Unexpected

Usually we hear about snow coming for a week. This time, they downplayed it so much I didn't know until the close the schools and I woke up to this. It's like Narnia. Without the white witch.

The Original Web

Ghost Trees

Those bare trees look like white birches, but they aren't. The trees themselves, actually, don't have white bark; they are brown. They are covered, though, with some sort of greenish-white mold-moss, the color of those glow-in-the-dark stars kids stick on their bedroom ceiling. They are eery, almost, sticking out like ghosts among the healthy, red-leaved trees around them.

Shenandoah National Park, November 2011

shrooming part 2

Shrooming

The Trees for the Forest Grove

When I was up at Forest Grove, Oregon for my MFA residency, I took one afternoon to walk around with my camera. The trees there are gorgeous and diverse.

Piling It On

Somehow a photo never does justice to the beauty of snow-covered trees. And yet, I keep trying. :)

Hanging In There

I missed a few days because we got hit by a snowstorm that knocked out our power, and thus our internet. No fear, though. Power outages don't effect camera capabilities. :)

Now and Then

This was our driveway this morning.

This was our driveway ten months ago.

Nature's Ornament

Change of Mind

They started green, turned yellow, decided finally on orange. Unless they still have a red in them before they fall...

Before and After: The Pond

The day I went to the pond to capture the fall colors, the sky was overcast and the grey seemed to seep into all of the colors. The original photos were bland and washed out.

Rather than deleting them, I opted to fool around with them creatively and see what I could salvage.

The second photo is the "altered" one, which is a bit over-processed for me, but still fun to see what you can do with a washed out photo. I actually didn't even do a lot. I adjusted the white and black points (always my first "fix"), then heightened the saturation a bit. Using the unsharp masking tool, I crisped the photo up just enough to bring out the individual leaves. The sky, being flat white, would either have to stay that way, or be replaced. I opted to do a graduated blue across both the sky and the reflection, a much easier change to mimic in the water than trying to replace the sky with another prettier sky.

The picture looks processed, and not well-done at that. It would have been much better if it had been a sharp, vivid picture to begin with. But when you hope for great pictures and download them only to find they didn't turn out the way you'd seen them through the lens, it's nice to know you don't have to leave them that way.

Reflections

 

A pond near the elementary school where my kids attend. 

Creepy Crawlies

Got You Covered

A Different Kind of Rainbow

From last year. I'm ready for fall colors to work with!

Rockin' It

Climbing the Walls

Miniature Forest

I suspect that stock photography sites might deem this as "uninteresting," but I like the color and the way it seems to go on forever.

Shades