Macro Monday: Dew Drop By!

I'm still under the weather with an inner ear/sinus infection trying to finish up some client ad designs. If you've ever had inner ear trouble, you know how unbalanced your coordination can get. The drizzle and cooler weather we've received has been delightful and made for some nice photos this morning. At least shooting macro I am closer to the ground, not so far to fall!

Native Fall Aster

Ground spider web

Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar

Mold, not snow!

Fall color in grass seedheads

For more up close views of the world, visit Macro Monday.

Sunday Stills: Photoshop

Photoshop is my favorite software and I use it daily as a professional graphic artist. Mostly I use it for image collage, such as the rooster who appears to be holding a flower in his beak in my blog header.

It's easy to get carried away using filters. I find the greatest challenge, however, is finding a subtle combination of them that actually makes an OK photo even better, pushing it toward the artistic without destroying the original.

Here is a finished portrait of Presley, a Silver Laced Polish rooster, and the changes from the original so you can see the progression. Not only did I use several filters, I used them on multiple copies of the original and gave them different types and percentages of blending modes.

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A little added color for artistic enhancement

 

Enhanced eye shine through adding a luminosity layer

 

 Here I've accented the edges giving more emphasis to the feathers

 

The original image--nice enough but not very exciting

For more examples of Photoshop, visit Sunday Stills.

Color Carnival: Our Rainbow of Eggs

Many people do not realize eggs come in natural colors other than white or brown. We also have pink, green, blue, tan, and dark brown laid by our heritage breed hens. Aren't they beautiful? We sell them as a Rainbow Selection. Here's the mock up for our new egg carton label.

For more colorful images, visit Color Carnival!

Macro Monday: A Ferris Wheel for Ants

This is Asclepias asperula, Antelope Horns, one of my favorite milkweeds. I love how the flowers look like green snowballs. The common name comes from the shape of its seedpods, which I featured in a previous post.

For more up close views of the world visit Macro Monday!

Sunday Stills: Happiness is...

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Empress Antonia butterfly (Asterocampa antonia)

coming across something new and never losing your sense of wonder.

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The start of a quilted jacket.

making something beautiful and useful from all the odd little pieces of your life.

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Momma, the burrs just jumped all over me!

not worrying about small problems, as things are never as bad as they look.

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Taken by a friend at our $150 wedding.

finding true love long after you've given up looking for it.

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You can see the end of the rainbow! Check out my new blog header collage with this view from our garden.

is realizing with patience the end of the rainbow will find you!

For more takes on Happiness visit Sunday Stills!

How to Tell Girls from Boys

Most plants are bisexual, containing both male (stamens) and female (pistil) parts. Sometimes the stamens and pistil are together in the same flower and sometimes there are separate male and female flowers on the same plant. Either way, these are called monoecious, from the Greek "one household".

However, some plants still depend on the wind to pollinate them and are called dioecious, that is, having separate male and female plants. Typically they do not have petals and they make a lot of pollen. This is our native Cardinal Feather flower, Acalypha radians, which is dioecious. It is always a favorite on my botanical tours.

This is also Cardinal Feather flower.

 

Sometimes it doesn't take a botanist to tell which flowers are the girls and which are the boys. Just sayin'.

Lightning Storm

 

Tonight the crickets were singing while a distant storm illuminated the sky. I captured my first lightning shot. Years ago I took a night photography class with my Pentax K1000, but I haven't tried anything with my digital camera before now. The forecast is for rain, but it looks like it has passed us by again.