Run as the Rains Come

A Distance I Have Wandered

Another (barely) faux-HDR I did, mostly because I really wanted to preserve the radiance around the creek as well as the red lens flare on the lower left border.

Seem to Grin

"There's a house across the river, but alas. I cannot swim
And a garden of such beauty that the flowers seem to grin
There's a house across the river, but alas, I cannot swim
I'll live my life regretting that I never jumped in."
                          -Laura Marling - "Alas, I Cannot Swim"

Softer than a Chime

Asparagus foliage in the autumn.

In processing this one, I loved the vibrancy of the yellow and the deep blue of the sky behind it, but it still looked dimensionally flat. It needed something to help it "pop." So I employed a technique known as "boom vignetting" in the digital world--something many high school photography students are probably familiar with (though it's much easier to do digitally). In the darkroom, students like myself in our lunacy creative genius quickly learned that holding quirky-shaped papers above the center of the exposing paper produced a much more dramatic vignetting effect than the traditional corner-burning method. If you finessed the technique, it could even look natural. I can't say I've heard anyone speak about it with very serious tones, but I still wouldn't recommend underestimating the effect.

Using a cartoon-ish "explosion" shape in photoshop (or really any interesting shape/brush), you simply cut the shape out of a layer copy of the base image, use Gaussian Blur on that layer, select layer mode to "multiply," and scale back the opacity as needed. The result is a dramatic vignette effect without the obvious "vignette corner" appearance.

Solitude, Found

When one finally arrives at
      the point where schedules
are forgotten, and becomes immersed
      in ancient rhythms,
one begins to live.

                  -Sigurd Olson

Keebler

Keebler, a pony who joined the stable this last winter. I've had this photo for a while, and just kept forgetting to post it! I really can't get over how perfect the name "Keebler" is for a pony, though.

Silkweed

(Common) Milkweed, also known as silkweed. Milkweed sap can be applied as a remedy for poison ivy or to remove warts, and it was common to use as a clotting agent for small wounds. After being properly cooked, chewing the roots cures dysentery, and infusions of the roots and leaves was used to treat typhus fever, asthma, and to suppress coughs. The floss, which is hypoallergenic, is superior to down feathers when used as insulation. As an added surprise, the floss is evidently six times more buoyant than cork.



There is a section of trail that edges a field and cow pasture before the path retreats again into the woods, and it is home to hundreds of milkweed. When we walked through there in the fall, we caught the majority of the plants at their peak seeding time. Hundreds of seed pods, some not quite open but cracked, others splayed like wounds of fluff, and a few merely empty shells. The way the light hit the silk was simply splendid; I just couldn't stop taking photos.

Now I Wonder

This image was actually taken out the window of the car while we were driving around up north. I had to spend some time removing a few small dirt/dust spots. I focused on bringing out the sky (a little bit of saturation and a boost of highlights and lights with contrast) and as the foreground darkened I knew I wanted it to be a silhouette. A little black clipping and it was already there. A vignette completed the effect which, because of the car window, reminds me a little of a holga or lomo.

Never Elsewhere

A faux-HDR image I just finished. In truth, it's hardly HDR if compared to some of the hardcore HDR images out there, but that's just how I like it--grounded and not velveteen.

It came about mostly because I realized tonight that I no longer knew how to create a faux-HDR image myself with my photoshop program. PSE5, which I used to use, is very different from the PSE9 I have now. I'm still sorting everything out. For instance, I just realized that I can now do Photoshop Actions, albeit PSE-friendly ones. More importantly, I can streamline my photo work even more by creating my own Actions. =)

Lashes

While this image didn't come from the reject pile, I never got around to processing it because I initially thought it was a bit too much on the "alien-looking" side of equine eye shots. But I do love her eyelashes here.

Foalhood Dreams II

I decided I didn't want to wait to post this one. I used the same unconventional technique on this one as I did on Foalhood Dreams I, and I think it's pretty obvious what a difference it made on this image.

Perhaps it's the sunbeams in front of Andromeda, but the noise reduction here adds an entirely different level of texture. The grass looks more windswept but still have a necessary touch of sharpness, and the trees look like something out of a painting without looking painted themselves. And I still feel that the only real photo-shopping I did on this image was to remove an unsightly fencepost in the background by her nose.

With this image, I feel more like I've taken an unconventional photoshop filter and made it into a workable artistic tool, which is kind of nice.

Foalhood Dreams I

Another photo originally from the reject pile. I cropped it a little bit and decided to leave in the scrawny tall tree on a whim. I still can't decide if it's distracting or simply properly balancing, though.

I processed this one on the under-exposed side of things, dropped saturation level, and boosted the black clipping for a silhouette. A touch of extra brightness to give it that sunlit glow.

And then I did something a little crazy--something I've never done on a photo before. I decided there was too much detail. Too much sharpness. So I used noise reduction technology to give the pixels and the colors some softness while keeping the edges crisp. I'll admit that I *love* the effect of that on the trees, but I'm still trying to decide if I've crossed some invisible line into digital art-photography I'd never intended to cross.

Kelpie

I've been going through a few older equine shoots with the mind to dredge up some of the "cast aways" and give them some life. (Or find gems I'd forgotten about.)

This shot was sorted into the reject pile on several occasions, but when I saw it tonight something in it gripped me. There's a lot wrong with it technically--the blurry focal point (the eye), the extremes between the overly dark throat-latch and the nearly over-exposed face. But all of that did something for me this time. Combined with the color tones in the mare's coat and her liquid-eyed stare I thought immediately of the Kelpie. The black river horse. Mysterious but breathtaking. Her song is quiet but haunting. Irresistible. The lost pony, ever found.