Neighborhood bbq

Our neighbors threw a wonderful BBQ this afternoon and we had a great time.  This is a photo of one of the hostesses, our new friend Virginia.  Good fun, good food and good friends!

Butterflies

Since I've been in the mountains this summer I've been trying to photograph the little joys of nature around my yard....birds, mushrooms, etc.  I've found it surprisingly hard to capture quality images of the little creatures around me (birds, butterflies, squirrels, chipmunks, etc.).  It takes a lot of patience, and even with a fairly decent length lens (300mm), getting up close enough to get a good shot forces me to sit down and give the wildlife a chance to come to me (sometimes the wait is pretty long to get them to ignore me and come back to the feeder, flower, tree, etc.).  Then I have to make sure the light is okay and I have a fast enough shutter speed to reduce motion blur to an acceptable amount.  It's more difficult than I had expected and gives me more appreciation for the good images I see of these little treasures.  Here are a couple of beautiful butterflies on our butterfly bush this morning.

Fun Wolfcreek concert with Pam & Jeff

Flowers in vase

I decided to mess around with Photoshop this afternoon for a little while to drastically change a photo and to improve my PS skills.  I took the photo of the vase and flower and then worked with PS to create the final look against the white background.  I was supposed to do this with a colorful flower against a white background so I could easily cut out the flower and vase.  Well, I only had a white flower, so I tried it against a yellow gold background.  Unfortunately my selection didn't work too well at the edge of the vase since there wasn't enough contrast between the vase color and the background at that point, but I wanted to learn the skills, so I just went with it.  Not a perfect job, but I learned a lot in the process.  These are the before and after images.

To scope or not to scope, that is the question

The inside of my knee.  A cheap shot of an expensive image.  The MRI is inconclusive, so 6 weeks of physical therapy, three times a week....(so much for my mountain life this summer) and then maybe a shot, then maybe a "scope" (I notice they don't actually call it "surgery"...."scoping" sounds so much friendlier).  He said my MRI shows "degeneration"....more doctor-speak for "old lady knee"!

New shades

My new cool shades.....

Tree at dusk

Tonight George and I took a walk on the golf course to see what might be good to shoot today.  It had just rained very hard, so water was everywhere....dripping off the trees and rushing through swollen streams.  Although I captured some of this, it was as we were leaving that I saw this tree silhouetted against the stormy sky.  It turned out to be my favorite image.