Snowbirds, Sparks & Spooks

*This is a narrative post; feel free to breeze past the words if you don't want to read through my long-winded, probably overly (and yet randomly) detailed story. The pics have all been edited in Nikon's View NX but not photoshop'd. Sooooo that means: no cropping, no healing of my stupid sensor dust, potentially crooked horizons & no fancy filters*

Saturday the 28th was one of those days; a day that will stand out in my memory. On par with life-changing, but not quite there.

My dear friend Del and I had planned a photoshoot. Spring is officially here, so we had something outdoors in mind. Nice, huh? However, lol, being Washington, I woke up Saturday morning to a steady drizzle. After a bit of the indecision mambo I remembered that dma hadn't visited Fort Casey. Seemed like a good destination; if it is rainy we could head indoors. He has an internal spidery spook sensor, so I figured this place might be of interest to him.

We headed out around the usual late-morning, noonish timeframe, fueled by caffeine and the best spicy chicken teriyaki on the east side. On the way up to Ft. Casey we made a couple of detours.

First stop: a field of snow geese. These buggers have been on his internal to-do list for awhile, and I am always, ALWAYS up for an adventurous detour (hmmm, maybe that is from all of my pro-level procastination? hehehe yup.) The first pic below is of the field prior to flight, and the one below was taken after a helpful farmer rode his bike into the field the crowd dispersed.


Second Stop: We were driving west on highway 20 when we saw a huge plume of smoke in the air. At first we thought it was intentional, side of the road type burning, but as we approached the intersection the smoke was billowing. Even from across a two-lane road the heat was intense. Of course, we headed over for a closer look. It ended up being a training site for the Anacortes Fire Department. Since it was just for training, I didn't feel bad gawking at the flames and snapping quite a few pictures. What an opportunity! The pics below are from the scene.

Finally, late-afternoon we reached our destination... Ft. Casey is a pretty gloomy place on a sunny day, but we arrived on a dark, crummy, cloudy day. We grabbed our gear and headed toward the site. The events that occurred while we were there, and our discoveries when viewing photos the next day can best be described as spooky (and THAT is a huge understatement). I was thankful for God's grace, for the gift of prayer, and the comfort of a good friend. That being said; I still have to figure out a way to fall asleep without all the lights on, so I have deleted the pictures from Ft. Casey from my sd card/computer & email, with the exception of the two pics below.

My closing thoughts for the day centered around the beauty of balance. Our lives are touched by wonderful, natural elements like the snow geese that greeted us when we crossed the Skagit County border. yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they are destructive to the fields. But the huge flock in flight was such a glorious sight. I know it sounds funny, but I am thankful that we had that bit of awe in the day. After witnessing the destruction of the fire and the unsetteling images at the fort, the experience of watching a flock of snow geese in flight helped keep my mind focused on life and the simple gifts that we are given each day.

Peace be with you,

Lori

biiiirdie

These pics were taken on Sunday, March 22nd, when my dear friend and photographic partner in crime headed to the Nisqually Nature Preserve near Olympia. I notice the area everytime I drive through the area, and *almost* pulled over to investigate in January on a return trip from a work event in Oly. So, when an invitation came my way to go on a photo shoot here, well, I couldn't resist.

I had processed my pictures soon after I took them using Elements, but then a pinky pop helped me download the Nikon software. My processing world changed.

Since this blog is intended to show my progress, I have included the photoshop'd editions and the View NX edition. To my eyes, the photoshoped set are better compositionally, while the View NX set are better technically. I want to get these pics posted, but down the road I *might* rework the view nx set in photoshop to further refine the pics.

Heron
The first pic was processed in elements, the bottom one in view nx. I remembered the lessons in the A. Wizzl book when I composed this shot.



SPRING! the botanical series
Besides birding, my mission for the day was to capture spring. It ended up being a pretty darn easy mission. The set below is the photoshop'd version.

oooooo con queso! And now, we have the Nikon View NX set. I haven't cropped in or "healed" the dust from my sensor, but I think these are still pretty easy on the eyes.

And that wraps up our stinkin almost six stinkin miles around the nature preserve. I am not complaining about the distance; only that we had to kind of rush through it. I had plans that evening and needed to be back up in Bothell in the early evening. Unfortunately, through a mystery I still do not understand, my plans fell through. It would have been nice to stroll a bit more leisurely at the end & catch a bit of magic hour. I am so thankful that I was able to go on this adventure, thankful for my ever trusty tour guide/mentor and the kind use of a 70-300mm lens!

wee little post

These are some pics that I took of my little nephew on Friday. The lighting conditions were tough... gray, dreary skies with sprinkles of rain. I had my camera set to ISO 800 for these, and my *new* bff (the Nikon 50mm) in the f1.8 range. Actually, the first pic in the series was taken with one of my, uh, other bff's 70-300mm lens; the rest were all with the 50mm. I used the Nikon raw file converter (love it!) and only needed PS for the black & white conversion.

It was a fun little trip to the park & a great opportunity to test the new lens! Thanks for checking out my pics! (& dma, thanks for letting me borrow your lens, yo!)

blossoms & boats

These are just a few pics for the day... I am pooped out, but wanted to download the fabulous nikon software & test the waters. I'll have more pics up soon; well, maybe ;)

I'll have more explanations, too. I started to write, but ended up just going on & on... zzzzzz. g'night.

