Testing out this wordpress app on andriod will actually start this “pic of the day” and it won’t be pictures of me lol

Mmmmm breakfast

Padded Cell

Happy Sunday!

Early light, winter colored prickly pear profusion at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix Arizona. I really like cacti. I like the forms they take, and the display they make as the light changes. I like the subtle colors, which often, as with the Prickly Pear, vary with the seasons. I like to fill the frame with the pattern of them, to the exclusion of all else. What can I say? I like cacti.

For this shot, I used the zoom on the H50 for framing and to flatten perspective. I intend to publish a piece on Point and Shoot Landscape on just that…using the zoom as a framing tool. The one purple/red fruit/bud on the left adds a “where’s waldo” effect that I like.

Sony DSC H50 at about 80mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

All presets in Lightroom: Punch, Landscape Sharpen, >> of Clarity, and > of Vibrance. 4 seconds total editing time.

From Desert Botanical Garden 09.

I’ve been trying new things with my ultra wide 10-20mm so I thought I would take a pic of my lens.

So Red!

So red it hurts. Red or Baja Fairy Duster, a native plant of America’s Southwestern Deserts, is certainly red. The more common variety is shades of pink and bit easier on the eye and the camera sensor. This specimen, in full early morning sun at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix Arizona is about as red as anything I have seen in nature. This was taken in wide angle macro mode from centimeters away.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent and macro. F4.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Sharpen Landscape preset in Lightroom. Added Clarity. I generally add some Vibrance, but not to this shot!

From Desert Botanical Gardens 09.

Here is an alternative view, and one with an Anna’s Hummingbird. The plants attract hummers, especially late in the season when they are one of the few plants blooming. I was just too late to get the bird at a flower…but it is still an interesting image.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Winter Beach

A Christmas Eve day walk on the winter Parson’s  beach a few miles from home. There is a definite December solstice look to the sky and that deep winter slant to the light of late morning.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance in Lightroom. Recovery for the clouds and sky. Sharpen Landscapes preset.

From Around Home Kennebunk ME.

And here we are: My wife (right most) and two of my 5 daughters. You can see the one on the left (Sarah) takes after her dad, photographically at least. She has a blog…mostly about books…but she posts some images and some travel adventures, at What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate.

Sometimes they are necessary

Frozen in Time

One final ice shot from Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport ME. The way the patterns in the ice form around objects is amazing…subtle…perhaps totally unpredictable but somehow readable once seen. I shot this oak leaf from several angles and distances. This is a wide angle macro.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent and macro. F3.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscape preset.

From Around Home Kennebunk ME.

Isn’t cubicle life grand?

Chihuly: The Nature of Glass

Last winter the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix hosted a spectacular, by reservation only, exhibit of glass works designed to mimic nature: From flowering cactus to these huge yucca sculptures (pictured) , it must have been hard to tell what was real wand what was glass. Certainly these sculptures, which found a permanent home just outside the entrance as a memorial to the massive show, had me wondering when I first saw them. I thought at first that I was seeing water frozen over living leaves, though it had not been cold enough the night before. As I walked closer I still could not tell what I was seeing, until I rounded the corner and saw the little sign explaining. I have since looked up the exhibit on the web site. It must have been spectacular. These sculptures, standing 8 or 9 feet tall in the early morning sun, certainly were.

Sony DSC H50 at 60mm equivalent for framing. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

In Lightroom, I was experimenting with the presets for ultra-rapid editing: I used Punch (which adjusts exposure and blackpoint automatically to increase overall intensity) and Landscape Sharpen. I then added level two of Clarity (there are > and >> levels) and level one of Vibrance. And that was it. Four mouse clicks, start to finish, without opening the develop module at all.

In this alternative view, which includes all three sculptures, I did open develop as I wanted to crop the image slightly from the left, but it received the same preset treatment, plus some Fill Light when I had it open in develop.

Both are from Desert Botanical Garden 09.

I took this shot on my trip to Block Island last summer.

In the spirit of the season…

What is Written is Written

Back to Maine winter for another pattern in the ice abstract from Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport. I wonder at the physics behind something like this. How do we explain it? Certainly I can’t. Unless you believe in a slightly whimsical Creator (and I go so far as to believe God, at the very least,  has whimsical moments, based on the evidence I have seen so far).

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent and macro. F3.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscaper preset.

From Around Home, Kennebunk ME.

In a whatever kinda mood…

found via I Love Fake

I’m really digging the high contrast black and white images from this camera. Just a little sharpening, desaturation, crop and vignette from PhotoForge and there you have it!

High Desert

I will be flipping back and forth between wintery Maine and wintery Arizona for the next few days, just to provide some variety. This is from Agau Caliente Park at the extreme east edge of Tucson, looking north toward Mt. Lemon. Agua Caliente is a natural spring which forms a mountain pond and attracts a rich variety of wildlife. Cropped off at the bottom is the dry bed of the second pond, which is normally filled by the overflow from the first. An exceptionally dry decade, and other undetermined factors have cut the flow of the spring to about half its normal. The spring and ponds have gone through such cycles before and recovered, so there is hope here as well.

Sony DSC H50 at about 60mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Cropped in Lightroom to eliminate the white glare of the dry pond bed. Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscape preset.

From Desert Botanical Garden 09 (misplaced, but I had only two images from Tucson, so they got into this gallery).

Russh

It’s been freezing cold lately and now we have about 10″ of snow outside. Needless to say, most of my pics have been of things that are inside and today’s pic is no different. I like the look of high contrast B&W images; this look can make ordinary objects look pretty cool. I only used the Tilt Shift Generator for today’s pic.

Winter Lace

There are always interesting patterns in the foam that forms in the still backwater below the series of small falls at Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport, but on this day, when it was well below freezing and only the motion of the water kept it liquid, the foam itself was half frozen and particularly lace-like. This shot contrasts the intricate patterns in white with the equally intricate patterns in the green moss. It was cropped at bit at the top for composition.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F3.2 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and a touch of Fill Light for the moss. Sharpen Landscapes preset.

From Around Home Kinnebunk ME.

And, for contrast, a close-up of the foam. Purely abstract. Taken from the same spot by zooming in to about 200mm equivalent for framing.

To keep in the holiday spirit, I thought a pic of a nice poinsettia would be a fitting iPhone Pic of the Day.

In case you were wondering…I used a few different iPhone apps on this one. I used PhotoForge to make a minor curves adjustment and then I used the official Photoshop App to add the soft focus effect. I STILL haven’t found an app that lets me do everything that I want to do. Hopefully someone will make a really “full featured” app soon.

The Bend in the Stream (of time)

Gravity, water, and light combine here to strange effect in the ripple at the head of the falls at Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport Maine. Cropped down to the essential action, it becomes an abstract, or at least a study in distortion.

Sony DSC H50 at about 45mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/100th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen Landscapes preset.

From Around Home Kennebunk ME.