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.

Postcard If you are flying by!

Still playing around with the abundance of great shots from Hagerman Wildlife Refuge.  At some point I get to feel they all start looking the same so working on some fresh artistic looks.
Texture is I  believe is from Skeletal Mess and the brushes from Deviant Art.  Enjoy

Mother Load Painted Buntings

I was so happy to finally spot these little birds.  It was not

easy to find them and they were pretty shy.  Now if truth

were to be told, I might tell you this is actually just 2 birds out

of 8 shots I was able to get before they flew off never to be

found again.  They loved the middle of the road and this big pipe

where they would fly up and chatter, then fly down to the ground again.

Really comical and entertaining.  This image used a texture called

Ancient Wall which I liked as it toned down that glaring rust and

gave some softness to the busy background.  Taken in June 2012

at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge on pad L.

Visit to Hagerman

Had a fun trip over to the wildlife refuge Tuesday.  The big pelicans were there in the hundreds and they seemed not bothered at all with me approaching for photos.  No flowers yet but lush green everywhere.
Textures by Kim Klassen, Distressed Jewel and Kristen Frank