I went back into the archives to a time when I took strictly jpegs and I even think it was taken with my Lumix camera that is only 5px. It had a lot of noise in the photo but thanks to Topaz Labs denoise program I got rid of a lot of it. It was further cleaned up in Photoshop. I used a texture of Bonnie’s called Antique Deskpad over the top.
I am not sure this qualifies for this week’s theme of minimal by here it is.
Joining Photo Friday with Bonnie at PixelDust Photo Art. Have a great weekend.
The camera club that I belong to has a theme each month. We send our best shot in for that particular theme and it is put up on the website for viewing. At the meeting several are picked by the leaders to talk about. It is to be a teaching effort and not a blood sport to pick apart.
The theme for February is food and beyond liking to eat I have very little practice taking photos of food in a pleasing manner. There was good light in the kitchen this morning so I set up my camera with the macro lens on it and played around with the various settings. A juicy gala apple was something colourful and easy to play around with.
I am joining our host Mary for Mosaic Monday. Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. Our weather this week is going from the deep freeze to some very balmy temperatures. It is rather weird.
It is time for Photo Friday and our host Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art suggested that we make a photo including hardware. I decided upon this one with the colourful doorknob on a vintage cabinet that a friend of mine gave me several years ago. When I saw the colours I thought this is the one. I added a texture called Ancient treasures of Bonnie’s over the top to give it a further vintage feel.
Is it cold where you live? We are in the deep freeze here with temperatures of minus 17 celcius. We could use some snow though to cover the plants up.
Yesterday was our daughter in law’s baby shower and it went off very well. Karen’s sister Leah was the organizer with help from brother Scott’s wife Paula. I helped put up a few decorations. We had some games and some food and then there were gifts to unwrap. One of the youngest attendees was upset that the presents were not for her and she protested with huge sobs. Thankfully a pretty balloon helped sooth her feelings and we went on. There were some new mommies with young ones and they were so happy just to be passed around and look at what was going on around them.
Karen is a big Winnie the Pooh fan so the cake and many of the gifts were of that theme. Karen and a good friend of hers is also expecting and we had a baby bump picture. Leah made a wonderful baby carriage out of diapers with a diaper doll inside. It was so cute. Our son arrived at the end to thank everyone and take all the gifts out to van. I don’t think he could see out the back on the way home as it was piled to the ceiling.
I am joining Mosaic Monday with Mary from DearLittleRedHouse. Have a great week.
I think I have shown this old house before but I just love the colours and the rustic-ness of it. It was an old house that was out in the middle of a field that my husband and I spotted during a ride in the country one day in the fall. I always wonder who lived in it and why did they leave it. I used Pdpa texture “age it” over the top and added a vintage frame that I thought went with it from The Coffeeshop Blog.
Friday is Photo Art Friday at Pixel Dust Photo Art. The theme this week was entrances and exits. Have a great day.
Next weekend is a baby shower for our daughter in law (she knows) and as usual I am obsessing about what to wear. You see, I spend most of my time as a retiree in jeans and some old shirt for the most part. Please don’t call the fashion police. So, this morning it was raining outside and I went to the closet to see what I may find that will fit and is not too out of fashion. I have stacks of shoe boxes in the closet. I buy a pair of shoes for some wedding or other event and most of the time I never wear them again. I do have shoe issues though. I love those stilettos that have a heel about 4inches high but I can not wear them. I have a bunion on my left foot that I could not even make fit down the vamp of the shoe. It gets in the toe part and that is as far as it will go. It will not bend for the rest of way. I have found good success at payless as there shoes have a low vamp. The shoes in the photo were expensive at the time I bought them. I especially love the black and white polka dot ones. They are super comfortable but not the kind of thing you wear to the gym or the grocery store. Where else do I go these days! Oh well, the shoes gave me a photo op to play with this morning. I thank Pixeldustphotoart for the texture and French Kiss for the french script brush to pretty up one of the photos.
I am joining Mary for Mosaic Monday. Have a great week.
I have been listening to some good podcasts or webcasts from good photographers over the last week and their main tip is to practice your photography everyday and try out different things to get better. Practice makes perfect. The pot of pink cyclamen has been moved and studied from many angles.
Bonnie gave us a lovely texture called brown rice paper to make our artwork with this week. I used it over a photo of the pink cyclamen. I like how it looks like a real canvas.
For this photo I used the texture as a background to the very same pot of pink cyclamen but then I got crazy by choosing a filter in CS5 called pixelbender. It is a plug in that you can download from Adobe.com. In Pixelbender I used the oil painting tools to play about. But, I did not stop there; I then chose another filter called liquify and pulled the colour this way and that. Lastly, I made a few adjustments in Topaz Adjust 5. It was like finger painting as a child.
I am joining Bonnie for Photo Art Friday.
Last week in the grocery store I wandered over by the floral section to have a look. A pot of cyclamen caught my eye because of the pink colour with purple tips and I thought to myself that it would be a practice project for my macro lens.
Yesterday I began taking some photos and as I was looking in and around the plant for different angles I looked more closely at the leaves. As I had this horror some years back that infected all of my orchids I was ready to pitch these beauties in the garbage quick. If you look in the bottom right corner of the mosaic you will see that the leaves had a coating of white sooty looking spots. I got out the magnifying glasses out to make sure but it was the dreaded houseplant insect called “scale”. It’s appearance looks like a little wooly egg shaped creature. It will destroy the plant and any other plants in the same space. An application of straight alcohol was applied with paper towel to the leaves and it is now quarantined away from any other plants. If the scale returns the plant will be in this weeks trash.
When you are in the store and thinking about bringing a plant home look at the leaves to make sure you are not bringing this insect home with you.
I am joining Mary for Mosaic Monday. Have a great week.
Happy New Year from the Sandbox. Hoping that 2013 will be a year of peace, love and personal happiness to you all.
