M is for Mallard

Why are you so shy my Mallard friends, I come only with my camera and lens to capture your lovely colors in the morning light.   Taken at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge lat weekend - ducks are finally gathering among the many Great White American Pelicans and Great White Herons.  Migration season is here!
Texture is concrete. Enjoy!

Great White Heron

Sunday at the Refuge was once again magical.  Saw pelicans again but it was disappointing they were so far out, they are in the hundreds now.  The care takers of the refuge have plowed and planted the winter wheat and green things for the snow geese and other birds coming through this winter and it might explain why some of the Great White Herons were not in the blue grey waters.  The light was a bit harsh in the morning, not that awful bright sunlight but hazy harsh light, however  it did the most amazing thing to the wings in this photo as it shined on them making the wings like transparencies and you can see the bones!  Cheers

Migration

So what do you do when you have several great shots and can't decide what one to play with, just use them all, or at least  several together.  Birds are migrating through Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge and its the first day of fall. I am planning another day out on the refuge Sunday to see what I can view through my lens.  I already know Pelicans are there now!   The Pelicans, The Pelicans!  Oh come on Edgar Allen Poe..help me out here, yes I know that was The Bells!  So for my background layer I used a cool sky as a texture then a really neat texture from Distressed Jewel called Happy Easter.  You can find many of these handles and textures over at Flicker where I hang out and participate in many of the cool sharing groups there.

Sunrise Wading

Boy I am energized again over my photos.  Saturday I gave a talk at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge on my photo art, textures and working with layers.  I think everyone had a great time as we had a lot of laughing and questions and over all fun.  It was really windy out on the waters edge and yet I managed to get a couple interesting shots.  I of course am never happy to just go with the flow so I tried something different with this little image of the egret.  I have been playing with some HDR from photomatrix I got to wondering if I could treat the hdr image like a texture and blend it onto my original image.   Well, yes you can!   So this original image was not taken in braket mode ( that is to say there were not 3 shots taken of it) I used a single image and let the photomatrix just make a map toning copy for me.    I was totally blown away with the end result.  I love how the little sunflowers and green weeds brought so much color into a rather boring blue and muddy grey image that is pretty normal when you are taking shots of white birds, and water. 

Now with some new excitement and ideas its time to look through my old photos again.

The White Queens

 I had such fun at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge yesterday, spend some time out on the windy pads and caught this little calm area with this fantastic turquoise water and mirror like water, such a contrast from the saves and rippled muddy water elsewhere.  Here is a little before and after of this one shot.  Nothing fancy but I did some painting with light and some texture work, some dry brush filter and now its ready to share.  Enjoy!

Travel Dreaming

Beyond Layers is exploring some our our deep wishes of places we would like to see or travel to. While some of these sites have incredible dvd's of the most lovely photography ever, there is nothing like actually seeing the vast size of some of these gardens and old castles. I was so lucky to visit some castles in Germany on my one and only airplane trip in 1991. I got to see a couple castles that just took me deeper into the untold stories held behind the walls. I do not know if this is what draws me to these type of places or not but old gardens, old castles, old buildings, old paintings - all old world things spark my curiosity. These are the places I dream to visit, Ireland, Wales, Europe, their architecture and gardens - OK food too! 

Seeing these places changed me, spiritual and opened my mind.  It was a bit unsettling that I was given a chance to learn history in school, but did not remember much of it because I was just one of those kids who could not be involved or take time for stuff that was not current.  Well, what did I know anyway....

I do have a dream travel list, do you?   What are your favorite places of the world or places you might have already visited and would love to return to.  What draws you, the activities, the architecture the food.

On my list are places that include Wales, and Ireland, More of Germany and the Rhine and castles, Spain and Italy and France.  I would love to visit the British Columbia gardens and Versailles.   It seems to be a theme going on here.

So here's to a little dreaming till next time.