Tiny Red, Pink Flowers (Dry Brush Filter)

These flowers were really very tiny, and I was shooting with a fixed focus 24mm lens. That meant that I had to find a way to get really, really close to take this picture (without stepping into or planting my tripod in this rather public flowerbed.) I leaned the front two legs up against the rocks that lined the edge of the bed and lengthened the third leg (in the back) for a (mostly) steady support for my camera (I did have to steady the tripod somewhat.) Result? Some really tiny flowers that are a little more close-up. Thanks for stopping by!

Potted Plant at the Mall (Dry Brush Filter)

I found this plant growing in a planter at the Mall of America, and the stalk reminded me of my little bamboo tree (the one that I bought on clearance at Walmart). There's a lot that I like about this image, especially after applying Photoshop's Dry Brush filter (which makes it look more like a painting when you look at it up close). The color green stands out, which is a particularly deep/dark green in this image. Again, I'm drawn to the stalk with its little light-brown shapes ascending the plant. Thanks for looking!

Mall Plant Life: Here Today, ... (Dry Brush Filter)

I like taking pictures of plants because of their impermanence. They undergo a lot of changes in a short amount of time. They're in the field today, and tomorrow they're ready to be thrown into the oven. One day they're decorating the inside of a mall; the next day, they've been replaced with something new, something prettier. With photography, you have a chance to capture that moment in time, to give someone else a window into how things looked - through your eye - at that exact moment in time, before it all changed. Thanks for stopping by!

Fake Plants, Fake Leaves (But you can't so much tell because I used a cutout filter)

The first giveaway on this plant being a 'fake' is probably the plastic branches visible at the bottom of the picture. Next, you might also notice a 'fabric' texture to the leaves. Other than that... it looks fairly realistic.

However, when you apply something like a cutout filter, all of the fake details get blended into the image, so that what you see looks something like this:

A special word of thanks to the nice young man who saw me taking pictures of foliage and plant life and wondered what in the world I was doing and cared enough to ask. In all seriousness, I think that people like you help to make the world a better (and safer) place.

A Squirrel in the Grass...

I know that some people like squirrels, but I'm not really a fan. I really can't tell you why; it's just... I think there's maybe something just a little bit creepy about squirrels.

For instance, take today's photo:

As the squirrel goes along the ground, rooting its way through the grass, it seems just a little bit... creepy. (Maybe it's just me.) Thanks for stopping by!

Green Life in a Planter

What I liked best about this image was the green color in the plants. Granted, there isn't anything particularly extraordinary about "plant green," so what makes this image special?

I think maybe it is the particular shades of green that I see in this picture, varying near yellow and brown shades to something that seems a 'truer' green. Beyond the color, I liked the layer effect of the leaves on the stalk in the vertical right-hand 1/3 of the picture. I like the way that the leaves are stacked one on top of the other, with some space in between, and the way that the angle of the leaves seems to turn from top to bottom. Thanks for looking at my picture!

Light Post, Lamppost (Cutout Filter)

So, for this image I was working with an old Nikon L2 Point & Shoot. I was out for a walk, and this camera was the one that I felt comfortable taking out with me in the winter weather. (Today was mild.) The L2 doesn't record anything other than JPEGs for image format, and the only kind of control that I could figure out were different settings between landscape, portrait, sports mode, etc. (In other words, no changing things like ISO or the exposure setting.) Walking downtown, I took a picture of one of the lampposts that line the street. As I ran the JPEG through Photomatix, closer examination revealed that these lampposts are really dirty. The blue colored sky in the background was really pretty, so I brought the image over to Photoshop and applied the cutout filter. I'm not sure that I'm completely sold on today's image, but it was an experiment, something to keep working at until I can make pictures that I like. Thanks for stopping by!

Marker-Colored Plant (Dry Brush Filter)

I posted a picture of this kind of plant a few days ago. I like the leaves, because it looks like someone came along with a marker, found the blank canvas of the leaf, and started making striped lines on the leaf. I like it. Thanks for visiting!

Saw-Toothed Plant (Dry Brush Filter)

Maybe it's been a while since I've looked at my handsaw, but the "blades" on the leaves of this plant reminded me of the teeth on my saw. I like the way that the last blade curves at the end of the leaf. Thanks for stopping by!

Green Leafy Plants (Palette Knife Filter)

The plant in the lower two-thirds of this image was what first drew my eye to this scene, with its green "star burst" shape. After processing the three exposures for HDR in Photomatix, I cropped the image in Paintshop Pro and then applied the Palette Knife filter in Photoshop. The filter blended (maybe blurred is a better descriptor) together the details in the image, yet the shape of the plant still stands out. Thanks for stopping by!

