Month: July 2010

This is a scene of canoes docked at the lake with their reflection in the water.  More than that, however, to me it’s a graphic image of lines and shapes and angles.  At first I really had to look at this shot closely to remember what I photographed.  Then I remembered walking along the dock and seeing this reflection tucked away between the boats. 

I’m not sure of the name of this flower, but it’s fiery orange and red colors are symbolic of the heat of summer!   Wow – it was 101 degrees here today and I am thinking that I should be outside watering my flower beds.   I will do that as soon as I finish this post.   I photographed these little flowers at Stonehedge Gardens first with the Lensbaby Composer and Soft Focus Optic and then with my 100mm macro lens.  This final image is a combination along with a painting filter added.   I’ve been fiddling around with my watermark lately to try and come up with something that includes my logo as well as the copyright.  While I don’t want to overpower the image, I do want it to be visible.  What I have now can be moved around the image and the logo and text can be added independently from one another.  Let’s see how long I stick with this one!  🙂 

Selecting a nice background is really important to an image.  If I don’t plan to fill the frame with the subject, I try to make sure that I have a pleasing and uncluttered background.  In this image, I really liked the soft greens, golds, and yellows of the flowers that were behind the subject.  I used the Lensbaby Composer and soft focus optic with very shallow DOF and came away with what I had envisioned in my mind when taking this image. 

Happy July 4th everyone!  I’m a big fan of proudly displaying the American Flag.  I have one flying in my front yard year round.  For the patriotic holidays I’ve added 2 little red/white/blue banners to my garden fences.  I must say, it looks very festive!  It was much easier to decorate the yard than to get my cats to wear a red, white & blue bandana.  Tara was more cooperative than Sebastian, so here are a few images of her looking very smart in her patriotic attire.  If you are interested, I recently met the owners of a company that have really nice collars, leashes, bandanas, etc.  This one that Tara is wearing reverses to Easter bunnies…CUTE!   Here’s a link to their website:  http://www.pawsforall.net/   Hope all have a safe & happy holiday.  Please keep your pets home & safe tonight if they are afraid of fireworks like my cats are!

The image above was photographed with the Lensbaby 3G.  The images below are (top to bottom):  processed with Corel Paint It; photographed with the Lensbaby 3G; processed with Topaz Adjust 4.

When I was a kid I remember seeing SO many fireflies on warm summer evenings.  Now it’s a rarity to see one in my garden, but I  just saw some a few nights ago and it was a real treat!  This little ‘lightning bug’ was perched on a pink coneflower at Stonehedge Gardens as I was photographing with the Lensbaby and Soft Focus Optic.  There are only a few bugs that I would deliberately get this close to – butterflies, ladybugs and fireflies are about it!  🙂