This image is a composite of two images I took yesterday. The idea was to take a photo of tree trunk in focus, and a photo of moon in focus. I did all possible mistake you can imagine taking photographs for this composite, and in effect put all my Photoshop knowledge to get what I intended. I actually needed to sleep on it, before the right technique came to my mind. After an hour of so of struggle yesterday with which one is on top layer and which blending mode to use, I made the right thing in few minutes today.

It was a real photographic treat today. Me, my husband, two Nikon bodies and a park. I had a hard time finding it on Google maps. I knew there is an arboretum in Cedar Rapids, but it seems to be one of Iowa best kept secrets, as it is not listed anywhere on the Web. I ended up finding it by finding a park where it is located, Morgan Creek County park. It was a busy afternoon there. I was still-panning, shooting close-ups and wide-angle, and even HDRs. I forgot to take out Lensbaby for even a few minutes in all of this. Today’s pick is an image I chose because of colors and depth of field (achieved with only f/5.6 !).

The photograph was taken here.

Another “guest blog Saturday”. I think it should be called “Tomasz blog Saturday”, as I am using it to put out his photos. It is just that when I have an interesting image in my Lightroom library, I want to post it. And give credit where the credit is due. He took it when on business trip in New York a couple of weeks ago. Aiming at infrared, but we still didn’t get it quite nailed down, as of today. But I like the mood and composition.

And when I thought I already know it all, it showed how ignorant I am. As usual stunned with colors on yet another Uwe Eischens post, I was trying to guess how the effect was achieved. No luck. No wander. I read about cross processing in some of the “old school” photography books, but… I guess I never realized (or nobody mentioned it in smart books) that this effect (not by definition, of course ) can be achieved digitally. Quick Google search, and I learned 1) there are Photoshop actions out there 2) there are Lightroom presents (equally many, I like those the most or you can just get Color Efex Pro. Obviously, the last option is most expensive. In the process, I discovered that Flicker is a good source of information. And that tint I recently tried to obtain probably was a cross-processing filter as well. And that I probably spend too much time post-processing, rather then shooting, but this is a story for another post .

Just a quickie today. I did prepare image earlier, just don’t have time to come up with few lines of making sense text. This was shot a few weeks ago. Dew is natural . And I still don’t have a macro lens, so best I can do…

I almost gave up on this one. 25 min in Lightroom and Photoshop, and just couldn’t get it to look … I don’t know how. Different. There seem to be too much competition between green and violet on this photo. Why I chose it to post? I simply enjoy it. I like the colors and I like the busyness of this image.

This is another of my “lost” picture. It seems that if you use a color-tinted filter, you should be able to “fix” your white balance… Apparently, not always or not quickly. But… In the process, something catchy can come out of it, like for today’s post.

My idea for today’s blog wen to hell in the basket, so I am going to improvise. Shouldn’t be too hard, with last week events. I got new camera, a prime, faster lens and a new filter. New camera is awesome. The prime, 30 mm on Dx camera is a challenge, and I am learning how to use legs to compose . The supposedly IR filter turned to be not. So I am left with large set of orange tinted, well composed and interesting photos. With a lot of possibilities. Like replacing orange cast with green….

It is a “guest blog Saturday” , today. I am featuring my husband’s, Tomasz, photograph. He took it last week during a car show, a part of Fun Days in our town. We liked it both a lot, and I promised I will put it up on blog- it took me a week to do so.

It is going to be a “no photo” blog, for a change. Just something I had on my mind and wanted to get out. No photo of mine matched it. Fortunately.

After reading a feature in “American Photo” (collectors issue, March/April 2009), I decided to take closer look at Annie Leibovitz photographs in her book “Photographer’s life 1990-2005″. There were some photographs in the article, and I was ready for a treat. Disclaimer- I have not seen much of her work before the book.

What a dissappointment the album was. The majority of the images were, in my opinion, ugly. I can understand naturalistic way of showing life.  I can  understand why her family, captured in every day scenes, was not looking their best. I can understand it was intentional. But even famous and beautiful otherwise people were portraied in very not flattering way. Just to compare to something else I saw recently- I think old and wornpeople in “Within the frame” were looking better than Cindy Crawford in Leibovitz book. I am not saying they were not interesting photographically. Art is not my field. I simply did not like any of them. As much as I found many of them to be far to personal to be shown to me.

If anybody reading the blog has different opinion, please share.