One bloom.

Spring is coming.  Here in South Dakota it is making a S-L-O-W entrance, but it will arrive.  The greenhouses are stocked with flowers, and those few days that get above 50 degrees get me excited.

It is, however, too soon to plant gardens and pots.  Evenings can get down to freezing, and it's only been a little over a week since our last snowstorm.  (But poor northern Minnesota had a snowstorm just yesterday - we just got rain - so I do know it could be worse.)

But the coming of flower season has me longing for colorful blooms, so I bought myself a calla lily after work on Friday. They are so pretty and soft.  I had a black and white photo challenge coming up, and I thought that this lily, with its delicate stripes of color with lovely waves in the petals, might make a pretty black and white image.

I was ever so delighted in my results.  We had just enough sun that I was able to photograph in natural light, and I played with an 85mm and 105 mm lens.  Both gave me just beautiful results.

I am ever so excited for summer!

See on,
Julee

Finding wildlife. Also playing with a rubber duck.

So I have been loving the DPChallenge challenges lately - but as a result I have been neglecting my blog.  Sorry.  My efforts did earn me my first top 10 finish - so wahoo!  (Although there were only 27 entries in the challenge, so while it was still a higher score than usual for me, it is not really all that impressive of a finish).

So to catch you up with my photo activities...

A few days ago I was tromping around a bird sanctuary looking for wildlife and I had some unexpected luck. (This bird sanctuary typically has surprisingly few birds, but a few trees fell down last fall - so it was much more difficult to get back into the area - I thought perhaps I would find something somewhat unusual.)

And jackpot.

This little guy popped up just 15 feet in front of me and kept heading right towards me.  I furiously shot photos, but was a tad concerned about him getting too close, so I never dropped to his level to get a truly good shot.  But still pretty unique.

I suspect this is another mink, but that black bit on the tail has me unsure.

Here is my 'winning' shot from a rubber duck/toothbrush/rubber band/wrist watch/potato challenge.

Thank you DPChallenge.  Where else can an adult justify hauling plastic toys out to the high school track and then laying on the track for an hour moving everything around trying for just the right photo?  (I had fun!  That is pretty much the whole point of a hobby right?  If so, I am succeeding.)

See on,
Julee

Photoshop Flip and Blend.

I was reading a DPChallenge community forum a few days ago.  In that forum discussion thread a technique of 'flipping and blending' in Photoshop was explained.  I am not very strong in Photoshop, but am interested in learning and improving.  Unfortunately I tend to be fairly impatient when sitting at the computer - so learning new things, especially complicated new things, often does not end in complete success.

(I try to pretend that I am not very interested in those 'expert' Photoshop skills like putting things and people in and out of different photos.  I probably would enjoy it, if only I had the patience to sit and practice.)

But baby steps.

This flip and blend technique was only about four or five steps.  Surely that was manageable.  (I use Photoshop Elements so I usually have to google to figure out how to match the 'real' Photoshop steps to the Elements program - but usually I can find what I need.)

So here were my first attempts:

This first shot was a colored bead.  Pretty neat effect.

Next up a tree.

And a few more trees.

The same trees - but different.  I am not yet clear on how the color effects work when working with these layers.  But I did like the "lightening" between the trees. 

Finally, here is a wild combination of one of my windmill pictures.

So kind of a successful evening.  I am not sure when this effect might be useful - but maybe flipping and blending today, inserting Godzilla into the South Dakota landscape tomorrow eventually.

See on,
Julee

The failure with fences.

I have been feeling creative lately, and for the recent photo challenge on 'fences', I thought I had a great idea.  At the zoo near our house are some buffalo that you can see from the bike trail behind the zoo.  I thought perhaps I would be able to capture something interesting from there.

But I also had a back-up plan if that didn't work.

I would go into the zoo and surely I could capture something creative with fences from there.  (Our zoo is a small zoo, but for some of the displays that works in favor of getting closer to the animals.) 

A few minutes outside of the zoo and I knew I was not capturing what I wanted, so into the zoo I went.  I had a great time wandering around, and even got a few shots I liked.  But it became clear after the first day of voting that I had not chosen the right image for the challenge.  (I felt the photo I entered was my most creative shot, but in retrospect it probably really was not executed all that well and probably had at least one fatal flaw.)

Here is some of what I captured:

 

Which would you have submitted?  Are any of them any good?  (I submitted the last tiger photo, but I suspect I would have done better had I submitted the second buffalo shot.  The fence in my tiger shot is just too black, not visually pleasant at all - although I'm not sure it should be.  And that darn twig, bad.)

Live and learn.
See on,
Julee