Happy Halloween!

I didn't do any decorating this year for Halloween as generally no one comes to our place. The Gargoyle was a new photo I did yesterday when the storms moved in. 

The rest below are from years past.

When I decorated the woods out back with creepy ghosts and Twana Stick figures...

Happy Halloween if you celebrate it. 

Don't shoot onto my land...

New Stand on ...not my land. And the person that put it up cleared branches and debri so they could 'see' over my fence better. I can spit on the stand from my side of the fence.

This part of the woods has a very heavy canopy in the summer and very little undergrowth which makes it good for open shots. 

They have the right to put it there and to hunt from there. I do not dispute that at all. However, the last two years I have picked up arrows on my side of the fence. One was stuck in a tree, two were in my leek patches.

I keep debating how I'd like to handle it. I do mind finding arrows on my land after the fact. I also do mind getting a lecture from this fellow last year while hiking on my neighbor's land [which I have permission to do].

So this year I'm decorating my woods.

This is what the hunter will see on MY side of the fence.

Not to mention the other Halloween Decorations I am putting up. Actually, I go back there nearly everyday as part of my walk with Charlie. 

I like to do Still Life photography in this part of the woods.

The rocks and canopy make for a perfect place to practice outdoor Still Life.

I guess I will just continue my daily walks back there with cups, toys, saucers, necklaces and other things for some fun still life photography. 

Maybe I'll add my creepy baby dolls to the decorations and take back the little blue chair that I have for reading while down at the creek. I could put my stuffed Woods Bears in kids chairs in a little circle that would look like they are camping there... 

I've always thought that that part of the woods would make a wonderful campsite. Hmmmm. I have a blind I could take out too!

Stay tuned.

All in all, I really should just let it go and stop being nitpicky. 

Spooky stuff or Not

I am forever the experimenter....or is it experimentor? I like the ...or spelling better but spell check doesn't.

I wanted to try something different and new. I ran across a Seasonal Tips offered by Olympus which was fun. After all I couldn't be outside mucking about in the storms we had, so I decided to clean the basement.

You know how this works. I rearranged the tubs of clothing. I sorted the hunting clothing...I needed blaze orange for the 9 day gun season. The insulated coveralls come out of the tub and light jackets go into the tub.
Restack everything and think about getting rid of things.
Put the summer stuff under the steps in the hard to get to places.
It will be months before I get out that stuff again.

Get the winter stuff out. Oops! See the Fall decorations.
Pull them out. 
Sort.
Pull out the Halloween Stuff that the neighbor kids really loved.
Hmmm.
See the decorations for Christmas. 
Put them back. Go have coffee.
Watch the rain.

Rich gets hungry. Feed Rich. 
Storm gets worse.
Rich goes for his afternoon nap.
It is dark outside.
Sort the Halloween stuff and the Fall Stuff.
Time for Tea.

Nope, can't go out to walk.
Okay.
Get out the decorations and play with the camera.
Sounds good.

Dark and dreary. Some Still Life with plastic skulls and an old jar with marbles and lights.

In the shots below I used an Art Filter to create black and white grainy shots. This is a hanging skeleton/ghosty thing. I held it by the twine string attached to the top and shot it as it slowly turned back and forth.

Just the right amount of spooky-creepy.

And then back to the skull on the table with the lights:

I tried something I'd never done before. A long exposure of 10 seconds with moving the camera slightly during the exposure [twisting it slowly on the tripod].

The result was kind of fun.

Then one with a pumpkin.

Now a lot of folks shy away from spooky creepy stuff. Be assured that is not all that is on my mind. I just like experimenting with different ways of presenting a photo. If it creeps you out, then I did my job as a photographer. I made the viewer feel something.

So if that is not your forte...here is some other Still Life photos. I am not all Creep and Scare!

And the last photo. 

To make you laugh!