Little Metal Bolt Man (Palette Knife Filter)

As I was walking by, I saw this little metal bolt man. He looked like a little masked bandit of some sort or another, or maybe he was a superhero? He's standing next to a column, which could easily be mistaken for a missile or a rocket. Maybe he's a masked aeronautical space engineer? I simply had to stop and take his picture. Thanks for visiting my blog!

More Dark Green Foliage (Dry Brush Filter)

The dark green foliage that is front and center in this image is surrounded by some bold blues and reds in the background, which almost has a "surreal"-preset feel to it. Again, botany is not my strong suit, so someone else will have to identify this plant for me. Thanks for stopping by!

Leaves Hanging on a Vine (Dry Brush Filter)

Looking at the details in plants, I find something poetic. It's not an epic poem; it's very brief, maybe something a little more along the lines of a Haiku. The vines here were hanging over the edge of a concrete planter, one that has some stones mixed in for color. The leaves look like they have seen better days, yet the richness of the dark green (at least somewhat due to the HDR process) gives a certain vibrancy to the image. The dry brush filter makes the image look like a painting, which, at least for me, keeps well with my poetic theme. Thanks for stopping by!

Cream/Green Leafy Plants (Dry Brush Filter)

Some botanist out there is cringing at my title. (Some amateur gardener out there is cringing at my title.) However, I am neither a botanist nor an amateur gardener, and... I'm not exactly sure what kind of plants these are. However, I was much impressed with the shape, patterns, and colors, which is why I took the picture in the first place, processed, and posted it as my picture of the day. Thanks for stopping by!

(I even tried right-clicking the image and selected "search Google for this image" but to no avail.)

Junco in a Tree (Dry Brush Filter)

This is another image of that junco that I saw a few days ago, this time, up in a tree. With the branches, this picture suggested something of a painting to me, and so I applied the Photoshop Dry Brush filter. Thanks for stopping by!

Black and White Junco on a Wire

I happened to see this junco in my backyard a few days ago, up on a wire, which was cool. (This scene is a little bit different from where I have usually been seeing birds, on my deck. Actually, the junco had landed on my deck a couple of times within the past few weeks, but every time I would try to get into position with my camera, it would fly away.)

Paw Prints in the Snow

When I was met, the other morning, with these prints in the snow on my deck, my first thought was to look and see if there were any feathers or any signs that a squirrel had been carried off; there were none. Our best guess is that a neighbor cat came up to the door, hoping that someone would set out some milk or let it in. I was impressed at the quality of these tracks; we usually don't see tracks left behind that are so well defined.

Nuthatch in the Snow

Continuing with my nuthatch theme, this is a single image file processed through Photomatix for HDR effect. I cropped the original image as shown below:

This moved most of the bird into the lower left two-thirds of the image, leaving (most of) the top one-third and the right one-third of the image "empty". In setting my image up for the crop, I didn't want to cut into the shadow and thought it would look better to leave a little border around the shadow, which moved the subject "outside of the lines". In my crop, I was also considering the shape of the subject, which seemed to imply a triangle (as filled in below).

Of course, you can't ask the bird to smile and strike a pose for you. I set my camera to a rapid-fire mode in which it first sets a focus and then captures a half-dozen images in rapid succession. Looking at the files afterward, many cannot be used, many are duplicates, but a handful actually come through that can be processed into something that I like. Thanks for stopping by!

Leaf on the Snow (Dry Brush Filter)

I've heard it said before that snow does not make a very good HDR subject, because the HDR process takes your pretty white snow and makes it look dirty. If you're looking for dirty snow, then HDR is the way to go.

There was something about the photo of this leaf (which already looked kind of dirty, because... it's a dead leaf) that didn't really bother me about the "dirty" look of the snow. In fact, the snow here reminds me of sugar... or salt. When summer time comes around again, and I'm missing these winter snow photos, bringing out the sugar/salt as a snow substitute might make for some interesting (and less cold) photo moments. Thanks for stopping by!

Nuthatch Picking Seeds out of the Snow

This was the scene on my deck a few days ago, when the birds were out. The squirrels had been digging through the snow on my deck and had unearthed some seeds. Afterward, the nuthatch came to look through what had been left behind, giving me an opportunity to take this photo. Little bits of snow were flying through the air as the nuthatch picked its way through the remains. I think it found something. (I'd like to think it found something...) Thanks for stopping by!

