"C" is for Cards

I'm working on a brochure for the club we belong to in Blowing Rock and today I had to take some photos to illustrate playing bridge.  So, I thought I'd add it to my Alphabet series...."C" is for Cards.

Ratcliffe's Flowers

Another of those days where the time slipped away, we had a late night out and no photo.  So....while we were waiting in traffic after seeing the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour (great show!), I snapped this photo of one of my favorite signs in town.  My iPhone saves the day again.

"B" is for Books

The next in my alphabet series.  "B" is for books. This is an image of some old leather books we have.  I decided to continue to experiment with adding textured layers in Photoshop, so I took some photos of two pieces of leather today and used these two texture images, along with a chamois texture I created yesterday, to give the books a sepia, texturized tone.  I started out by converting the image to B&W and then I layered in the three textured images at various levels of opacity.

Rural scene

Today I took photos of textures for my photography class tomorrow night.  They aren't very interesting on their own, but when I combine them with another image as a layer in Photoshop, it makes an nice effect.  Here are three images:  one of the barn that I took yesterday (bottom photo), one of the paper texture I took today (middle), and the combined photo that I put together (top).  What a nice way to get special effects by combining two images original images.

Eastern NC Cemetery

Late this afternoon we were driving back from Greenville and I decided to get a few shots of the rural countryside of eastern NC.  I liked this family cemetery in the middle of a plowed field.  I also got one of an old tobacco barn I liked, but this one was my favorite.  It's good to have a "real" camera in my hand again!

Not where you want to be

I've read something that says "your best camera is the one you have with you".  Well, we're still in G'ville with George's mom and spent all day (just got in) at the emergency room and finally got her admitted to the hospital.  Clearly, there was no time for photography today, but I did take this image in her room in the ER with my iPhone.  I hope to have time to pick up a "real" camera soon.

The big city

We were with George's mom all day, so no time to get behind a camera until we got back to the beautiful Hampton Inn.  Since I took a shot of the view from the Ritz Carlton last weekend, I thought I'd get a comparable shot from the HI.  So....the big city of Greenville, NC.