Sharing

Sharing a place you love with those you love is a wonderful thing. We took our grandsons to Yellowstone with us last Spring. They had a great time and learned things about nature and, of course, a little about fly fishing too.

Which Version?

These are a couple of pictures I edited in PhotoShop using two different methods.

I didn't use any filters or plug-ins, just tools that are available in the program. I'm taking a poll to see which version most people prefer. As I recall, the version that I actually saw was somewhere in between the two. Thanks for participating.

Creativity

These are a couple of pictures that I modified using a number of different steps & plug-ins. I merged the original picture of the daisies with a picture of a stone background, lowered the opacity to allow some of the background to show through & then used an artistic filter in PhotoShop to bring out some detail. For the top picture, I converted the color photo to black & white, adjusted the various colors to get the intensity I wanted & then used a Topaz Simplify plug-in to add an additional artistic effect. The final step was to apply a fairly high amount of sharpening to bring out the fine details in the petals.

A number of years ago I took an aptitude test and one of the attributes it measured was creativity. According to the results, I didn't score very high in that area. However, I think that if you try hard enough, you can overcome weaknesses and succeed in areas that might not come naturally to you. If you think you can't take pictures, or you can't draw, or you can't write, just work diligently and you may find out that what you don't have in natural ability can be compensated for with hard work and perseverance. So, get out there and do the things that you've always thought you couldn't do. You can do anything you want to do if you believe in yourself and work hard enough to make it happen.

Colors

Some friends and I went to the Grand Canyon exhibit at the Kansas City library yesterday. The photographs are absolutely beautiful and I would encourage everyone to visit this exhibit if it comes to their vicinity.

Some of the photographs had quotes on the accompanying plates. The following quote tells what photographer Dugald Bremner, who was killed in a kayak accident in 1997, thought was important in photography and in life. "To find inner harmony, to lead an exciting life, to have a sense of accomplishment. And to always cultivate wisdom."

Although my photographs pale in comparison to most of the photos I saw at the library yesterday, I will keep trying, and will continually strive to do the best I can, in life and in photography. The above picture was taken in Glacier National Park, but at some point, I would like to return to the Grand Canyon and try to capture the beautiful colors I saw in the photos yesterday. Perhaps that will be one of my projects for next year.

I hope you have a wonderful day and will try to lead your best life.

Have A Good Day!

No words of wisdom, no quote and no photo tip today. I just wish all of you a safe, productive and fun day with your friends or family. After all, that's what's important. Have a good one!

Lone Wolf

This is an example of some of the fun things you can do using PhotoShop and plug-ins. The bottom picture was adjusted in PhotoShop using Shadows/Highlights, Levels and a couple of other little steps. Once that was done, I took the picture into Topaz Adjust & used one of the adjustments to create the effect you see in the top picture. If you use a plug-in such as Topaz, make sure you make use of the various options and sliders. They make a lot of difference in how the final picture looks. Used correctly, they can make an ok picture look fantastic. Which version do you like best?

Change

Life is like a book that never ends. Chapters close, but not the book itself. The end of one physical incarnation is like the end of a chapter, on some level setting up the beginning of another. Marianne Williamson


Don't dispair when things change, when your five year old "baby" gets on the school bus for the first time or when your teen-ager goes away to college. It just means that you're entering a different phase of your life, a phase filled with new challenges and new possibilities. Change can be difficult and the road may not always be easy, but if you approach it with a positive attitude it can bring you a new sense of joy and fulfillment. Change is always going to happen. Just make sure you do your best to accept it with grace, embrace it and enjoy it.