leaves leaves leaves

It was a lovely fall afternoon... I escaped from the office a bit early and soon dma and I were roaming south seattle looking for fall color. These are some of the pics I took; hope you enjoy the lovely fall colors!

There was a really cool spot in the park that was like a plant cave... hahaha, I am not really sure what you call it... a grove? I tried to capture the whole scene, but couldn't quite get it. I opted instead for a frame of the lighting coming through the leaves to capture the memory.

And then I tried the same frame using dma's "soft focus" technique. I was instantly calmed.

I lined up some leaves for this frame. I love the texture.
I didn't move these leaves around; they are as they were. I convereted to black and white, just for fun.
Hope that autumn is treating you well & that you are finding an abundance of fall color, too!

macrolicious

This past weekend was much more sedate, and quite a bit less hilly! The exciting news is that dma and I attended the Kenmore Camera expo and had a chance to meet Art Wolfe; a well traveled famous photographer that hails from the Pacific Northwest. How did I get here?

dma and I took a stroll through the Mercer Slough Park on Sunday afternoon armed with a mission to capture fall color.

It was so beautiful there! I haven't been there in a few years, and it was nice to visit an old familiar place.(I still want to see it in the snow yo!).

For this pic, I was drawn to the crisp yellow leaves sharing the branches with the fresh green ones.

  (oh! Here is a picture of "my" leaves!)

It was a great trip to this oasis of nature in the city. I really like dma's shots too from that day; he turned about 176 degrees from his "3d worlds" approach to create some beautiful, soothing images.

As I completed this photo shoot I realized that I need to study macro photography more. I haven't actually "studied" macro; what I have worked on so far has been mostly intuitive. I guess I am blessed in that respect... but I think it is time to concentrate on abstract macros. I have been reluctant over the past year or so to concentrate on macros, because I wanted to be a more well-rounded photographer. Now, I am feeling called to get lost in the details; to maximize the patterns, the create tension through assymmetrical frames.

well, that's my plan for now... we'll see what adventures are around the corner.

the post vacation staycation

Our trip to Yellowstone was cut short due to a wild fire & some road construction, so we ended up heading home early. The early arrival though, gave us a chance to recharge during the week & head out to the hills on the weekend!

Where would you go after spending a week in Wyoming? Mt. Ranier, of course! The next three photos were taken in the Paradise area of Ranier, along the Skyline Trail. We made it up to the Glacier lookout before the bitter cold got the best of us.

For these frames, I concentrated mostly on composition and messing around with different settings. The top two pics are unedited; jpegs straight from my lovely D80. While I LOVE looking at other people's landscapes, they are definitely not my strong point. I like these, though :)

We contintued our trek through National Parks and found ourselves in the Olympic National Park the next weekend. The plan was to spend the weekend there to get sunrise shots, but the weather ended up being kinda crummy, so we just went for the day. It was very cool; I have visit the rain forest part of the Olympics before, but haven't been up to Hurrican Ridge. It has been on my list for-ev-er.

I didn't have a specific idea of what I wanted to shoot here, or anything in particular to work on. lol... I was still in vacation "whatev" mode ;)

Thanks for checking out this round of pics, too! Peace be with you, Lori

pictures of things outside

pictures of things outside.
yes.

this post is just a tiny peek at some pics that I took on a recent vacation. it was no ordinary vacation. my dearest best friend and i headed to wyoming to explore two beautiful national parks. it wasn't a trip full of lavish, poolside fruity beverages, or sunny beaches stretching for miles. there were no college interns dressed as woodland creatures or hyper technical amusement rides.

it was better.

the tetons were a photographer's play ground. it was no ordinary vacation.

- The first pic was taken in Yellowstone, from an unofficial part of a trail. We were looking for a high vantage point to capture a scene we knew well from ELEMENTS; the Grand Prismatic Spring. Pretty cool, huh?



ooook, no more silly elph shots (bison?)... on with the pics!

This one is from the very, very, very, very, very famous Oxbow Bend. It was numero uno on our list, and every bit as captivating as we expected. The fall colors were beautiful, but I converted this frame to black & white to give it my own spin.

aaah, and here is my ansel attempt. It actually began as a Tom attempt, but was too cluttered. When I was processing the shot, I did my usual "hmmm wonder what this would look like monotone" maneuvers, and ended up with this processed image:

This barn scene is so Old Westy, eh? I didn't intentionally do anything to get the soft focused look, but I did do some processing to get the monotone.

The barns of Mormon Row are also very, very, very, very, you get the idea, very popular with the slr/dslr crowd. Have a tripod? we'll see you there at sunrise.

... but we won't see you there at sunset. We visited this area a few times, and had the luxury of basically having the place to ourselves during the times of day when the lighting was kinda harsh. (side note: 3-5pm in the tetons is horrible! best time to catch up on some zzzz's, blog, edit & do some coin-op laundry!)

And here is another Art Wolfe attempt; I wanted to capture the fall leaves gently moving in the breeze. I had tried on several occations, and was grateful to capture this frame. i love it. I will probably be printing it out soon (along with a few others in this tonal group).

And that about wraps it up! Thank you for taking a look, and for checking back! Hope you are having a lovely day. OH and go to the Tetons... it is a national treasure.

to web or not to web

I have been wanting to see what difference there is in saving a pic as "save for web" and just my normal way of saving, so, I have selected one of my favorite Teton shots to test out the settings...

The jpeg...

the gif

and cut. that's a wrap.