This week’s photo assignment was decay.   I kept wondering if non-organic items can be said to decay, but decided for my class submission to stick to this image of a hosta leaf right by our front porch. Please note all photographs are (c) Sarah Ann Smith 2015.  To see a photo a bit larger, click on it!

Cropped square, increased contrast a fair bit, levels to lighten a tad.

And that truck I think is so fabulous, just slowly disintegrating near the old stone wall.   I can tell how much I’ve learned in this class:  I was able to get it sharp, deal with the extreme dark/light, bring out the details in the shaded areas, adjust the color so the photo looks like what the eye perceives and not what the camera thinks it is…. really enjoying and learning from the class with Ricky Tims.

The usual tweaks, plus dodge to lighten the old tractor part in the lower left, which was initially a black hole! I keep wondering if this fits the theme…want an inanimate object decay?

LOTS of edits and fiddles, including major crunching on Curves and Levels, B&W Dreamscape, etc.

And because I simply can’t resist the colors of autumn and those spectacular shades in the blueberry barrens (these are the real, wild, low-growing tiny Maine blueberries–so much better than those big marble-sized things in the grocery stores across America!).  Yes, one of these days there WILL be cloth dyed in the barrens colors….

The usual adjustments to sharpen, levels, shadows, tiny vibrance to get it to look like it really did!

SWOON:

More autumn decay with blueberry barrens, decaying stone wall and birches in autumn in Maine.
The usual edits: smart sharpen, tiny bit of vibrance, crunching levels.

What a concept, Foto Friday on a FRIDAY!    This week’s theme was Autumn.  Since autumn is at its glorious peak around Hope, Maine, that was easy.   And needless to say, since it is my favorite season, I got carried away!  Please note, photos can be clicked to view larger.  All photos are (c) Sarah Ann Smith.

Crunched levels a bit, smart sharpen. I don’t know why, but I really like this shot!  This was my class entry.

A misty, hazy, rainy morning at the boat launch on Megunticook Lake on Route 105 (on the way home from town). Yes, I get to live in this gloriously beautiful place! Smart sharpen and crop, but not much else.

Not a brilliant photo, but this truly says autumn to me: Cross Country team in full swing. It is Homecoming at Camden Hills, it is raining, cold and dreary. Eli is rounding the bend (#135) into my favorite view of the course alongside his friend since first grade, Ben. Ben has FINALLY grown—now nearly as tall as Eli, who outweighs him by 45 pounds! And still as fast and sometimes faster (proud mama!).

Removed a couple distractions on the left of the sign, smart sharpen.
Hope Orchards is a you-pick and small commercial orchard on the way home. It was a ZOO today (the Sunday) with more cars than that crossroads usually sees in a full day! Glorious autumn at its finest in Maine.

At Hope Orchard. Should have bought a pumpkin the day I stopped for photography!

These mushrooms/toadstools in the yard are HUGE—at least 6 inches across when opened. They seem to scream “ do NOT eat me!” Smart sharpen, slight adjust to brighten.

A few slight edits moved this from drab to contender for class image. Minor adjustments to vibrance, crunching levels at both ends.
I call the deer and turkeys our Grounds Crew. They come and eat the windfall apples every day. We must have 23 apple trees, 21 of them very old, on our 11 acres. They old farms always had apple trees for horse and pig feed over the winter. We have two clans of turkeys—17 in total this year. They are so much fun to watch—unless they are up in the two GOOD apple trees with scrumptious Macouns. They are then politely asked to please move on to the other 21 trees! This shot is at the bend in the driveway.

Smart sharpen only.

May I just say how much I love content aware fill???? Fixed several raindrops on the lens! Cropped to eliminate extra sky and parking area. This is at the boat launch on Lake Megunticook, Route 105. A sure sign that autumn is well under way is the removal of all rafts and docks from the water. They are stored on the other side of the road, cloaked in snow, until they migrate back across the road and into the lake. Ice out is usually mid-April, so in the water in May sometime. Not a typical shot of autumn, but it is OUR autumn here in mid-coast Maine.

And one last uber-autumn-y shot:

Slight tweaks to vibrance and levels. I’m having a VERY hard time deciding which photo to use this week. I guess that means I’ve learned a lot so far this year! I’m getting more candidates along with the flubs!

