Painting the neighborhood.

The shocking cold continues.  Plus our washing machine quit this morning and what I thought was a hard water issue, might actually be frozen pipes.  So the day is not ending on the happiest of notes.

But the sun came out and before the determination of the true nature of our home troubles, I made it outside for a few photos.  I have been enjoying a couple of the trees nearby, trees that have kept their golden leaves over the winter, and I figured they would make for a quick and easy photo.  However it was a chance click of the shutter down the side street that led to my photo of the day.

Below is the tree that I've been enjoying all winter - but I transferred it to monochrome since the picture was not all that grand in color.  But I think it looks pretty cool in black and white.

Stay warm and See on!

Julee

Simplify.

Oh my goodness, enough with the hideous cold!  It is March (in two hours) and our high for the first two days of March will be -5.

Really?

More below zero high temperatures? 

My soul went numb as the weather forecast was announced this morning.

Oh, and it is not enough to have below zero temperatures, oh no.  There has to be 15 - 30 mph winds on top of that.

So I consoled myself tonight by purchasing another Topaz Labs plug-in for Photoshop.  I got Topaz Simplify.  I am still trying to settle into my style of photography, but I am thinking that my style will end up leaning towards abstract, less mainstream photos.

(I will have to keep practicing some mainstream type shots to continue to improve technically, but nearly all of my favorite shots have some sort of artsy twist.) 

I did not get out to shoot photos today because it is freakin C O L D.  And getting colder.  But I pulled out a photo from earlier this week and 'Simplified' it.

This was a photo taken with my Lensbaby, a photo I did not even really enjoy until I added one of the Topaz Simplify filters.   I know it's no genius photo - but I find it interesting and mysterious.  

I also took an old photo of a bow and added the 'oil painting' filter.  You can see a dark bluish spot near the center, a shadow spot that I couldn't get rid of.  (A bit of poor technique in the original photo, sorry).  But the filter makes the photo unique, and I like it!

Tomorrow my goal is to photograph my cats, so that'll be a challenge.  But I can do it while warm indoors.

See on,
Julee