landscapes – Page 2 – red paper boat

Between the heaves of storm

June 21, 2006October 16, 2015 Shelly

We had an amazing storm in the early evening yesterday, with high winds, lots of lightning, and heavy rain (4 inches in one hour). The trees around me were bent over with the force of the wind, and I may have lost my largest sapling. When I went out to take pictures, after the worst had passed, I found the 8 foot tall tree bent over, with its top touching the ground. I wanted to cry, but I reminded myself not to get too attached to the baby trees because I’ll be moving soon. I can’t exactly take them with me, can I?

While I was out taking post-storm photos, I noticed an area of mammatus clouds to the south.

Then, I noticed a break in the clouds to the southwest. A bird was wheeling around, appearing to circle the small patch of light. Right after I took this photo, he flew off to the east.

To the south, there was mist rising from the trees. During the worst of the storm, this ridge was completely obscured by rain.

A few hours later, another squall line moved through, less intense than the first.

Photography

Photo Salvage

June 7, 2006October 16, 2015 Shelly

What do you do when a photo doesn’t really turn out the way you’d hoped it would? You go a-Photoshopping, of course!

I took this photo last night, just as the sun was setting. The summer sunset is usually pretty boring from my vantage point, because a large stand of trees blocks the view. We occasionally get interesting cloud formations, though, and I’d hoped that this would be one of them; but it ended up not being very photogenic, so I did some Photoshopping to try to salvage what I could of it.

I started by desaturating the image, darkening it, and ramping up the contrast. Because I intended to put a black frame around it, I wanted to make sure the foreground trees were a rich black, not a washed out sorta-black. So I used the Levels setting to select the tree value as the darkest in the image. Then, I used Color Balance to add reds and yellows, to fake sepia tones. Finally, I added a grungy border around the image.

Photography

A Walk in the Woods

February 25, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

The weather has been exceptionally pretty the past few days. Last Wednesday, after work, my camera and I took a walk in the woods. I wasn’t really dressed appropriately, as it was super muddy, but it was well worth slogging through the swampy bits.

I’ve tweaked the color a bit (lowering the saturation, increasing the contrast, decreasing the lightness, and upping the reds and yellows), because the originals were washed out. Sunny days are nice, but they really don’t make for the best photographs. The close-ups of the tree knot and the three trees with a board nailed across them were completely desaturated and had noise added. I left the fungus and the pictures with visible sky untouched.

Photography

Friday Photoblogging

February 18, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

I love this section of Patricksburg Road. It’s extra twisty and flanked by limestone outcroppings, with a small stream running along one side. There’s a house at the top of the hill on the stream side, with two German Shepherd Dogs who were Not Amused by my tromping around on their territory.

I took these on the way home from work. Because of the hills, most of the sky views in this area are blocked by ridge lines. This location is a rare exception. There are three rolling fields, but the inevitable valley walls are far off enough that the sky is relatively large.

There’s a field across the road from my driveway. It’s not in a very good location, because Fish Creek runs along the back edge of the field. It floods in the spring, making the field difficult to plant. The owner has done some illegal dredging of the creek, to try to keep it from flooding his field, but he was caught. I assume the pipes were bought with the intent to use them to drain the flood water, and that they were left sitting when the project was shut down.

There are several mounds of earth in the same field. They remind me of tumuli.

I’m not usually a fan of contrail photos, but I liked the patterns these ones made.

Sunrise

Sunset

Photography

Winter Trees

February 14, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

I took this last night, at sunset. The colors weren’t very interesting, though, so I decided to play around with it in Photoshop. I ended up desaturating it, adjusting the curves, and adding some graininess.

Photography

It’s a good, good day

February 9, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

I don’t usually get to see the morning Belt of Venus, because I live in a valley and the view to the west is obstructed by a ridge. I happened to look out the window at work, though, and saw a beautiful pink blush in the western sky. Mmmm. It was delightful.

And, more crepuscular rays. Sorry to keep going on and on and on about them, but the clouds we’ve had recently have created some gorgeous ray action. This photo was taken at the intersection of Starnes Rd and Reeves Rd, near Ellettsville.

In other photographic news, I found some pretty straightforward instructions for making a pinhole camera, using a 35mm camera body. w00t! That means that the film can be commercially developed, which is important, as I don’t have easy access to a darkroom or a way to dispose of chemicals. I’m going to play around with it this weekend, weather permitting.

Photography

Stop Grovelling!*

February 6, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

I took this photo last Wednesday. It’d been gross and cloudy, but the clouds started to break up right around sunset, producing some nice crepuscular ray action.

Also called Buddha’s Fingers, Sun Drawing Water, and Ropes of Maui, crepuscular rays occur when an object (building, cloud, tree, etc.) interrupts the sun’s light, casting shadows and creating rays. The same phenomenon can occur when something blocks a portion of a car’s headlights. If you’ve ever been in a forest and seen rays of light streaming through the trees, those, also, are crepuscular rays.

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*(Pardon me while I have a Monty Python moment. Crepuscular rays have that effect on me.)

Photography

The first-born lash of dawn

January 28, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

There are some fringe benefits to dog ownership, aside from the obvious companionship and entertainment value of living with canines. This morning, I slept in a little later than normal, because last night I’d stayed up way past my bedtime. Harriet, who will usually sleep in as long as I want to, woke me up at 7:30. I had a headache and a sore throat, and could’ve slept a little longer (and eventually did, because I went back to bed), but I’m glad she woke me when she did. When I went outside with her, there was the start of a gorgeous sunrise.

\r\n\r\n

Photography

In the Sun

January 20, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

I feel like I haven’t gotten anything accomplished today. I got my W2 problem sorted out yesterday, and was able to file my federal return today (state isn’t accepting e-files until the end of the month). That’s something, I guess. I also got some photos of this morning’s extra lovely sunrise and uploaded them, along with some sunset photos from earlier in the week. That’s about it, though.

Sunrise

Pylon at Sunset

Sunset

Pets, Photography

Frosty Dog

January 15, 2006November 15, 2015 Shelly

We had a nice, hard frost last night. It’s been warm and wet and yucky, so this was a very welcome change. It seems as if the local critter population appreciated it, too. The birds were extra boisterous this morning, and there seems to have been a higher than normal amount of bunny traffic in Harriet’s yard (cuz, it is all hers, dontchaknow?).

I got some pictures of her patrolling the perimeter, nose-to-the-ground, tracking rabbity interlopers. Every so often, she’d pause, stuff her face in a pile of leaves, huff and snort, then move along to the next spot.

I also got a couple of what I think are good “stacked” (ha!) photos, taken from the rear side, one with her head facing away, and one with it turned back toward me. I nearly missed the second one, because she saw or heard something interesting and was off like a bolt of lightning.

I’ve been finding that it’s difficult to get outdoor photos of her, because whenever I’m outside with her, her attention is focused on me. It was much easier when there were two dogs, because she was more apt to ignore me in favor of more entertaining companionship.

I also got some photos of the frosty grass and frost crystals on one of the young black walnut trees. Since I was up way past my bedtime last night, finishing up all the image issues left over from the migration from Blogger, I was lucky that I woke up before the frost had melted away. I had just enough time to get a few photos before it started to disappear.