Busy Busy

I've been working on a project inside the house.  Removing the wallpaper from the walls and ...ewww, one of my worst nightmares.

Washing ceilings also.

Refer to my The Little House Remodel for what I have done for the past few days.

Thoughts on Photography

I used to claim to be a purist.  But that was when I faithfully took film shots and left it up to the lab to do my printing.

Along came the digital camera and I was not not not going to go there.
But in the end I gave in and got a little point and shoot digital Olympus Stylus camera. And the digital age took me by storm.

And then I acquired my first Photoshop program to learn with.  Photoshop 7.0.
I enjoyed working with the program and becoming creative with it.

But I still wanted basically to remain true to the photo.


Now you can get Adobe Lightroom $9.99 for per month.

Adobe CC their slogan...Take It/Make It. Software for rent.
The slogan they have bothers me a bit.

Take It/Make It.
I think it gives the wrong message to budding photographers.


To me it says, take the photo, 'rent' our software and we can teach you how to make a great photo.
But is it a new normal for photography?
Granted you do need software to make .RAW files into .jpegs or other useful files.  


I also don't buy into the fact that you cannot take good photos unless you have the Industry Standard Photo Editing Software or the most expensive lenses and most expensive cameras.
However I suffer camera envy and lens envy with the best of them.

Whatever happened to learning to use a camera and exploring its capabilities first?  The internet it full of online photography classes.

How to edit your photos into a masterpiece!
Learn Photography, a Tutorial!


I will also say that yes, I do use editing software.  But I go for 'the shot' and try to make it as correct as possible first and not afterwards.

I take it and then may have to touch it up.

 Original

Edited to take out the noise from the long exposure on the moving water in this shot.

ISO 200

f/20

60 second exposure

Olympus E-420

ND filter

I most certainly didn't need that long of an exposure and could have done with a slower one, but the ND filter was a 10 stop filter. Very dark.  I could have gone with a lighter one, but the sun was so bright and I enjoy seeing how far I can push exposures.

The shot itself is not one to write home about.  I was trying to get the rocks and the ice crystal clear and allow the  water to be ultra smooth.  Instead I 'sort of' got it. 

I assume if I spent enough time working on this shot, I could enhance the ice and the rocks.  But this shot doesn't shout at me as being that great. 
So I passed on spending hours in a software program making a great photo.  
I plainly missed hitting the mark on this shot. 
More than likely if I'd not gone with such a long exposure I would have gotten something much nicer.


Here is another shot I took with a Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd S1413 pink point and shoot camera. I was walking along the snowmobile trail and pulled the camera out of my breast pocket and choose Landscape as the setting.

No editing other than the water mark.

Then I did take it to CorelPaintShopProX7 and used Topaz BW Effects 2 to get this.

ISO 100

f 7.2

1/1166 seconds

No filters

You guessed it, I am guilty of 'making' a dramatic black and white shot from a color shot.

The difference here is that I knew the capabilities of Topaz BW Effects and as I looked at the scene in front of me, I thought of how it would be composed in black and white.

I didn't just shoot a random shot.  I knew how the clouds would add drama against the blue sky when I shot it.  

I knew from old school film that in black and white photography the red filter would whiten the clouds and darken the blue sky.

And simply, I really liked the composition of the shot.
Of all the shots I took that day hiking in and out of the valley, this is the one I think was my best.

This was my the second shot I took in a portrait view to catch more of the sky, but I like the first one better.

Then there was the neat ice formations.

Unedited

Edited to show details and cropped

It is a pretty shot and one of interest to me because of the delicate frost forming. But not stunning or electrifying.  

And lastly just something for fun.

I spent a lot of time last week crouching and kneeling on the snow and ice.

Did I mention I love photography in the winter?

Playing with Fractals

It is cold outside!  And I mean cold!  We are having our first deep freeze of the year and it will probably get to -12 F here tonight.

The above and below fractal are something I've been playing with.  Since I don't fully grasp the idea of the IFS formulas yet, I like to take a few formulas and just keep changing them in ways.
 
These are in panorama view.  I sort of like them in their simplicity, but they are nothing to write home about.

I had intended on talking about photography and my last trip down the valley before the latest rain/sleet/snow event occurred but then I was looking at the things I was doing tonight and decided to talk about them.

These are different quick renders from the program Mandelbulb 3D.  It is a rather delightful program that I've been exploring for years.

Some of the artists have been pushing this program beyond what I could even imagine.  They are coming up with astonishing images that look like they were drawn for a movie set.

I come up with...
simple stuff.

