Bird Feeder???

I filled the bird feeders yesterday morning but when I looked out the kitchen just past noon this is what I saw. Fur not feathers. Handheld, ISO 500, no noise reduction applied.

Special Flowers

I was out taking pictures of Carolyn's new flowers (picture #2) and managed to get one of her and Abby (picture #1). This sadly will likely be the last picture I take of Abby as she is fading very fast. She is more than 14 years old.

Carolyn and I went into Saint John for a few things Sunday afternoon and on the way home she bought some flowers. I bought her a set of wind chimes since she has been wanting some since we moved in here more than 30 years ago. I thought it was about time.

Tulips in the sun

On the way home this morning these sunlit tulips along Hampton Road caught my eye. I had Pogo, my mini Macaw parrot with me so I didn't spend a lot of time setting up the picture or trying different settings. Both images were shot as montages, one in-focus and one out-of-focus image combined in Photoshop. Not quite what I had envisioned, but close.

Artistic Impression - Still trying

As some of you know I have been trying to wrap my mind around what exactly artistic impression really means. To that end I am posting a few of my recent artistic mpressions. All of these pictures are not the same as what came out of the camera. Some have been changed a tiny little bit, such as changing to black and white, others have been changed more. The interesting thing is all of them are as close as I can make them to the image that was in my mind's eye when I pressed the shutter. That is to say these are my impressions.

#1 - Wallpaper in an old abandoned house near Alma N.B.

#2 - A tired old Chicken Coop near Portage Vale, N.B.

#3 - Wagon wheel near Saint Martins N.B.

#4 - Twin Tulips in Quispamsis N. B. this evening.

#5 - Meenan's Cove sunset this past Monday evening.

#6 - New Fern replaces the old, Meenan's Cove this past Monday morning.

#7 - Chain on an old barn at sunset, Norton N. B.

#8 - Flaking paint in an old abandoned house near Alma N.B.

Fall colors in the Spring.

I stopped by the bridge at Meenan’s Cove on the way home this evening to take a picture or two of the sunset. As I headed back to my car I had but a moment to grab this shot as traffic was coming, fast. It almost looks like a fall shot with the way the sun was lighting the leaf buds on the trees. The origonal has been cropped by about 20%. The image as taken was very harsh. I duplicated it, blurred the duplicate a little and adjusted the opacity just enough to tame it down, something like 10%. No noise reduction applied. ISO 400, 1/250”, F7.1.

Rain, Rain and more Rain.

I had to wrap my camera in a old rag in order to get these pictures.

Pictures 1 to 3 taken at Meenan's Cove this morning.

Pictures 4 & 5 taken in my back yard today also.

Pictures taken May 19 2007

It was wet and rainy all day. I took these images in spite of the rain.

#1 - A very wet and tame little bird.

#2 - 8 - Took these pictures in an old abandoned house.

#9 - A very tame little chipmunk. Must be the weather. Had to bump the ISO to 1000 as the light was not the best. Specs are - 1/640", F 5.6, 300 mm, handheld.

The Sussex Tree

Here is a picture I entered in a recent Camera Club contest. It won second place. The category was Artistic Impression. I heard a rumor that someone thought it didn't fit the category but the judges didn't throw it out. What the heck, win or loose I like it.

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This picture consists of two images. A polarizing filter was used to enhance the sky and tree in both. The in-focus and out-of-focus images were then blended in Photoshop. After blending using Multiply, the out-of-focus image was further blurred using Gaussian blur with a radius of 40 pixels. A levels layer was added to each image to fine tune exposure. The in-focus layer was sharpened slightly using Smart Sharpen. The image was then flattened and resized to post here.

Intermittent Showers

I snapped this picture the other evening of a shower heading towards me as I was stopped along the side the Model Farm Road at Meenan's Cove.

Mud Lake, Quispamsis

Kayli and I went to Mud Lake this morning to see new plants and flowers. Picture #1 is the first new life we saw. Kayli also fell in the mud. As always we had a great time.

St Martins, New Brunswick - May 6 2007

Four of us from the KC Camera Club returned to St Martins this past Sunday. Here are a few of my pictures in no particular order. As expected the sun came out as we returned home.

Pictures 1 2 and 3 were taken with my 4 year old compact Olympus C4000Z. The pictures have been converted to black and white, tinted, and resized in Photoshop CS3 Beta. Just playing around with different effects.