I’ve been working  a lot on various volunteer stuff–my high school alumni council, SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates, a couple committees plus just took on a coordinator job), and making clothes and testing the Janome Skyline S7, a brilliant new machine on the lower price end.  I have to stay I am astounded at how many features it has!  I hope to actually BLOG about some of the things I’ve been making…what a concept.  Stay tuned…I know I keep promising, but between thyroid issues (being tired), Eli being a senior and doing college stuff (and us doing the financial stuff), the volunteer stuff, making things, I’m pretty much tapped out!    One of these days I’ll return to more frequent blogging (too funny, typed blobbing….maybe that is more accurate.)  Anyway, off to enjoy the crisp autumn air!

This week’s lesson is Black and White Dreamscape in my online class with Ricky Tims.  Earlier in the year we learned the dreamscape technique (a process in Photoshop) which makes an image (often a landscape type of scene) look, well, “dreamy.”  This time, instead of both layers being in color (which intensifies the color), one is in black and white.  This leads to a somewhat old-timey, hand-tinted photograph image.

Also, in the last paragraph, I have a question if anyone knows of a good endocrinologist in Maine.

I took a TON of photos, but settled on this one of my husband.   He HATES having his picture taken.  To the point that he scowls and grumps at the camera so much that folks who don’t know him would think, erroneously, that he is a seriously grumpy old man.   So while I was taking a bazillion photos of last week’s cross country meet, including both landscapes and runners, I snapped a few of hubby.

Used desaturate etc per class instructions. Still quite colorful after merging/flattening, so used Hue/Saturation menu to knock down the yellows, reds, and blues. Hubby is notoriously awful about getting his photo taken, so glad I got this one.

Of course I got the runners, and for once managed to get a good one of Eli.  I don’t know why (because he is pretty fast????) but I can get OTHER kids sharp and in focus while moving quickly, but I always seem to mess up with Eli.  This time, it worked!

B&W Dreamscape technique. Used Desaturate and Merge Visible (instead of flatten). That’s my senior on the left (in the red). As with Dreamscape, I don’t think this technique is me, but I can see where it could be interesting for a hand-tinted-photograph kind of look. Will try various shots and see if a particular sort of image (wintry village scene for example or portrait) is more suitable than the vibrant glorious autumn day for the Festival of Champions race in Belfast, Maine this weekend. So proud of my student-athlete!

I also tried the view from our house.  However, autumn is to me all about the glorious color, so while the photo is fine, I really prefer the “regular” version!

Meh. Not a fan. The whole point of autumn is vibrant color, not muted. Wrong scene for the technique. DID discover than on the Adjustments>BW layer, you can toggle to Infrared or Blue or Neutral Density and get different variations on the theme of B&W which could be useful in the right application.

Dreamscape B&W. Used the B&W (not desaturate) on this one. In adjustments / Shadows-Highlights, cranked up the color, because autumn is about the color (tho this lesson is less so). Used Dodge tool to lighten the nearly-black trees in the foreground (western light on the trees in the yard was blocked by intervening woods).
I don’t think this shot was quite the goal of the lesson, but I like this image betterwith more color. And of course love the Golden Hour light.

This is the non-dreamscape…..it’s a subtle difference, but somehow more crisp and bright.

Also, I’m getting close to fed up with my current care for thyroid disease.  If anyone knows of a good endocrinologist in Maine, or even possibly in Massachusetts north of Boston, I’m almost frustrated enough to drive 8 hours round trip.  We’ve been trying to get my dosage right for ELEVEN freakin’ MONTHS.   I’m so sick of this!   I realize it is hard to get it right, but really?  Nearly a YEAR?   Mine is not a “routine” case obviously but if anyone has pearls of wisdom, please comment or contact me via the (duh) contact page.  THANKS!

This week’s lesson was to create a text overlay, but rather than simply have text on top of the photo, to make it “transparent” and “embossed” so that you can read it, but it is really just the photo with a bit of distortion to create the lettering.  Of course, I pushed the envelope a bit.  I was short on time, too!   We get lessons on Sundays…OH!