I don't have the time nor do I have the rendering power to come up with those stunning masterpieces.
However I can come up with beautiful work of my own.

I prefer fun but sometimes our group is given a challenge and I ... find that I can create strange... or a bit 'dark'.

Or I find something colorful and whimsical.

Last night I revisited Incendia which is another fractal program.  Since I went to Windows 10 it seems to want to flicker like mad.  But I got through that issue last night and used the program and some editing to create a 'sculpture' of sorts.

I haven't mastered this program very well, but I do enjoy using it to combine with Mandelbulb 3D and JWildfire.  Sometimes the results are incredible and sometimes I just flat fall on my creative face.

This one was done with JWildfire and more than one fractal 'flame'.

My final edit of the first two Mandelbulbs in this post is as follows.

Gone Riding

Just before it was time to do chores, I grabbed Lil' Richard and put him in the round pen where he proceeded to run, buck, and roll in the dry sand.

He 'self lunges' for a bit and then waits quietly for me to come in and work with him.

I let him run in the round pen, while I took Siera out and rode her for a while bareback in the meadow.  She did a great job and only gave me a bit of her 'typical' grief once.  She did a little hop with her hind end and I laughed.

Riding bareback is so much warmer than riding in a saddle when the temperatures are in the 20's.

I rode Siera to the ridge to get the mail.  Since there were no stumps around to get back on, I led her back home.

Next it was time for some work with Lil' Richard.  I went in the round pen and we worked on a 'kiss' for getting up and his whoa.  He nailed it quickly.
I made makeshift reins out of the lead rope and swung my leg over him.

He just did as before.  Stood there.  I thought about it for a moment then re-created the specific 'kiss' that had moved him before.

Suddenly we were in motion...and then he stopped.  I kissed again and we went into an extended trot which I just sat and rode out.  He was extremely smooth, incredibly smooth.
Since we were just working on the Go and Whoa, I let him pick the pace.  He did however follow my lead as I used the rope to guide him.

Win Win!

We kissed to go and Whoa to whoa.  After about 15 minutes we quit and I groomed him, then took him to his pen where dinner awaited him.

He is an incredibly smart pony/mini horse.

Of course he is mature and has age on him.  But who would have thought that you could train an animal who was somewhere between 16 and 19 yrs old?  True enough we stake him out in the summer and lead him from place to place and he stands well for the farrier.
But he never had any formal training.

Well, the saga continues.

Can you come out to play?

I finished putting away the groceries and then stood in the kitchen and pondered my next move.

Old ladies.  I wondered, why in the heck was I thinking that???.  

Was I getting old?  I was going to be 60 in June.
I didn't feel old. I didn't want to think about it really. Ugh.  

On a whim I called up our 'new' neighbor and asked if she'd like some company.  She suggested we visit and play outside at the same time.
Yes!

The kids had on their snow suits and we grabbed the sleds.
Time to take introduce them sledding in the Merry Meadow!

I paired up with Alli and Lauren paired up with Logan.  We rode from the line fence deep into the Meadow.
And we laughed.

And we screamed with joy.

And we bailed out and did face plants in the snow.

And we laughed more.  I felt young and happy.  This was much better than standing in the house trying to figure out what to do.

Alli does the 'bail' move.

Climbing 

After quite a few runs I asked if they'd like a tour of the Merry Meadow.  I explained that my Grand daughter Ariel had named it 'Merry Meadow' years ago and somehow it just stuck.

We took a long walk and I introduced them to the Dexter Cattle and Thor the donkey.
Thor granted us with a nice long bray.

The kids almost seemed a bit worn out as we walked back up the driveway.  

We had coffee and visited some more, then I headed home.

I'd had so much fun playing and sledding.  Kids keep you young, especially when you are my age.

I can't wait to 'go out to play' again.

Treasure Hunt

January 4th

Off I went into the woods with Morris trailing me.  I haven't been able to be in the woods since....well.

Since I went with the hunter to retrieve his dog...that we didn't actually retrieve.  That was before we had the wicked December 29th snowstorm.

The air was cold and crisp and the sun almost felt warm on my back as we headed towards the creek bottom.

I thought I would regret not wearing my snow shoes and I did.  Even though there was a pretty good critter trail, I still had to 'break trail' through the deep snow.  We'd had over 9 inches of the stuff about a week ago and it hasn't gone away. 

Morris kindly let me break the trail as he hopped from one boot print to another behind me.
As soon as we got to the creek bed though he was happy to lead.

Walking along the first section of the creek bed was pretty good though.  Morris did his thing. He checked every twig and rock in case he had to leave some scent behind.

