Recreation trail

Topaz Adjust: HDR pop applied On the full-size image (before compressing for web), the oranges weren't nearly so vivid.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

High contrast

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear . . .

Minimalism

Toss a stone in the water, focus on ripples. This image, other than resizing for web, is SOOC.

Landscape

I love fall colors!

Dark

I could classify the color of this Inca Tern as dark. The pops of red and yellow really brighten him up!

Union

"We, the penguins, in order to form a more perfect union...."

Table

A picnic table at sunrise. Sky and water colors modestly enhanced through Topaz Adjust.

Frosted

Getting down low to see the frosted tips of the grass on a late October morning.

Seafood

Well....let's hope not....

Fluffy

Pampered

This young orangutan is pampered by her mom.

(Ellen: This was no flash...the gorilla was with a flash, then converted to B&W)

Night life

If I recall, this tiny, poisonous blue frog is nocturnal, so wouldn't that make him a form of night life?  :-D

Portrait

Comfy and Cozy

A sloth bear enjoys a nap in the sunshine.

Entrance

This sign near the entrance to the restrooms at the zoo had both Ellen and me reaching for our cameras...as we noticed the reference at the very bottom to our blogger friend Steven...

Show no fear

Fellow blogger and Villager Ellen and I enjoyed a day at the zoo while she took a recent visit to my neck of the woods.

This gorgeous jaguar showed no fear as we admired him through the glass.

Front Doors

Eight

When counting the members of a crew, the coxswain is not included in the head count. This is an M8 (8 men) scull.

In the Shadows

Yesterday morning, my neighbor's yard was largely in the shadows.

I'm not really happy with this image. In real life, it was mistier and softer. This was shot on "intelligent auto" mode of my little purse camera. I knew I'd have some blown highlights where the sun was peeking through the tree, but I didn't have time to mess around - I was heading off to work. I did play with shadows, highlights, camera RAW, some adjustment layers, and a couple of textures (which I ended up not using), but after all that, this image isn't much different than the SOC photo.

Any ideas on how to bring out that fine layer of mist against the far treeline, and generally make this photo more interesting would be gratefully accepted and tried out.

Friendships

Teammates often form lifelong friendships. These three looked pretty chummy.

I opened this image in camera RAW and, just as an experiment, dragged the clarity slider all the way to the left. I kind of like the Topaz-y result of dialing down the detail.

Neglected

This bike was left neglected as its young owner dashed off to follow his favorite crew at the regatta.

Busy

These gals, in the middle of a regatta, are busy both oaring and listening to their coxswain.

The letter L

...is for leaves.

Roadside

I pass this little farm and its lovely retaining pond on my way to work. Usually, I'm zooming by at 70 mph, but today, due to construction, traffic came to a stop. I pulled out my purse camera, rolled down the window, and snapped this shot.

Unfinished

This structure, in Wisconsin's Tower Hill State Park, reminds me of an unfinished fort; there is no roof!

Autumn

I woke up early the other morning and couldn't go back to sleep, so I thought I'd drive over to my local park and try to catch the sunrise. No clouds, so not much drama. I did see yesterday's eagle. Fiddling around in the near dark, I captured this exposure of one of the few trees that is changing color. Shot at f/8, .6 sec, (tripod and cable release) ISO 200, at about 6:30 in the morning (sun was due up at 6:55). In PS Camera RAW, I pushed the exposure 1.3 stops to brighten it up. I had my white balance set to Cloudy to try to pop the color on the leaves. I think it worked.

Strong!

Not the greatest picture. It was just before sunrise, I had my ISO set to something crazy like 800, and this beautiful eagle took me by surprise as it floated over the lake where I was waiting for the sun to come up. We don't usually see eagles around my neck of the woods. This strong, silent bird flew a lazy circle and then took off to probably find some breakfast. I took three shots, and after some Photoshopping, managed to almost salvage this one.

In My House

Jon and I both enjoy football. Each season, we make a game out of picking the winners from each game, every week. These are my picks from Sunday. I put the phone in the photo to demonstrate that I chose my teams before the games started. (I didn't do too well this week!)

Wine

Add some fruit and other ingredients to wine and you have Sangria. Yummy accompaniment to chips and salsa.

Warped

My warped sense of humor found this Ford Escape with its unique license plate, parked in Illinois outside a Mexican restaurant, amusing.