ad libitum

CAT IN THE SINK

When I was visiting my older daughter last winter, I took some photos of her cat, Mo. Mo likes to sit in sinks and bathtubs.

TEXTURES AND MORE TEXTURES

It's Nancy's Texture Tuesday again. I have been busy traveling lately: after my trip to California, I took a road trip to New Jersey (to see Judy and Howie) and Connecticut (to see Sal and Eric) and I am just beginning to get back into art and out of piles of laundry and annoying daily life tasks. Nancy's testure challenge came at just the right time.

While I was visiting Judy, she took me shopping in Manhattan. I did more shopping than photographing (I bought jewelry findings, buttons, beads and ribbons); but I did manage to take some pictures.

Below is a picture of the street signs.

I cropped the photo and played with filters and levels and blending modes.

I added a bit of street grunge with Nancy's texture.

Below is a picture I took near the New York Public Library.

I played with it and added a couple of Nancy's textures.

Below, I added a film strip mask.

Of course, I had to take pictures of Macy's windows.

I then played with levels.

And then I added Nancy's texture to put in some city grunge.

Back in Jew Jersey, I took some photos of some of the decorative objects in Judy's studio.

More playing with levels and adding text...

The addition of Nancy's texts:

More playing with levels and adding a mask:

Here's a photo of a great vintage head Judy owns (can you feel the coveting?)

I cropped and played with levels.

And, then I added text, one of Nancy's textures as a background, and another of her textures across the face

Here's the photo I took of another of Judy's treasures.

And, here it is with Nancy's texture.

VARIATIONS ON A WEEPING CHERRY

A couple of weeks ago, when it was unusually warm, my weeping cherry tree bloomed. I took this photo on a rainy morning.

I played with levels in Photoshop:

Then I played with some textures (let go and organic) by Kim Klassen. I played with blending modes (mostly darken and multiply) to get the following results.

ANOTHER TEXTURE TUESDAY

Using more textures from the very talented Nancy Donaldson in Photoshop. 

This time, I'm posting just the finished images. Do you care whether I show the component parts or do you prefer to see just the end product?

INSPIRED VISION WITH CATHERINE ANDERSON

While I was at Art and Soul in Virginia Beach, I was lucky enough to take a photography class taught by Catherine Anderson. The first part was based on an activity in her book, The Creative Photographer (I REALLY recommend this book, which is full of exercises and information about taking and digitally editing photographs). We brought our own photos of doors (or, in my case, windows) and images to put behind the doors (Catherine provided photos in class, for people who didn't bring any).

We backed the door/window image and then cut open the door or window. We then put an image behind it. To give it added dimension, we placed the background image on a 5x7 canvas board and used black foamboard around the edges to lift the portal image.

Many people added words to the images and I may do that later, to personize them for the people I will give them to.

Here is my photo of a window in Alexandria, Egypt.

Here is the window open, revealing a photo of a tree at sunset (I took the photo in South Africa; I liked the idea of using images from the most north and south points of Africa).

This is a photo of a window in Jerusalem. It's partially open because it didn't stay very closed with the way I cut it.

Below is the Jerusalem window open, revealing a mermaid and her baby (I thought there was a kind of magical quality to the window, so I wanted it to open onto a fantasy image).

Below is a photo of the Cathedral in Sienna, Italy. I love that a piece of the countryside is reflected in this window.

Here is the window, opened to reveal a stone angel (I took the picture of the statue in a cemetery in Houston, TX) in the Heavens (can't remember where I was when took the cloud photo). There's a little piece of paper that matches the backing of the window (frankly, it's there because  the photo wasn't quite long enough to fit behind the open window).

The last image is of some Stained Glass Windows at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.

I put the laughing Buddha (the background is a poppy from my garden) behind the Cathedral windows because I thought the color and spiritual image fit.

We made our photo pieces in the morning part of the class. In the afternoon, Catherine sent us out to take photos. We were reminded to take close ups and to take photos from more than one angle. It was a great exercise.

As you can, no doubt, tell, I loved this class.

LIFE'S A BEACH AND THEN YOU POST

The class I had originally sceduled (I'm at Art & Soul, Virginia Beach) was cancelled, so I spent the day spending way too much money on art supplies and taking photos at the beach.

Here are a few of my photos (no surprise, with a little bit of photoshopping).

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

I want to wish you a very Happy Valentine's Day!

I took this photo in an antique store in Missouri during my last visit to Cape Girardeau.

This is from a photo of some valentine candy (in spite of the danger to my fillings, I love taffy).

Sweet valentine wishes...

I know it's odd to send out a giraffe for a valentine, but I enjoyed giving this one some extra hearts.

VARIATIONS ON A PHOTO

Below are variations of a photo I played with in Photoshop. The photo (a picture I took of my younger daughter a few years ago) in the top left corner is the photo I started out with. The arrow points to my usual easy photo fix (duplicate layer, Gaussian blur of 55 over copy two, set blending mode to overlay or soft light).

In the following 6 photos I replaced my backyard with a photo I took of the California coast 2 years ago. Then, for each photo, I used different textures (all from Nancy Donaldson) and blending modes.

This is all in my attempt to improve my portraits. I have to start taking notes on my techniques so I can replicate the things I like.

MORE TEXTURES ON A TUESDAY

For Nancy Donaldson's texture challenge this week, I decided to go with a theme of MidEastern photos from a trip I took in 2009. It was nice to review my trip and fun to play with the photos.

I started with this statue in Qena

I used one of Nancy's garage textures and inverted it.

I love this photo of camels that I took in Egypt.

First I added another texture.

Then I added a layer and desaturated it so it was black and white. Then I used a mask to bring back some color, which I muted.

I love the way some of the ancient coloring shows through on this column.

Using the texture and some color filters changed the column; but, if you look carefully, there are still bits of color coming through.

This is a picture of a window I took in Jerusalem.

I like both of the effects below.

Here's a texured photo of a line of rams at an Egyptian temple.

Adding another texture and the difference filter changes the feeling of the rams.

This is a gentleman in Luxor.

Below are two variations of his photo.

  Below is the photo of a Sudenese sailor that I took on a boat on the Nile and two variations.

 

PLAYING WITH MY NEW TELEPHOTO LENS

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. I went to the National Cathedral (to take photos of the gargoyles) and the National Zoo to take pictures with my new telephoto lens. I haven't mastered the monopod (it wobbles; OK, I wobble it); but I found out it works a lot better (crisper photos) when I use it than when I try to hold the camera myself (blurrier photos).

Here are some of the photos I took. Obviously, there's a learning curve.