It's an Honor

Seeing this painting of my photo makes my heart sing. My mother's friend, Nelly, painted it with rich colors, texture, and lighting. She caught the serene spirit of the picture through her brush. Don't you think it is just wonderful?

A January Day at the Beach

Southern California is an amazing place. On a sunny weekend day in mid-winter everyone is out, biking, beach combing, sunbathing. I took the opportunity to have some fun with the new camera. These were all taken within a few hours at the beach in Carpinteria. I used the same lens, mostly the same settings (I'm just learning). I did post process the pics using Picnik. Love, love, LOVE the way they turned out.

Look Who Got a New Camera!

It's a Canon Rebel Ti1, a real camera with detachable lens. The bundle came with a telephoto lens, which is so great, it can practically compose a photo by itself.

Playin' with Picnik

black frame

zoom focus

lomo

sepia

original

lomo 2

cinema-scope

sixties style

original

Dawn took these photos of Sebastian and I have just been cropping and editing and changing all the settings to see what I can get. You can see the improvement in the quality and the variety of moods that you can create.

Every photo looks better with a black frame. Most photos look better with a little bit of dark edging, called vignette. But you can also change styles, add matting, soften the focal point, posterize, fix blemishes, whiten teeth, and much more.

The possibilities with this online photo processing program are endless. Picnik makes it easy to upload photos, either from your computer or Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket or any other photo program. The basic program is totally free, you can be logged in 30 seconds. They have a premium package available and I am enjoying it so much that I just might sign up.

This is going to be a ton of fun when I get home from Costa Rica with thousands of pics to edit!

Which one do you like best?

Goodbye God, I'm Going to Bodie

A famous quote from a young girl's diary, "Goodbye God, I'm Going to Bodie," was used commonly to express the complete wickedness of the town during its heyday. At the time of its gold rush in 1879, there were 10,000 residents, numerous brothels, and 65 saloons, with daily murders, robberies, stage coach holdups and street fights.

Now, Bodie is a state park with about 5 percent of the original buildings (most of the town burnt down) in a condition of arrested decay. At over 8,000 ft in evelation without a tree to be seen, the climate is brutal. We listened to the docent explain what life was like back in the days of the "wild west." He told of the the notorious Bodie 601 vigilante group who lynched a man, the prostitute who was buried right along the fence of the "respectable" cemetery, the 3 year old boy who burned over half the town because he didn't get cake and ice cream on his birthday.

All of the photos here were taken by my niece, Allison. She asked to borrow my camera and we went around together discussing what would make an interesting photo op for her.

Quick Hint Tuesday

Mint Tins from Trader Joe's--these green tea mints are quite unusual. Three mints have as much antioxidants as a cup of tea. But I love this usefully little tins. I put scrapbooking supplies in them, but they could be used for spices or other things too.

Peppermint Oil--Amy & Ty swear that rubbing a little dab of peppermint oil on your temples and the back of your neck with eliminate headaches better than Ibuprofen. I bought some, now I'm waiting for a headache to test it out.

Camera Case--my camera is an odd size, not an SLR, not a compact. I found this cool square of neophrene felt with velcro that you secure to the exact size of the camera. It's called a soft wrap made by Op/Tech. Only $12, soft, and flexible protection for my camera.

PicLens.com--this free download turns any photo page into an experience! You won't believe how awesome pictures look on your computer with their "3-D Wall." It works with Google, Facebook, Flickr, You Tube and others. Try it.

The Arboretum at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno is a wonderland of spring bursting forth right now. Every time I go there I renew my love of it and think that I'll go all the time and it ends up being once in the spring and once in the fall, when I realize that I haven't been there all summer. My goal is to go every Tuesday for many weeks, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes in the evening, until it gets too hot and all the flowers fade. I want to watch the progression of the blooms and keep my eye out for things that would work in my garden. And as always, there are tons of photo opportunities.

My Tea Mug

My Tea Mug, originally uploaded by c8mills.

I am once again finding myself in a flickr frenzy. I love joining different groups and commenting on other people's photos. It's fun to see what response you get. If you are at all interested in photography, I highly recommend going on the site and playing around.

Last night I had a woman, a good photographer, write a personal message to me, asking me to explain what depth of field is. She had no idea what the technical term is, although she was quite good as producing the results. I told her that it means a close up shot, with the foreground in focus and the rest blurry. Now she is a new contact.

Earlier this week, another woman commented on my pictures. When I went to look at her stuff, I was amazed to see so many similar photos to mine. There are probably ten photos that you could put side by side. We look at things the same way. Her camera is identical to mine. How weird is that?

I took this photo a few weeks ago. Drinking tea has been a constant in my life since I was very young. This picture captures my love of it perfectly. The way the light was playing in the steam caught my eye. The S swirl at the top, the sunlight flare on the handle. I did not photoshop this at all, that's the way it looked to me that morning, and that's the way it came out.

You can see all of my photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/homestretching/

Playing with Fire

Last night, sitting around the campfire, my eyes were fascinated focusing on the flames dancing, changing patterns, swirling. Suddenly, I wanted desperately to photograph it. Could I catch that light in movement? I put the camera on the fastest ASA and lowest exposure and snapped over 100 pictures. I could feel myself getting more and more giddy with each one. It was working! Most of them are out of focus, of course, but I actually got some.

Artist Date: Pottery World

Quite by fluke, I found myself in Pottery World, which seems like a separate world of its own. Christmas season feels real here. The store clerks merrily hum along to the Christmas carols playing in the background. A lovely café serves great food, the customers laughing and chatting, with big smiles all round.

I had very limited time, so I found myself running back and forth from display to display. Different areas are set up as rooms, each having a different color or theme. The garden area surrounding the colossal oak, features fountains and pottery galore. I tried so many different camera settings, challenging myself to look for ideas and lighting options quickly. I am pretty happy with how some of them came out.

Artist Date: Cabela’s

I’m not sure that this qualifies for a true artist’s date because I was with a lot of other people, so I wasn’t concentrating as much as I should have been and also I am disturbed by the dead animal element to this store. But on the other hand, the opportunity to take close up shots of intensely beautiful animals (who poise perfectly still) is too tempting.

Cabela’s claims to be the world’s largest outdoor outfitter, which means they specialize in hunting and fishing equipment. They have everything you can think of, and a lot more than you could ever imagine. My personal favorite was the "Slip On Butt Cover" (for your gun, of course). The grand opening was last weekend at the new Boomtown store. We waited until Monday night to let the crowds clear out a little.

The overall impression as you enter is commanding. Your eye naturally goes past all of the clothing, equipment, and checkstands, to the soaring ceilings and chandeliers, following along until coming to rest on a large African Elephant in the center. Among the sale items there is a café, a large arcade-type shooting range, an archery range, and a gigantic aquarium with native species, and endless dead stuffed animals, which are called “mounts,” for whatever reason. No matter what your opinion on game hunting, it is, without a doubt, very impressive.