Pretty Rocks

These pics are from a trip up north on Saturday. It turned out to be a pretty good day to test out some of my new gear.... an 18-135mm lens & a fong puffer. The pics on this post are mostly benchmark pics; ones that I didn't spend too much time editing, and are mostly for comparisons rather than print-out-and-add-to-the-portfolio pieces.

that being said....

decomposition

What unique find: a leaf showing the natural cycle of life and death. This pic involved getting on the ground & I was able to use the extended focal length to macro-ish up this leaf. I did, though, use a generous amount of photoshop on this one. I bumped up the contrast to make the leaf stand out more, and then increased the saturation to bring the green back to the grass.

18-50-135, eh?

I wanted to see what the lens could do, so I stood in the same spot and took pictures at 18mm, 50-ishmm, and 135 mm, respectively. My old lens was an 18-55mm, so I was curious to see what the extended focal length would look like. I like it

p.s. yeah, yeah, yeah... I know my horizons are crummy. I'm not losing any sleep over 'em.

Oooh, pretty rocks

As we walked the riverbank, I was continually amazed by the colors of the rocks. They were so cool; shades of turquois, splashes of white, and odd shaped rocks with abstract designs were everywhere! I composed this one to maximize the depth of field and the flow of the rocks; I didn't notice the odd horizon until I was editing my pics at home. OH! And I did bump up the saturation in this pic to be able to see those gorgeous rocks.

Fun with editing

At this point, I am laughing at my intro, because I started off with "oh, no, not me, I didn't edit these things..." and yet, as I describe all the pics I am recalling more & more edits. Sigh.

These two pics are an example of what I do when I edit. The first pic is unedited and the bottom one is the same image, edited msg style. (Although, you have to admit; the editing IS rather simple still, huh? msg yo, msg). I was in love with the clouds on Saturday, and was happy to capture them.

Puffer test

For this set of pics, I wanted to compare an image with out flash with a puffered flash. Shoot, I should have taken one with a regular flash for an even better comparison. Next time. The first one is without any flash, the middle one is puffered, and the bottom one was just one that I goofed around in photoshop with because I liked the design of the rock.

Lucky

As my friend Del and I were standing on the beach, a plane flew over us. We both had the same thought.... A tour of Skagit from the air? Man, those people are lucky. I managed to defy the rules of shooting into the sun & snap this pic. And yes, yes I did do some editing. Thankfully, photoshop fill-light brightened up the pic a bit so the river & hillside weren't totally dark. or totally jun.



Spring!

Since Saturday was the official second day of spring, I was on the lookout for buds. This shot here is one of those last-look moments when you've put your gear away and called it a day. Sadly, though, my autofocus was having trouble with the tiny bud. I used manual focus for this, but wish it was little bit sharper. OH! and I used my flashy fong puffer to bring some light to the shot; we were nearing sundown in a shady forest. Not so much light.

And there you go, my first photo shoot for Spring 2009! It was a lovely day. Thank you for checking out my pics, especially since this group was all about learning, so my composition and artistic elements took second-stage to the technical stuff.

Hits and Misses

For this entry, I wanted to include a few pics that weren't quite what I was aiming for, as a learning tool. Over the past few months, I've added a new monitor (oh SHOOT! I still need to pick up a video card), a new camera, new editing software and last night became the very, very proud owner of a new lens! I figure this post would be a good one to include some Hits & Misses, as a way to gauge my abilities.

First Pic
After a bit o'random messing around with my new lens just to get a feel for it (sign posts, door hinges, my shoes, the radio... y'know, stuff like that...) this is the first "official" picture that I took. I *think* I even took this one hand-held?

Oh... Miss! Dang.

This pic was taken from about the same vantage point. I envisioned a sharp, wide view of the diner. My initial interest was sparked by an employee chilling at the end of the bar, but I missed my chance. I think it would be cool to try this one again with a 10mm, and perhaps a longer exposure and f-stop in the upper teens?

Fun with the Photoshop
Oh dear sweet goodness, I am horrible with photoshop. Too many options! I used another frame from this location and tried a bunch of different effects.

The top one is just a basic edit I would normally to... move the exposure around, increase the blacks, add a bit of fill lighting, change the saturation, blah blah blah. You got it... basic msg stuff.

The middle one was converted to black & white (urban/snapshot... I think.) and then I added a pinch filter. How fun! A pinch filter! I like the distortion.

Then for the bottom one I added glowing edges to everything and bumped up the saturation. I kinda like it. I think the whole image looks electrified now. boogiewoogiewoogie.

Public Gallery

The Post Alley display of public art is inspiring; even at night. Actually, it was even cooler because the lights in the alley illuminated the area very well and I could see more details of the wall art.

I don't know why, but this cheesey Seattle sticker on a post caught my eye. Maybe because I could use it as a focal anchor for my random shots? To give a feel of consistency, I converted all of the shots below into black & white using the infrared filter.

I like this first one because it captures the feel of the alley... it tells you where you are.

Ok, ok.... the one below is Miss. I am still getting used to the new camera and wasn't sure how to change my focal point. I tried centering and focusing, then shifting my composition while holding the shutter button down.. but that didn't work. See?

I monkeyed with the menu, used the in-camera glossary (go Nikon!) and managed to get the frame I wanted. Nice, huh?

This last one is a tribute to my grandma; that crazy lady loved owls! She had every owl-themed knick-knack known to the human world. I swear. So, this was my last-look photo and last pic of the day. (I do wish, though, that I hadn't composed it so tightly... I cut off a bit of one of their ears. yikes!)

Thank you for checking out my pictures & reading all my ramblings! I am thankful, too, for my dear friend del for keeping me company on the streets of sea-town.