You can see that there had been a lot of animal traffic in the past week through the creek bottom. 
I was actually surprised by the amount of turkey tracks we came across.

Some of the turkey tracks were huge!

I made the bend in the creek and looked down at the ice formation. In the sunlit area across the creek the ice was melted.  Here in the northern cold shadows the water slowly dripped from the land above and made beautiful ice formations.

Since daylight is always an issue in this valley, I hurried up and walked down the trail wasting no time other than to call Morris every time he lagged behind.

He was in a sniffing and 'marking' mood and I was in a 'let's get this road on the show' mood.

When I got to the main part of the valley I stopped and just listened and looked around.  The sun here was so bright that the snow actually hurt my eyes and I'd wished I'd brought sunglasses.

I looked at my watch and was disappointed to see that it was already late in the afternoon.  I'd wished I'd had more time to hike to the east side of the valley where the ravine had filled with blue ice from the spring last winter.

It wasn't going to happen today.
So instead I walked back over to the creek bed and found the old coyote den.
It had icicles on it!

I didn't see any sign that coyotes were using this little cave.  One year I found a den that was in use and the area was littered with bones.

I looked down in the creek at my feet and saw what looked like a vertebrae laying in the water. I stared at it for a few moments and then looked carefully around to see if I could see any other bones laying about.

I wondered then if it hadn't washed down into the creek from the hillside above.
Morris came up alongside me.  He was doing his Jack Russell shake and quake. Either he was cold or he was nervous.  
I reached down and removed the leaves.

Oh!  I found a treasure!

A raccoon skull in excellent condition.  What a treasure! I had been looking for another intact one to paint and decorate and here I'd stumbled on one accidentally.

Which is how I always find my 'treasured' skulls.
I walked a bit further downstream and Morris kept getting more hesitant and clingy.

I'm sure he smelled coyotes or was just plain chilled.  So I leaned down and asked if he wanted 'a ride' and up into my arms he climbed.

I decided to turn around head home with the cold and tired old dog in my arms.  I couldn't blame him, the snow was up past his chest if he got off the trails and true to his nature he ran full out everywhere he went.

Besides, I'd already found some interesting tracks and had the bonus of finding a real treasure of a raccoon skull.

On our way home I stopped a few times in the narrowest part of the creek bed to grab some shots of the sunlight above us reflecting on the waters.

This is of the same spot, one standing and the other shot laying in the snow with a very low tripod.  It made quite a bit of difference in the reflections.

A thought about shooting in these conditions.  The camera is going to be confused between the warm tones and the brilliant whites.  A bit of editing will help keep the snow white and the colors as they should be.  

I hope to get back out today and see what is on the other end of the valley.

However we have the farrier coming at 10 am to trim feet and look at Siera's foot.  We may have to go with a special shoe to help her one frog grow back ... more on that later.

Geology and hiking at the Kenosha Sand Dunes

We visited the Kenosha Dunes on our second day together.  I don't think most people think of Kenosha as having some very interesting areas to hike and look at.
But this is at least the second time I've been to the Kenosha Dunes and hiked it.

After last week's wicked storms, the winds and water eroded portions of the shoreline dunes and we explored them.

Ed pointed out the lines in the dunes which would mark changes in the lakeshore. I could be explaining it wrong but according to this sign the dunes were created with the glacial drift and the constant motion of littoral drift.

Okay I think that is about as much as I am going to even try to explain. Although I did find a photo which might help show it.

First we hiked the dunes.

And since the snow was glare solid ice on top, we 'slid' the dunes...

Then we got to where the shore waves during the storm had eroded the dunes.

Ed started explaining the layers of sands we were seeing and I was glad that we'd gone because even though I would have noticed the layers on my own, I may not have wanted to learn more about them if he hadn't been there.

Enhanced photo for detail

So perhaps these layers that go in separate directions were caused by shifts in winds.  The darker materials are different kinds of sediments.  We even found a very thin layer of very similar sized pebbles.

This was really cool.  And it was even more interesting to have someone along who could explain it.

This section had material that was similar to that of a peat bog in it.  We found ancient trees that had been revealed by the erosion of the waves and the winds.

Teslin however was herself and showed off her abilities to act like royalty.

To her it was a good day to be a dog and enjoy the beach and fresh air.

To me it was a great day to hike and explore with my son and his wife.

And last but not least, the incredible ice formations from over-spray or from the wind and the waves on the 29th.  There were some amazing displays of ice and trees.

The only sad thing is that I am too far away from this place to go on a whim to get some great ice shots.