Rooftop Nuthatch (Dry Brush Filter)

This nuthatch did all sorts of acrobatic tricks on top of my roof, while I was watching from a vantage point somewhere below. I liked its pose here the best, as the bird looks like a little puffball of feathers (again, reminding me somewhat of the peeps candy.) Thanks for stopping by!

Chickadee in Flight (Dry Brush Filter)

When I originally took this picture, all that I saw was a bird flying into the hole on the edge of my clothesline. Once inside the hole, the bird started cleaning the snow out of the hole. The bird flew away and came back a few times to do this, and, on one of the return trips, my camera was ready and captured this image as the bird was returning to my clothesline. Only after I opened the photo in my folder did I realize that it was a chickadee. Thanks for stopping by!

Blue/White Poinsettia (Paint Daubs Filter)

I saw a female dark-eyed junco on my deck this morning, but it flew away before I could take any pictures. Maybe it will return, and I will have something to post tomorrow.

And so, instead of a junco, my photo for today is this blue poinsettia, which is actually a white poinsettia that had been dyed/painted blue, whose leaves look yellow here, most likely, because of the plant's position in front of the sunny window. Thanks for stopping by!

Where Have You Gone, Little Chickadee (Cutout Filter/Dry Brush Filter)

It's been a while (maybe a month) since I've seen the little chickadees out through my back window. Where have they gone? Probably somewhere warmer, even if they're simply staying inside of their nests. It certainly has been cold outside (although, I did see the nuthatches out the other day, venturing out in spite of the cold.) Maybe, if I look more carefully, I might also catch the chickadee. Thanks for stopping by!

Nuthatch on a Branch (Dry Brush Filter)

The nuthatch stopped by on my deck yesterday, but when I positioned myself to take a picture, I waited and waited and waited... (you get the idea -- no nuthatches.) While waiting, I watched my NEX-6 cycle through this problem (which I have read about elsewhere online): The camera fails to recognize the F-stop (it reads "--"), the screen goes bright/dark, and -- it's almost as though the camera is resetting itself. Sometimes, after going through this 5-second+ process, the camera recognizes an F-stop and starts to work again; other times, I have to turn the camera off/on to get it working again. I sent an email into Sony, and they gave me an 800 number to call, so... we'll see what happens. Anyway, I thought I would try updating the firmware to see if that changed things (I was on version 1.2, and there's a 1.3 out now.) Of course, while I was updating the firmware, a whole swarm of nuthatches (at least 2) descended upon my deck in a frenzy, picking up all of the seeds that they could find. So, today's picture is from November, back when I managed to get a shot in edgewise between the Nex-6 glitching-issue.

Nuthatch (Dry Brush Filter)

I brought back an old friend as I tried out a new(er) version of editing tools. Today, I was working with Paintshop Pro X7 and Elements 12 on my new computer. It takes a little getting used to, but... I suppose that's how you learn to use it. Thanks for stopping by!

Winter wonderland (Cutout Filter)

When you look outside here in Minnesota, you see a winter wonderland. When you step outside, the -11 F temperature feels like -28 due to the windchill, which just leaves you wondering how long winter is going to last as you walk very quickly to get yourself back inside. Thanks for stopping by!

Nuthatch on a Cutout Filter Background

This was a quick patch job, in which I applied the cutout filter to make the background that I liked, copied the resulting image into a new window, and then went back, cut out and pasted the nuthatch from the original photo into its position in the cutout. (I liked the real nuthatch better than its cutout counterpart.) Thanks for stopping by!

Red Branches (Cutout Filter)

What initially drew me to this image were the red trees/branches that you see growing here. I'm not sure what kind of plants/trees these are, but I really liked how the red color stood out in contrast against the rest of the (less than colorful) image. When I looked at the image up close (after processing it with the cutout filter, I really liked what I saw in terms of the subtle colors that are present throughout the image - oranges, greens, and yellows. I wasn't expecting to see so much color, especially in a late autumn image that boasts only a small handful (if that, even) of leaves. Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn Trees (Cutout Filter)

What drew me into this picture particularly was the trees. All of the trees are vertically straight, except for the birch tree in the center that has taken on a slightly diagonal direction. Even more, I was intrigued by the lines in the tree (near the birch) in which the branches split and continue growing directly up (not quite, but almost in the shape of a fork.) Thanks for stopping by!

Happy New Year!

It's time to turn over a new leaf. Happy new year, everybody!