Early Rainy Morning on the Beach

I was out at sunrise the other day.  One minute the sky displayed a full spectrum of color.  The next it was dark and intermittently I was pelted with rain.  It had stormed overnight and it was low tide — the perfect combination for a treasure trove coughed up from the sea.  The birds love it.  So did I.

Royal Tern chilling in the rough surf.

Early Bird Breakfast Buffet

Looking westward. Love looking opposite the rising or setting sun.

The next wave took them back out to sea.

Every color you could imagine!

Sunday Quote

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is rapture in the lonely shore,
there is society where none intrudes,
by the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less,
but Nature more.

~Byron

Helios & Helianthus

Summer’s Gone, But Not Forgotten- Weekly Photo Challenge

Summer may be gone, but a few flowers in the vase always brightens a gray winter’s day.

Taken with an iPhone5 using app Bracket Mode, combined in PRO HDR, then manipulated in Snapseed, RePix, Artista Oil, and Image Blender.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: this week’s theme is Gone But Not Forgotten. Check out other entries here.

Travel Theme: Belonging

One of these things is not like the others . . . yet it belongs!

A bunch of Royal Terns, and one Black Skimmer, weather the cold January wind.

Ailsa’s travel theme this week is “Belonging“.    I think I belong on a beach, preferably a warm and sunny one.   Wish that the white stuff I see covering the earth was sand and not snow.

November Sunset – two views

Taken with iPhone5, using app Camera+. Edited with TouchRetouch, SnapSeed, Distressed FX.

Taken with iPhone5, using BracketMode. Edited with ProHDR, TouchRetouch, SnapSeed, Distressed FX, ImageBlender, Repix.

If you see something red, shoot it

It’s even better, if there’s an interesting sky.

Red Barn With Sky

Rural Putnam County, Indiana, on an ordinary October day.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Cover Art

I’m a bit obsessed with doors as well as with peeling paint, so I couldn’t pass up this shot when I stumbled upon it.   When I took this shot, at an abandoned set of barns in the middle of countryside, somewhere between Cornfield Central and Picturesque Covered Bridges, where there was only the sound of the wind and a barking dog in the distance, I thought it seemed like a perfect setting for a mystery novel.   And, since my imagination can easily take me on journeys, once I thought of that, I wasn’t about to step through that open door — just in case I might have stumbled upon where bodies were buried!

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Cover Art.  My imaginary mystery novel, to go along with this image, is titled  Hidden Country.

 

This was shot with an iPhone5 using BracketMode.  Images were compiled with PRO HDR X and processed in SnapSeed.

Be sure to check out others’ contributions to this week’s Photo Challenge.

Be Still, Lesson 18

Although Kim Klassen’s current course, Be Still 52, has been challenging, informative and fun,  I haven’t been participating much recently. Not because of the course, but it’s just not something (like this blog) that I’ve devoted any time to lately.  Sometimes when you stop doing something — reading a book, taking photographs, doing something of habit — it isn’t easy to get back into the practice after a period of time.  Claiming that you’re waiting for “inspiration” can be a crutch.  I decided that I was going to jump back in this week and do the lesson regardless of whatever it was.

This week’s prompt is “Organic”.   I wanted to run immediately, as I think that  the term “organic” is overused.   Food is “organic”, but the label is meaningless as there is no standard to define what “organic” should be.   When I was working, the sales and executive teams often talked of “organic” growth.   That was even more ambiguous and made me laugh whenever I heard it.   I thought it sounded organic — as in like the stuff that one might put on one’s garden!

But, since I was committed to the prompt, I decided to think of things natural and in nature.   I took a walk along the nearby creek and found these wildflowers.  In other situations, they might be considered weeds.  On the creek bank, they grow naturally, without any sort of intervention or cultivation.    I placed them on the wood floor in my house when the late afternoon sun was streaming in through the windows.   I like these images.

Part of the lesson included using LightRoom’s Print Module to create a diptych.   I tried several times — I’ve done this before!   But, I could not get the picture placement to work correctly when I exported the file.   I’ll have to keep working on how to do that.   Guess it isn’t something that came naturally — organically — to my brain this evening!

The Last Rose of Summer?

Linking up with Texture Tuesday.

Used Kim Klassen’s latest “magic” texture, kk_magic0916.

Lost … and Found

For years, I was able to find things in stacks in my office by estimating the life of the pile.   Needed something from last March?   No problem.   March was about …. right there!    I was always close.

The same with my photographs.  There was a time when I thought that I would remember every photograph that I took.  And, I was certain, that I would remember when I took it so that if I needed to retrieve it, I could easily.

So, when I went to find a particular photograph — a closeup shot of a milkweed seed — for a forum I participate in, I wondered when I took it.  I knew it had to be fall because that is when milkweed pods burst.  But I couldn’t remember what year it was.  2013? 2012?  2011?

I didn’t start using Lightroom until Spring of 2013.  Previously, I didn’t tag and only rarely named the files with anything other than the automatic IMG_xxxx assigned in camera.

After several hours of searching, over the course of two days, I finally located the shot that I wanted, although I only found an edited jpg, not the original raw file.  And, to my surprise, it appears that I took it when on a road trip, not along the creek near my house as I had originally thought.

Milkweed Seed

Lesson learned?  I’m glad that I now catalog and tag my photos.   LR is such a powerful tool; I’m not sure how I found anything before.   One of these days, I’ll need to go through all of my pre-LR  photos, import and tag them.   Otherwise, they are not much different from the boxes of photographs and negatives  I’ve accumulated over the years.  Looking through them may bring back memories, but it’s time-consuming and too difficult to find what you want.

Here’s a shot of some things I found on my walk today.   It’s cooler than normal; fall is definitely in the air.  I’m hoping that I don’t regret not covering my porch plants this evening.   I’m sure they’re thinking “What the heck?  This cold already?”

Dr Suess -like acorns