Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Friday Blues made Explorer

I am so tickled to find my Friday Finds which I named Friday Blues made it to Explorer on Flicker.  My 2nd image for December.  What a great way to end the year.  Never dreamed I would have one let alone two images in a month land there.

Thanks!

Friday Finds is a group hosted by Kim Klassen.  She also has Texture Tuesday and its a great way to get you to continue shooting throughout the week.  Sometimes we just need a little push to keep the inspiration going.   This little vintage bottle was my prop of inspiration for this image with the hydrangea.  Cropped to 4x5 size, and some processing of the light and a little pale grunge texture.   I hope you keep your camera close by, you never know when the spark will ignite!

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Organic - Prop Styling

 Last month our group Be Still 52 had an exercise in Prop Styling with the Organic theme.    My camera had been silent for awhile as my computer and my health were under the weather but finally I was able to get this exercise done.

I wished I had old watering cans, cool prop boards of white wash and wood but in the end I gathered what I could find around the yard and set to work.

 
The first image is called Rounds and is a collection of Found objects on a cheesecloth background.  Wonderful green pods, leaves, chicken feathers create the collection.

The next is a bit of the last of my garden, wtih green peppers, asparagus and zinias.  
The little bright flower makes the peppers look like they are ready for an elegant resteraunt menu.
Finally I spied these mushrooms and with all our rain they were starting to  appear everywhere once I began searching for a good one for a photo.  I sorta like mushrooms in photography.  So unusual and full of childhood sillyness and fairies, forests and immignation,
I also had some little blue wild flowers still blooming so I used a special arm to hold the mushroom up next to the flowers to style these images, and then of course added processing later.
I like these images as they not only make me think of old post cards but magazine covers too from some botanical issue that might have been published in the past.


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Text Fun

Humph, this is not exactly what I was after in this little tutorial with Beyond Layers group. In Fun With Text we worked on some lettering using our photos.  This was a super fun image taken a couple weeks ago of the flowering forest floor, a little magical world.  So I chose my word, ethereal.   Somewhere along the line I actually inversed the text and got just the outline of the word which did not show up at all, so I darkened the background layer so the letters would pop out.  An unexpected extra step has been found to entertain my mind and use in the future.

Friday, May 4, 2012

New work and more birds!

 The more I play around with birds and the processing of textures the more I am learning.  I guess birding might become a new hobby!   They sure are not easy to get images of and at least for my art I do not need super close images.  For once less is more!  Enjoy ~

Monday, April 9, 2012

Now Its Elemental

 Oh boy, its been a few days since I posted, but its all due to the big crash of my PC and the great repair.  Course now its all completely different and I am totally lost finding my way around.   The software is obviously newer than what I had on here before because some of my old outdated programs like PS7 did not want to run right and so now I have switched over to Adobe's Elements10.  Its hard learning two new things at once, but getting my feet grounded and these 3 images are my work from Elements10 with great flower images from Lowes Garden Center!  Enjoy ~


Sunday, January 29, 2012

A Woman Loves Orchids

Orchids are such a treat to lavish on ones self, and so hard to resist the happy little faces.  These white faced lovely's are a type of phalaenopsis showing up at the stores for Valentines.  I used my little 18-50 Canon lens to shoot these and worked them in a couple texture layers.  One in Pretty In Pink with a linear Dodge, and two layers of Canvas Grunge by Kim Klassen at lineral burn, some adjustment layer here and there and finally the nice little quote.  A Woman Loves Orchids Because They Make Her Feel Like She Is Floating On  A Cloud Of Possibilty!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Whats old is New

This week in Beyond Layers Class, Kim is trying to get us to take our new photos or old photos and make them more simple.   The idea being that Less Is More!   I truly struggled with this because I like dramatic deep colors full of depth.   Both these photos I have re worked in the less is more idea.  the Texture Kim has us all using is called Awaken.

On the feather I used this texture only one time.  Its a found feather that I have kept for years.
This is one of my favorite subjects.  Old dead flower heads and pods.   This is called Spring Flower Becomes Winters Cloak.  I worked and worked on this to get it soft and delicate, added finally two textures of Awaken.  

