed some work.

First I took it into Color Efex Pro for some detail and to add light on the blossoms. Next I added a couple of textures to bring more color into the sky. Finally, I took it into Topaz Impression for a painterly look. I think this one would look good as a gallery wrap.

Overgrown Fence

Well, I had a devil of a time coming up with an image of the week this week. None of them seemed quite good enough. Of course coming back empty handed from my trip to Klamath Falls to photograph dancing grebes probably didn’t help.

But I like this one I took just down the alley from my house of a neglected garden fence. I gave it some treatments to emphasize the feeling of decay and abandonment.

Spotted Towhee

So, I decided if I was going to be a bird photographer I needed to learn a little more about birds. Taking a Life Long Learning class on birds has helped me to see that I was even more ignorant than I knew. Take for example the spotted towhee which, it turns out, is a very common bird in these parts and a year round resident. Yet I had never seen one before. Perhaps because I wasn’t looking.

In any case this one was a good poser. One of the challenges of bird photography is that most of them refuse to hold still. In post processing I added detail and sharpness, a little saturation and emphasized the bird with a darken/lighten center filter.

California Poppy

Poppy

I had to put off my trip to California again this week. But as I was walking down along the Greenway I discovered that I had an abundance of California Poppies practically in my back yard. So, I geared up with tripod, macro lens, closeup filter and kneepads and headed out to see what I could do with them. It was a cool morning so some of the blossoms were reluctant to open fully. I like how the grasses blurred out to form the perfect background. I did add some saturation and detail in post processing as usual.

Purple Vetch with Horse

Vetchwhorse

I had thought to go to California to look for wildflowers this week but the weather was a little iffy for getting over the Siskiyous and back. Then I noticed the hills in my own backyard were turning purple. A short walk from my doorstep brought me to this view and the horse graciously posed to add an element of interest.

Some detail added in post helped give definition to an otherwise dull sky. I would like to try again with a little more light on the subject if the sun ever comes out again.

Great Egret with Lunch

Lunch

One of the holy grails of bird photography is catching the bird with lunch in its mouth. I don’t suppose this one will win any prizes because the fish is not sharp. I think it was wiggling around too much. I might get points for breeding plumage though.

In post processing I did the usual with some detail, saturation and darkening the edges. I also added a smart sharpen filter mainly to reduce noise which was needed because I was shooting at 400 ISO in order to help reduce camera shake from hand holding the big lens inside the car.

This ia another one from Tule Lake. I am really falling in love with that place.

Pansies

I’m so happy to see flowers showing up everywhere. These pansies were in a planter by a store. The background was pretty busy and boring so I thought a texture might help. It did but the transition between the pansies and the background was still rough so I took it into Topaz Impression and applied a Georgia O’Keefe filter which brought me to something I feel pretty good about. Of course, if it were a real painting I would have the yellow flower facing into the frame, and purple. Oh well.

Orchards in bloom

Orchards

I showed my favorite picture from this week on the Klamath Basin blog (http://jeannehoadley.com/Klamath). It was the white Pelican in case you were wondering. But I felt I needed to come up with something new. I was afraid I had missed the peak of the pear blossoms but there are still plenty of them out there. My challenge with this image was flat lighting and clouding skies. but I did like the composition.

So, I took it into Color efex pro and did the usual magic (detail, brilliance/warmth, darken/lighten center)) and I still wasn’t happy with it. So I gave it a Film Efex Vintage filter and that gave it more of the look I wanted. I also added a border. Some images just need a border. I still think I need to go back on a sunnier day closer to sunset but I could hang this one on my wall so it passes muster.

Tulip with texture

Tulip_texture_muse2

I didn’t have time to get out and shoot this week but I did play around a little with textures. This tulip from the studio last year had a background that was too bright so I did a little processing adding detail and brightness then overlaid a texture from French Kiss which I had blurred out using a Gaussian blur filter. A little experimentation with blending modes and opacity and it came out looking pretty good.

Western Scrub Jay

Scrub_Jay

So, having committed to a project shooting in the Klamath Basin every month for a year, I decided I needed a longer telephoto lens. After a lot of research and angst I opted for the Tamron 150-600mm. You can read more about my thought process at http://jeannehoadley.com/Klamath.

I just got the lens yesterday so have only had one chance to take it out for a test drive. I found a few birds to shoot in Ashland’s North Mountain Park, including this Western Scrub Jay who chose to park himself at the very top of a 30 foot tall tree. I was maybe 50-100 feet from the base of the tree. I did crop the image some for a better composition but overall I have to say I am pretty impressed with the performance of this lens, given the cost.

The image was way underexposed out of the camera due to the bright sky but a little work in Photoshop fixed it right up. Detail and saturation were also added in Color Efex Pro. I may take it a step further and add a textured background to give it the look of a classic botanical.