I was given my Virtual WOD for CrossFit and the coach said since I didn't have a rower, I could run one portion of my workout instead. I do have to be accountable once a week and send a photo of working out to the coach.

Here is my WOD photo of the week titled: I think I need a new rowing maching!

To which the coach replied..."I think it works better IF the water is on the outside of the boat."

Stay safe.

I'll be off to find more things to have fun with. Spooky or Not.

Just for fun!

Just some Halloween Fun for today.

You may not celebrate Halloween but I sometimes love to just have a bit of fun with it.

It is always an occasion to edit photos and have some fun with imagination.

Here is a neighbor's cat from a few years ago:

Well this weekend I thought it would be fun to use some makeup and entertain the neighbor kids.

A bit of makeup, a skunk hat, a wig, and a cape.

I set up the tripod in our yard and thought it would be fun for the kids to come and trick or treat. We live way out in the country and have never had anyone trick or treat.

I arranged a time for the neighbors to come down and enjoy some time.
And they did!

We had such a good time!

After we had our fun, I saddled up Siera and we went for a ride.

I did trade the skunk hat for my helmet and off we went.
Sorry at this time, no photo of me and my mule with my flowing cape as we cruised the woods and the trails.

She was rather unconcerned about the wig, makeup, and cape. 
Siera was even ho-hum when the 'new' neighbor's dogs came out and barked and carried on.

The weather was beautiful and the day was fun.
Whatever you do today, just enjoy it.

The last day of October

Well I didn't say Happy Halloween!  But then again I've worked so many Halloween nights that I guess it doesn't get me excited any more.

October was an incredibly beautiful month, full of changing colors and weather.

Now we enter into November, the month I call ...the Brown Month.

Photographically November can be challenging.
But most of the colors that can be found will either be close to the ground or in the sky...

I also use November to work on projects.  Like the Family Calendars for those who want one and a 'Morris Adventure Book' perhaps.
The longer nights always give me more inside time.

November means moving the animals into winter pastures and setting up water heaters for the stock tanks.
Adjusting water hoses so they can be drained afterwards, and making sure the long johns are easy to access.

My favorite Holiday comes in November.  Thanksgiving!  Family!
My unfavorite time of the year comes in November.
Gun Deer Season.

I am not against the hunting, however I am against those hunters who are irresponsible.

So for 9 days in November I stay out of the woods and do my winterizing of the house and bring out the Carhartt's ... rotate the photos on the wall to more seasonal things...
and wait for the first snow fall.

Review of Topaz Labs Plug ins

I was in the Halloween mood and I had a shot of the neighbor's cat I'd taken while doing a 'shoot' with the neighbor's children.
So here is the starting photograph.

Next I put it in Photoshop 7.0, yes, I have an ancient version, but it still works wonderfully!

I use my preset in Adjust that I call Spooky Adjust.
Next I duplicate the layer and rename it Simplify and it looks like this:

I still want to do something with the fur to make it a bit more abstract looking so I use Clean, again one of my own presets that I've come up while doing animals.  The difference is not much to most people, but to me, it gives a slightly more pleasing effect.

I duplicate this layer and use ReMask to pull just the head of the cat out.

This layer's opacity was reduced because I added Layer 3 with pumkins and Dry Times by Smoko Stock from DeviantArt for texture, along with Layer 4 which are Grunge Frame Brushes from Shadowhouse Creations and then blended it together.

It took quite a bit of experimentation.  At one point I realized that I really wanted the eyes to stand out more and not be covered by the texture or the pumpkins.  So I used the lasso tool to select the eyes from Layer 1, brightened them, and added them back into my 'clean my preset' layer.

 This looked pretty cool and I was very tempted to just stop here.  But I brought back in the other layers.

Here is what all the layers looked like before the finish.

I added some cracks with Obsidian Dawn Brushes [free!] for a bit more texture.  I erased out the Dry Times Texture in spots with a irregular brush with rough edges at about 35%.

Final:

And the before and after !