The Messenger ~ Common Barn Owl

‘Willie’ -  Common Barn Owl

Willie was found on the ground in the spring of 2002 in Dallas.  The person who found her thought she needed help and took her home to raise her.  Unfortunately, she was fed cat food as she developed which caused a lack of calcium in her diet, her bones became brittle and fractures occurred in her right wing. This made her only partially flighted.  Additionally, she became ‘imprinted’ on humans and now relies on them for her care.

She was an ambassador on Super Saturday at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge and posed for some incredible photography shots. 

Behind Fall Colors

 I am so far behind in my photography I thought I was in front of it.  Well, I truly need to get it all sorted out so I can start some new stuff next month.  I almost missed the chance to take images of some truly great fall leave colors and seed pods.  Noted on my calendar for next year - Do Not Miss that opportunity again.   I love this leave on the top, I call it Aztec Gold and its over on Etsy avail in prints, but its fallen in the bird bath and the water has created an unusual background which I really like.

Another favorite leaf that had such veining contrast was paired with some seed pods from the flower Cleome.  The name of this photo is Elope With Me...    The name Cleome means: Elope With Me and so I thought it would be fun to give that title to this beautiful image. 

Next year on Etsy I will offer my prints and also offer them as note cards.  Right now its all I can do to try and sort through all my folders, favorites and pick and choose what to work with.   Happy Holidays everyone!

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

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.

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.

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 ~

Yellow Headed Blackbird

Today was my first photo safari at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge.  It was such a laid back group, everyone enjoying the day with NO wind for a change, spring like weather and no harsh light.  My leader and other person who went along got to visit some of the places you never get to go and we saw a few butterflies and wild flowers, but I think in the next month of May it will bloom like mad out there.  The shore birds, ducks, geese, herons, egrets and array of song birds were just delightful.   With some luck of the camera gods a nice gentleman worked on my poor ole camera and we got it finally spot focusing, sigh... making me a very happy camper.  This image A Square Piece of Art was done using Kim Klassen's texture Poetic and Kristen Frank soft texture IX, some brushes and text.   Enjoy ~

The Old Chicken Ranch

Last week I spied this great old chicken ranch along side the road and was able to get a shot between traffic.  It sure was not much as a stand alone image but with the textures it now seems to have evolved into something rather magical in all its decay.  My recipe is:
*Duplicate background
*Adjust levels
*Hue Sat - de-saturate
*Kristen Frank texture Fantasy Leaves I used on the upper half only with overlay 62%
*Kristen Frank texture Handwriting Linear burn 62%
*Skeletalmess Vintage Bokah overlay 100% with mask for center part of image
*Kristen Frank Texture Moon hard light 100% , masking out foreground and barn
*another levels adjustment
*New layer for the frame effect
*signature
Enjoy ~
This can be seen better over at Flicker:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11605172@N05/6938875451/in/photostream

Crane and Turtle a Painterly Recipe

Over at Beyond Layers group Kim gave us a new texture to play with called Shine.  Mostly the group uses her textures with still life photos so me being me, I had to try it with a nature photo.  I am glad I did.  The original photo has so much distraction but there is that cool little story trying to be told of the little turtle on the log looking up at the crane.  I am thinking he might become a meal!
My recipe for this painterly image:

Background > duplicate
Levels adjustment
Hue Sat adjustment
Filter>dry brush lowest settings
KK Shine texture soft light 87%
KK Shine texture again multiply
59%
Kristen Frank Texture Paint 64 overlay 56%

I kept an extra background image off to the side which I did in the lowest watercolor setting, and now placed that on top of the work
blend mode 88%.

Flattened the layers, added a little frame and signature and a little last minute brightness adjustment.

San Juan Bautista Mission

This image was taken at the lovely Mission in San Juan Bautista of St. John the Baptist.  The light that day was very harsh but with working it over in layer adjustments and a texture layer I now really like the image I almost tossed out.   The texture I used was from Kim Klassen's collection called Worn and Weathered which I used two times.   one time at a linear burn 58% and then I duplicated the layer in a different position and set it at soft light 94%.   I really like how the texture fixed the horrible harsh sky. I did add a couple little brush squiggles in the upper right hand corner at the very end.  Enjoy ~

Flutterby Dream

For awhile I was posting birds and now it seems its butterflies.  They are so dreamy and delicate in contrast to our harsh environments.  This lovely Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was a giant in my garden last year.  I worked him over with a few textures after I did the Orton effect on the original image.  To make the Orton effect in photoshop, you duplicate the background>apply>screen 100%>blur>gausian blur about 19%
then you move that layer on top of the original.  Blend mode>multiply>adjust % and go from there.   I learned this from an article in http://www.naturephotographers.net/

I spend quite a bit of time looking at people's photography and gathering ideas to make my own images peculate with interest.  Enjoy ~

Drinking Buddies

What luck, as I rummage through a couple boxes left over from the move and find some photos from last summer burned to a cd!  The couple bees that came late in the drought of summer were regulars at the bird bath.  I would fill the bath up about 3 times a day for the birds but everything was parched with thirst.
So here are my little buddies having a cool drink with a great texture from SkeletalMess called Bokah and then a great water pane texture from Distressed Jewel which gave my water a sky look with that bokah texture.  Finally some nice little brushes from French Kiss.  Enjoy~

Circus Yellow

Another happy face from one of the 3 orchids I have.  They are such clowns in disguise.   Added several layers and adjustments, a bit of swirly brush and my haiku.   

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!

Life is a Bowl Full of Cherries

Isn't this different coming from me!  Its an exercise from Kim Klassen's Test Kitchen and I found the exercise fascinating but it was even more fun trying to find things to take a still life composition.  Now I can gobble up these delightful cherries!  Enjoy, I know I will.

Life in Six Words

In our Beyond Layers group, Kim ran across a fun and interesting challenge.  Your life in 6 words.   The idea originated from The Smith Magazine http://www.smithmag.net/
and so here we are taking some of our photos and putting some life words to go with our images.  Its a whole big world out there, the Smith Magazine site is very entertaining, so check it out.   My image was taken a couple weeks ago at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge in Sherman TX, and these are snow geese who were flying in by the thousands.  This photo was unusual as they were flying right over me so close that while in formation they look like someone stacked them up like a kabob.    Enjoy ~
Oh, my texture is just the cloud overlay at soft light.

Goldfinches are here!

 What a fun surprise to look out at my feeders and so a flock of Lesser Goldfinches.  My camera was ready too, amazing.  This first shot is of a single little guy waiting patiently for his turn at one of the feeders.   They did not seem very shy of me and the camera, maybe because they were so excited about a free meal!
Enjoy ~

Herons and Mockingbirds

Here I have included a couple more birds for you to enjoy.  The great big Mocking Birds are so stately and commanding.  In the other photo I see the Great Heron carries the same attitude in his marsh area.  Now that we have sold our old ranch and the bird bath stayed there too, I can not imagine a summer without one.  I wonder if two bird baths will find their way to my yard!
Enjoy~

Fractilius Garden

I love the way sunflowers on long stems reach out toward the sun, like little satellite dishes,  I got to playing around with one of the Redfield filters and applied it to this composition.  I was really happy with the over all effect and have not used this in a couple years, so now it is all fresh and exciting for me again.  I left the link to the plugins below if you have an urge to play.
http://www.redfieldplugins.com/galleryFractalius.htm