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!