Uncharted Territory

A cold front has moved down from Alaska bringing us some early frost.  I set out to take some photos one morning, although it was only 30 degrees.  A down coat and wool gloves were in order.

As is usually the case with camera in hand, I forget all time and temperature, and an hour had passed before I realized I could no longer feel my fingers!

I couldn't decide which I liked better, color, or black and white, of the frosty rhododendrons.

I spent a long while crawling around the base of old stumps shooting these little guys.  I believe they are called Cladonia carneola, a lichen, only reaching about an inch in height! 

The frost made for some delightful light play, whether I used color or black and white.

Rain returns tomorrow, so it was fun while it lasted.  Perhaps some snow pictures will be in order next month!

Picasa Play

(imported from my former photo blog)
I love Picasa!  Hard to believe anything is free anymore, but Picasa photo editing is, and they have a new version out!  (Available from Google).  More photo effects for the crazed digital artist that I am - oh wait, or is that convergent media, more appropriately.

They now have figured out how to bypass the need to buy a Lomo or Holga camera, (sorry manufacturers!) with their effects button for either one.  I played with the functions which allow you some room to play.

Here is the "Holga-ish" function.  (That cracks me up by the way).  I used it with this black and white semi wide angle I shot on the beach.  It really brought out the detail.

Here is the "lomo-ish" version.  Talk about wildly vivid color!  What fun.

And for those of us who cannot draw a stick figure - I give you the "pencil sketch" function.  Isn't that fun??  I almost feel like an artist.

The intriguing thing is that you can adjust all these settings.  It's not like a click of a button, you actually get to play with the tones, and brush effects, or shadows and contrast.  Of course if you're like me you will then move on to other functions and tweak it some more.

I encourage you to try out Picasa if you haven't already, or check out the new functions.

Outta My Tree

(imported from my former photo blog)
Oh the things that obsess the creative mind. 
I took the camera out recently to experiment with the settings.  (I have had it for years and am still figuring it out!).  I had some good challenges for color this day.  I shot the fall leaves, blue sky, white clouds and reflecting water.  After about 86 frames I was burned out.  But, I got some interesting perspectives.

These are totally organic, no post processing or tweaking.  I did however use all manual settings, color, black and white, and some for vivid color. 
I'm trying to learn how to think "digital".  I'm such an old school film buff, still living in the dark ages I guess.
Next experiment is with infrared.