Monday, October 31, 2011

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!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Minimalism

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

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Landscape

I love fall colors!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Dark

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

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Union

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

Monday, October 24, 2011

Table

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

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Frosted

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

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Seafood

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

Friday, October 21, 2011

Fluffy

Thursday, October 20, 2011

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)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Night life

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

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Monday, October 17, 2011

Comfy and Cozy

A sloth bear enjoys a nap in the sunshine.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

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...

Saturday, October 15, 2011

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.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Eight

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

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

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.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

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.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Neglected

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

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Busy

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

Saturday, October 8, 2011

The letter L

...is for leaves.

Friday, October 7, 2011

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.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Unfinished

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

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

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.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

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.

Monday, October 3, 2011

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!)

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Wine

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

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Warped

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