NEWS FLASH:  Ricky Tims will offer a 52-Week Photography Challenge course again next year!  Not quite sure what form it will take, ditto for the “Year Two” for those of use in this year’s challenge.  Anyway, if any of you have been interested in really learning to USE your DSLR or Photoshop, boy is this a great class and challenge!   You learn something every week.  Sometimes it is design and composition, sometimes photoshop, sometimes both, and the time required for the assignments isn’t crazy busy.  You can squeeze it out in a little time or, if you really want to plumb the depths, take lots of time.  So it works for busy schedules.  Anyway, FYI!  Keep an eye on Ricky’s FB feed/announcements, and I’ll post here and on FB when he/we know more. 

What FUN! I (sorry Ricky) veered a tiny bit from the lesson by using the lighten and multiply plus color overlay (tho the color doesn’t realy show). I used Inner Bevel, Chisel Soft, 300%, Lighten (white) 59%, Multiply (dark rust not black) 30%. Color Overlay was a bright rust foreground color ostensibly at 75% opacity. Still I like how the lettering repeats the colors of the grass fronds. OH, to get the wave I used Arc high and Arc lower, separating the quote from Winnie the Pooh into three segments.

OK, back to Sundays:  the lesson shows up in the wee hours of Sunday, and this week we were driving Eli home from a college visit in Pennsylvania.  I took photos from a mostly moving car.  Right.   At least I know enough now to know I need a wicked fast shutter speed.  But we were slowed down at an exit going from one interstate to another (THANK YOU Deirdre and Timi for the info about taking I-84 to avoid the Tappan Zee and near-NYC traffic!), and I was able to get several good shots of these waving grasses.   Since it was downright brisk (night temps into the mid 40s) when we got home to Maine, I felt the Winnie the Pooh quote was apt.

I didn’t make my lettering as transparent as Ricky’s example, which is kinda what he wanted.  But I got the concept.  I wanted mine to stand out a bit more.  I also added the “wave” by breaking the text into three sections so I could arch them in a wave, like grasses blowing in the wind.   Anyway, this photo won’t win any photography competitions, but it was a good lesson, and one that I can see using again, and in a way adapting to my art quilts, too.   FUN!

Um yes… things are out of order.  That’s what happens when you try to blog away from home, using an iPad to blog, grabbing images from your Flickr feed instead of photo files on the laptop and generally not paying attention.  So LAST week I posted Week 37’s challenge, calling it Week 36, when it was in fact NOT Week 36.  So now, following Week 37, we are going back to Week 36 which was “Re-Do.”   Got that?  Moving on!

Re-do of footwear. Wasn’t a successful week for photography. Tried to re-do several weeks: Footwear, Power of One, Silhouette. Sigh. This was the best of the bunch. Used magnetic lasso (for the first time, successfully) to isolate shoe on duplicate layer. Converted base layer to monochromatic. Slight crop retaining proportions.

This is our third and, apparently (sigh) final “re-do” of the year.   The timing was good…Ricky was traveling and teaching in Europe, his dad died, his mom asked him to take care of things and do the eulogy, and all in all it was time for Ricky to take a break with all our encouragement to do so.   I had several things I wanted to re-do, and not much time.  And then the weather didn’t cooperate.  So I ended up re-doing “Footwear” which was from before I started sharing these photos here.

These photos are from the heap of stuff the kids left on the edge of the Cross Country course when up at Belfast Area High School.  In the photo above, the jacket was pink, the bag handle dark magenta.  And red?  Ick!  Photoshop to the rescue! Then for the “toe print” shoe soles I couldn’t decide which framing I preferred.  Clearly I was having a “dithering” kind of week!

Not a successful photograhy week. Weather didn’t cooperate for the silhouette I wanted (night shot of the stars), and the dark skies at the cross country meet meant I couldn’t get a fast enough shutter speed AND depth of field to get non-blurry runners. Saw the piles of shoes at the end and decided maybe I’d re-do footwear!

Slightly different framing on the green shoes. Not sure which I prefer. Despite the aperture, I think the depth of field is probably too shallow for this shot.

OK, I am now going to prepare NEXT week’s blog so that it is DONE, properly, on time.  What a concept.  Harrumph! (and grin)