Three flowers (and me)

First, the darn baby who wouldn't hold still...



...and then the best photo I could get of the four of us (possibly a Father's Day gift, unless I can get a better one).



I used some original and top-secret Photoshop actions on these. To quote my cute sister: "Do you think it's stupid or fabulous?" LOL. I'm trying to find the middle ground between mimicking the processing of other photographers that I like and developing my own style and set of tools. It's a work in progress, and one with many distractions. Cute distractions, though. ;-)


~RCH~

Too much?

I've been staring at this photo so long in the editing process that I've lost the ability to see. So you tell me: Have I over processed it? Is it way too much, too garish? I want it to look as magical as I felt the moment (amazing golden sunlight streaming through dark clouds after an evening rain storm), but I'm worried I've gone way overboard and don't know it. What do you think?

Before (SOOC):


After:


Awesomely, that dirt road is called Chicken Flats Road. Just FYI.

Anyway, please leave me a comment. Did I go to far?


~RCH~

Return to Swan Lake

I went back to Swan Lake yesterday because the fields and hills and mountains are finally greening up and I wanted to see if I could get a better panoramic shot. I don't know yet whether or not I did; it's a big process stitching together all those individual photos -- even with the automation magic that is Photoshop -- and I haven't started on it yet.

I did, however, get a few other photos that I like! My favorite one is this, taken from the Geological Marker (noting that the whole area used to be submerged under Lake Bonneville) looking at US 91 (the straight road) and Old Oxford Highway (the road curving off to the right).



After snapping that, we continued to Swan Lake, drove up the very steep hill (I always worry that the van is going to tip over backwards!) to the tiny cemetery and took the pictures of the valley that I came for, as well as some of the cows whose field abuts the cemetery:



Uno and Dos stood at our side of the flimsy barbed wire fence mooing at them, at which the cows lined up shoulder to shoulder, single file, and began marching slowly toward the girls. I don't know if they were bored and curious or angry and preparing to charge, lol, but I told the girls they probably ought to leave them alone.

I couldn't resist the call of that turn off pictured above, so on the way home I pulled off onto the Old Oxford Highway. I didn't stay long, but I have a feeling I'll be going back. Look what I found, all easily accessible and not surrounded by barbed wire or fencing of any kind (as old places usually are):



Fun, fun! Though after encountering a snake -- a possibly dead one, but still -- in Swan Lake, I do feel a little wary of just barging in. When I go back I will wear jeans tucked into sturdy boots! Or something. And carry a shovel, which DH says is a good self defense tool against snakes. We'll see.


~RCH~

Tres gets the treatment

I took the original photo (shot in June of last year, so she would have been 8mo) and gave it a cross processed look via a curves adjustment layer in Photoshop. That looked cool, but I thought I'd like to rough it up a little more so I zoomed in on some rusty barrels Mary and I photographed on our recent explore and overlayed that for texture (masking out the skin a bit).

Mary, I hope that someday you'll be able to load Photoshop onto your computer. I have so many tricks I want to teach you! :-*


~RCH~

Recent photo explores

I've been busy preparing for (and now enjoying until next Friday) MIL's visit, so I haven't been able to mess with all the photos I've taken recently. But here are a few to whet your appetite:

A couple weeks ago Mary used one of her vacation days to play with me and drive around my little rural county taking pictures. This is one of my favorites.



(Mary, do you remember the ones of yours I said I wanted copies of? I still want them. You know, whenever. And also that very angry / sad one of Dos wearing her Happy shirt from when Eliza visited.)

Okay, then later Beckle the Freckle and her super adorable family came up to play. Her mom was raised not far from where I now live, so Beckle took us to all the cool ancestral spots. I made this panoramic shot by piecing together a bunch of different ones in Photoshop. The piecing is not perfect -- I'm new to that -- but oh well. Irish, I'd be happy to make you a print of this if you like it. (Or you could wait for me to post the rest and see if you like anything else. Or I could go back when things are more green and see if I can get even better photos. I really like your home towns!)



I have plenty more from both of those days, but it takes forever to upload things on my stupid slow dial-up connection so they are, for the moment, stuck on my hard drive. I promise to put them up someday, though. :-)


~RCH~

I could eat Tres up

Seriously, would you look at that smile?



The color is from natural window light in front of her face, a hot pink curtain behind her and orangey tungsten light above and to the right. I sharpened a bit around the eyes, and added a vignette. Not much else. She's super cute all on her own. :-)


~RCH~

One day I'll fly away

I meant to extract her a long time ago. Those kicky feet, that hair, the umbrella.... You couldn't ask for a better jumping picture! I had another spell of insomnia last night, so I carefully cut Mary out of the original photo and placed her in the sky above an empty winter field. Some color adjustments, filters, and textures later and I really like the result.

Here are the two photos I used in my composition:






~RCH~