I was ... bored--ish.

Charlie...that goof ball woke us up at 4am. He'd gone into the bedroom by Rich and started howling. I mean howling like he was being murdered. I leapt out of bed and hurried into the bedroom. We still don't know why he started howling.

But that got us up. It was nice in a way because Rich was done with his breakfast, meds, nebs, and morning routine in time for me to drive up to the ridge to watch the sunrise. It felt like a treat to get to my favorite spot and watch the sky and clouds turn colors.

The first shot is with my regular camera lens, the second was with the Lensbaby SOL 22 lens. 

The shot below is more soft as this is what the artistic Lensbaby lens does. I sort of like it!
I wasn't sure about using it in a landscape situation, but without experimenting, we never really know if something really works or not, right?

I got to the Farmer's Market to get some pie for hubby. Ruth is a Mennonite that has a bakery and she is generally there on Market day. I was going to get an apple pie but Ruth recommended the raspberry or the cherry pie. She said fresh apples from the orchard made much better pies that the ones she had. 

I left with a raspberry pie, a cherry pie, 3 bundles of fresh carrots, and several large tomatoes. 

I spent the morning chopping up and blanching the carrots for vacuum sealing and freezing. Last week I froze 3 dozen ears of sweet corn and 3 pounds of green beans.

Growing my vegetables is very satisfying, but with the extra work I have to do here, I've decided that purchasing fresh veggies at stands and markets is easier than toiling in a garden. I'm almost at my goal of fresh frozen veggies for the year.

While cutting up carrots, I had a funny idea. There is a new 'phone' app called NaukNauk that will take a single uploaded photo and turn it into a 5 second animation. So I tried it.

Doesn't everyone need a Ninja Warrior
to help with food chopping???

Both Rich and I giggled over what the AI generated mini movie did with my character. 

By the time I finished the carrots, a full blown storm arrived. The winds were fierce even down in our hollow, we had an inch of rain in less than 30 minutes.

Since the rains kept coming down in buckets, I decided to open up DxO labs and try some of the things they have in their Analog Collection. One of them is called Multilens. It was fun. Not sure what I'd use it for, but it took the photo in a different direction.

I then tried the double exposure component with this shot. 

It doesn't really work as a true double exposure with a shot like this. The program doubles the shot and allows you to resize it, adjust it, and even motion blur it. 

The double exposure section also allows you to add another shot, this time I didn't do that.

I just did a blur on the edges. It was interesting, but not something I'd use often.

I did this one of Charlie in the winter woods a few years ago. This worked out so much better as Charlie was on a white snowy background. One shot of Charlie in the bright snow, and one shot of the forest behind him.

This was done in DxO Labs.

I did an unintentional double exposure. 

I took a few shots of this. The camera was on a tripod and I set the camera up to take 3 shots as I sprayed a bit of mist at the shots.

I set it up in layers and I didn't align them. I liked the result and dubbed it a double exposure.

Dr. Cob and his dog Cog. It seems they are doing some time warping with the minibots.

Uffdah. Time to get out my cleaning supplies and get at it while hubby is up and about.

Nothing like being literally stuck indoors!

But I best get at it.

We are going on our third inch of rain and we are not even in the 'flood watch' area.

Distractions

My son sent me a quote which I felt was very thoughtful and needed to be shared here.

Once I read it and after we discussed it, I decided that this indeed was very appropriate. It also explains the 'why' I have toys and why I experiment in photography and graphic art.

"The opposite of play is not work - the opposite of play is depression." ~Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play.

Okay, so I knew this in the back of my mind. Play and exercise in some sort or another is what helps the mind get out of a rut. Well, it does for me.

With the Pandemic this year, the isolation, and ... well hell, the politics, 2020 through 2021 so far has been awfully trying. Endless days of fog and overcast weather can make things even more depressing.

So what does that mean? Not much. But I decided not to let all of that bother me. I took out my newly arrived Dragons and had a go with them. 

I spent most of my time while on the hike looking for spots along the creek that I could get good reflections. So I had to look for rocks to add to the creek bottom so the toys wouldn't be too submerged and they would stand up instead of falling over.

Yep. I crouched in a creek and arranged figurines. The whole time I was doing that my mind was clear of all intrusive thoughts. It was like going on a Mind Vacation.

Seeing as that I have Dragons in my creek, I wasn't surprised to see the Unicorns in the forest.

I amused myself by trying different methods of processing the photos. I use DxO's Photo Lab 4 for most of my processing. I dipped into Analog Efex Pro 2 for these shots.

It is interesting to try out different film effects.

The photo below is what I call a failed experiment. A fun one just the same. In camera double exposure. I did this indoors. The first shot is of this dragon, the double was of some 'fake' leaves. It sort of turned out with an interesting Bokeh effect but it took me down another path.

So I looked up 'how to create' a double exposure effect. And thought I'd give it a whirl.

There I am with my funky hat [bad hair day as usual]. A shot against a blank white wall. This took a long time to get the look I wanted. Don't look too close. You will see my wrinkles. I have decided that I am okay with that look too. 

I'm going to work on a few other things.
Yesterday I took Charlie for a long walk on the cropland on the ridge. I took my point and shoot Infrared Camera. Winter and IR usually don't produce great results, but I think the Creative Challenge will be a good thing.

Now to finish my errands. A trip to the butcher and we will be set again until some time late February except for milk.