Send in the Clouds

When I was a kid...hmmm, back in the days when you took everything an adult said at face value...
when we still honored our grandparents as they knew best. [really, I think they did!]

When I was a young girl. I don't know the age, but I was all arms and legs, full of energy and ambition [as long as that included goofing off or riding my cousins' horses]...I got bored one afternoon.

I complained to Grandma.

Grandma suggested that I lay back in the grass and stare up at the clouds for a while. I thought she was nuts, but I did what she asked.
For this she taught me patience in a way I suppose, but she taught me to appreciate the beauty of the sky.
She told me to watch clouds and see 'what' fantastic things I could find.

I recall watching the clouds with growing interest.
I also recall Grandma waking me up after I'd fallen asleep lulled by the warm grass under me.

I learned a lot that day as a young girl. All by simply laying on my back and watching the sky.

That Golden Moment

You know some-days you get the yearning to do something.
For me, it is riding.
Getting away from it all in the woods with my best two buddies.
Badger & Morris.

Yesterday was one of those days.


The itch needed to be scratched. Morris felt it, I felt it...
and Badger was eager to go along and wander the woods looking for interesting late fall light.

We surprised a young buck.
A 'herd' of turkeys...
A doe and two young fawns.

It was peaceful with the noises of squirrels scratching in the downed leaves ... doing what squirrels do I guess.

Near the end of the ride, we found that golden moment, when the late September sun blessed us with beams of golden light on our trail.
It was heaven on earth.

Yesterday~Exploring

Rock formation, a good place to enjoy the peace and quiet...The trail 'less traveled' by...

Mossy StumpTouch Me Nots
Morris came along and I have many shots of him...but just thought I'd give you an idea of what our short hike *found* yesterday in the early morning hours.

Building a Picture~using Photoshop Layers

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Start with a boring photo of a mule at the break of day...the reds in the sunrise turn his coat into silky beautiful colors, enhancing it naturally.

Now the sky is boring and blown out. So I got rid of it.
Still pretty boring right?

So I grabbed a photo with a beautiful sunset from last week.
I cropped and edited this photo to put in sun-rays [how to do that HERE].

Next I overlayed the edited sunset over Badger and erased [using layer mask] the distractions on his chest.

Nice...but now the bottom of the photo looks awful ... blah.
So I inverted the sunset and added it to the bottom of the photo in a seperate layer. Here is how it looks with Badger erased out of it...

Then I flattened it and well...there you go, a picture with a bit of editing, added color and a bit of a 'fantasy' feel to it.

All from a boring morning photo.

Driving Miss Me

You know I always think of clever and cool things to write about while I am driving to work.
Hmmm.
Is that attentive driving or in-attentive driving.

My mind is on the road, the traffic, my eyes are scanning for deer and [yes] sometimes even cattle on the road.
I’m watching for other traffic [day or night] and generally using most all of my senses.

So why does my mind wander? Is it because I’ve traveled this route on the average 3 times a week for almost two years? The road’s curves and hills are like friends to me, I know their bumps, areas to avoid, bent guard railings, bridges and the farm animals alongside of it…
30 + miles each way.
In the rain.
In the dark.
In the sun.
In the winds, stormy skies, lightening shows…blizzards, snow storms, and ice storms.

The road is dangerous. It winds through the countryside and drops into a steep valley, then up a narrow twisted road and back down to the Mississippi River.

But I do have flashes of images and ideas go through my head as I work on auto pilot [during good weather of course…not on those white knuckled drives].

I think of stories I’d like to write. I think of images I’d like to create and tinker with.
I think of photography techniques and wish I were hiking the valley and creek.

The Last Day of August

The last day of August.

As I finished off doing my nightly chores, I glanced up towards the sky. A golden yellow light brightened the poplars on the east side of the driveway.
In our valley it was already darkening.

I tossed my camera [gently] and jumped in my car. I knew the perfect spot for 'shooting' a wide open sunset sky.

I arrived there within a few moments. It was a pull in that my ridge top neighbors use for sorting their cattle.
I decided to pull out my camera and debated as to whether or not I could make it down the Black Bottom Creek and pull off some 'golden water' shots.

I decided to try that at another time, for Mother Nature was 'puttin' on the glitz and was she ever giving me a private showing!
Golden....
The colors began to change...deepen darken, hues of purples and reds...
...and finally the last breath of an August night as the calendar would turn the page as we slept.


I'd spent the day hiking in the valley admiring Mother Nature's last flash flooding and the redecorating that she had done.
Quite beautiful.



Morris had accompanied me and we found coyote tracks which made this little fella stick close by...

Point and Shoot Cameras

[No post about a creek hike is complete without the obligatory shot of Mr. Morris, who inspires me and keeps me smiling...]

Sure everyone wants a big DSLR. I have a nice Nikon DSLR.
But I don't take it out on rainy, muddy, nasty days when I'm going to be mud sluggin' through the woods and climbing slippery mossy rocks.

One bang, and the camera is toast. So the point and shooty cameras work just fine.

I even decided to try out the Auto Bracketing settings to see what sort of HDR I could come up with.

I used a mini tripod that I got at Wallyworld for cheap. It works okay for small cameras and is NOT meant for DSLR cameras.

Here are some shots from my Sanyo E1292 which I purchased as a back up camera that I've let my Granddaughter use ... it has been dropped a few times and doesn't always open up with the lens. On it's better behavior though it takes decent enough landscape shots.

Woods~down the hill~
The picnic tree [I call it the finger tree] next to the old coyote den~
Cow Trail through neighbor's pasture~
Past this gnarly tree and up the hill...lays the 'hill road'~
Wild Strawberries drape elegantly down the side of rock in our creek bottom~
These are examples of a $79 camera.
I used it set at IS0 80 and then set the Auto Bracketing to 1.7. Yes, I edited these. But fantastically...there was little or no noise.

For tramping around in the woods and taking general landscape shots, you can do well with cheapos.
No loss it you drop it in the stream.
No big deal if you drop it off your mule and it gets crushed.

Remember, it is the person behind the lens, not the camera, who takes the picture.

Program used for HDR Dynamic Photo HDR.
Cropping done in Elements 5.

I'm an Explorer...I love to experiment...here it is...