the last hurrah

Fall is having its last hurrah this weekend.  We’ve had temperatures between 75-80 degrees all weekend long and it’s put me in the best possible mood.  Besides the beautiful weather and how it affects my attitude is the way it affects my photography – the lighting has been superb! 

Despite the still warmer temperatures the traffic at my feeders has really picked up in the last week.  Maybe the birds know something I can’t yet face – that the warm days of autumn are almost over and winter is getting ready to blow into town.  Oh well, if it must, it must.  At least I have the images from this weekend to keep me warm.

Fire Water

I love photographing leaves on the surface of the water this time of year.  This was taken on an overcast day, very late afternoon, and with a good brisk wind whipping over the lake.  The “fire water” is made up of the orange, brown and green foliage that was present along the lake’s edge.

park university

I was heading home from a 3 hour camera hike at a nearby nature sanctuary when I found myself turning off the main highway in order to stop and capture Park University’s main building.  I’ve driven by it a million times and never stopped but today, with this big old yellow tree out front, I had to give in and pop off a few images.  I was nicely surprised to see I got a few keepers!

incoming!!!

I found a new addition to the local duck crowd at Chaumiere Lake today…it was a lone female canvasback duck.  I got several nice images of her strutting her stuff around the pond but it was her attempt up to the grassy area that really made me giggle.

On The fence

Patience is a virtue.  I waited for over a year to get a copy of the most amazing photo enhancing software, Viveza, and it was worth every moment.  This is my first image with the new toy – I’m sure there will be many more to come as the controls and technology that this software uses is simply amazing.  It sits right in Photoshop or Lightroom like a plug-in and wow, is it the coolest thing ever. 

Why did I finally buy it?  Because the price dropped by $100 and the new version is due out in December -  buy it now and you get to upgrade to Viveza 2 for free (saving you ANOTHER $100.)

Going Camo

The robins were out in force this morning while I was shooting landscapes over at the Briarcliff Pond.  This one hopped up into one of the crabapple trees in an attempt to escape my camera’s lens – little did it know I had the 400mm on and managed to catch it in all it’s under cover beauty. 

color me happy

Four days ago there was barely anything but a hint of one tree changing color; yesterday the whole place was on fire.  It’s amazing to me how fast the Midwest becomes an explosion of color around here.  It’s always over way too fast but at least I have my photographs to remind me what it was like to stand before this lake on Monday night as the sun slipped behind me and the world was washed in a sea of orange, yellow and green. 

Good times…

Skylight

I took a photo of the leaves on my maple tree and then I started to experiment in Photoshop.  I added a “Simplifier” action and then an “Illustrated” action.  I added a hint of  ”Pointilize” and then some canvas relief to the image (although that’s hard to see on this downsized version).  In between all that I tweaked the color channels and cleaned up a few spots and ended up with this:

Oh…did I mention I started with the most beautiful sunfilled day in which to create the basic image? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s never about the subject you choose for your image but, rather, the quality of the light that falls upon it. Go looking for the light and watch how your photography totally tranforms itself before your very eyes…

two times the fun

This image was taken while I was in a moving car on vacation.  My friend could spot a deer along the road like nobody’s business!  We slowed down to a rolling stop for this one so the deer were a tiny bit blurry.  I decided to go with it and used an Orton effect over the image and really like the way it turned out.

Singular Sensation

I don’t know why I’m so attacted to the single leaf lying on the road…something about those bright autumn colors against the gunmetal gray of asphalt just gets to me.