Sometimes I use a dry brush filter on my images after I process them but not on these two.

You can view more of my work on my Flicker Photo Stream here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11605172@N05/

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

In the Garden

 Sifting through yet more of last summers images.  I was happy to find so many photos to play with and shocked at how many more I have yet to review.

This little damselfly I did a search on for its species and for Oklahoma it seems it is called a Powdered Dancer.  How sweet to have such a wonderful name.  It was really tiny and hid down deep in the weeds in the pasture.    I have included this giant clover image along with the Damselfly because this was part of the Weed Exploration I was on with my Macro that day.  Enjoy ~

Friday, January 6, 2012

Humming Bird Antics

I have become so lazy, and my photos are in desperate need of organization.  I have so many interesting images and how can I do justice to each one!  I have been taking some time this last fall between selling our ranch and moving to review some of my favorite photos and moving into a folder for future work.  This is one of those photos.  Its a little hummingbird hen who constantly guarded her flower area.  She is complaining to another hummingbird who is flying above her in this composition from last summer.  Enjoy!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Little Green Frog

BetterPhoto.com Editor's Pick
I almost did not enter this in the contest for animals but I got picked to be looked at again with the little green frog.   It is sitting among my zinnias and so there were leaves and all sorts of green stuff in the way.   Then I gave it some textured layers.  

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Tenecales

BetterPhoto.com Editor's Pick
I can't  remember what this was except its in my set of weeds from the day I set out early in the morning before the pasture was hayed looking for textures in the plant life and weeds.  It has lots of great little hairs and spiny things along with the crinkled leaves and long spiky fingers.  Here is was given a light treatment in PS.  

Thursday, June 23, 2011

How Did You Do That!

I get asked all the time how I get the look of texture on my photos and if its a filter I use.  I do use photo shop, but this is not a stand alone filter. Its many layers of texture I apply on top of the original photo.  Top is the finished example, below it is the original photo, and below two of the textures I used.

There are many places to find textures on the Internet, and these two are from skelletalmess at deviant art.
 http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?order=9
Most are free to download and so fun to collect.  Problem is you end up with SO many its hard to pick and choose a texture so its like playing a game of trial and error.  Try a texture and a linear burn or multiply, an opacity or soft overlay.

Here is what I did to my photo.  Processed the photo into a dreamy appearance then I added on top of it the blue texture and did a linear burn.  Then I added the light colored texture and applied a soft overlay.   I again added that light colored texture and repeated the soft overlay.  It gives you some cool painterly effects and if you do not like the texture and how you applied the opacity or filter then just delete it!



Sunday, June 5, 2011

My Territory

Its time to look at my spring photos and see what tickles me.   This shot I almost tossed out as the birds were so busy I could not get  good image but the flower was really sharp.  I decided to work out some texture art with it and add the extra bokah texture since everything was sparkly from the morning dew anyway.   As it turns out, I entered it into a contest and got Editors Pick.  I can never seem to get past this or finalist but it makes me happy that I saved this image and gave it a new perspective.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Hauling out the Tripod

Its been sitting in the closet for the longest time, the ole dusty tripod.  My love hate relationship with the camera's friend.   Stilt like legs that require constant adjusting, maneuvering around especially when using a dedicated macro lens.  BUT spring has not really brought much to photograph lately except some flowers from the fruitless pear trees that I used with this Orange.  Its named Food Fun.  My orange became entertainment as well as breakfast.   Its done with many layers of textures to create the look.  After the Orange was consumed I played with a few very tiny flowers and my grandfathers old pocket watch with my Grandma Maude's photo inside.  I love the idea of using this with my genealogy research.  Again done with multi layers of textures.   Feels good to be looking through the lens again.


Thursday, November 4, 2010

For Scorpio


A beautiful type of hummingbird moth I found at an overgrown lakeside. Its tweeked in Photoshop with a watercolor effect and Haiku.