Patio dining

Tonight we sat on the patio of our favorite restaurant in Blowing Rock - Bistro Roca - and enjoyed dinner.  Since I hadn't taken any photos today, I shot a few while we were waiting our food.  A nice image of George, the "rain" forest beside us (it's been raining for two days now!) and the view through the window into the main restaurant.  I've always been intrigued by the sight of people dining through a restaurant window.  Since I can't hear their conversation I become much more conscious of body language.  Also, the lights usually have a golden quality about them that exude warmth and intimacy.

Abstract daisy

I decided to take a very simple photo today (a single daisy) and use my post processing to make an abstract image. I took the daisy photo, layered it with a vintage background, added a border and experimented with the tonal values until I got something I liked.

Figurine in light

Too hot to photograph outside today, so I searched around the house for some good light and got this shot of a little Raku figurine standing at attention.

Yet another cat photo

Today I'm working hard to delete photos so I can free up enough memory on my computer to install the new version of Photoshop.  Not an easy task.  In the meantime, I bought a flash cord today so I can use my flash off-camera and decided to play around with it a little bit.  I have no clue what I'm doing.  I bought a book that hopefully will help, but haven't had time to dig into it yet.  I did learn two things today, however: don't shoot yourself in the eyes up close with the flash because it will give you a headache; and when you take a flash shot of a cat you only get one try.  After that burst of light they bolt like a "flash" (yes, sorry, pun intended)!  Mojo was the victim....I mean subject....today.  Now back to cleaning up my hard drive.

Night out - before and after

I downloaded some new software today and wanted a portrait to use to test it out, so since no one else was around I did this self portrait.  I like these two images together, even though I didn't process them the same at this point.  I'll call it "Night out - before and after".  I still haven't used my new software on the portrait, but maybe I'll play around with it tomorrow and if it's decent I'll post the results.

Front door in morning light

Since I've got a packed day and night, I decided to get an early post done.  This is our front door in the morning light, and the cat that is inevitably drawn there....

Addiction

Today has been non-stop with fun stuff, but I'm exhausted.  We've been gone all day and just barely made it home in time for our "fix" of our True Blood addiction.  Of course after that there's the Mad Men obsession....so, no time for photos in our household today.  Gotta love guilty pleasures.  Here's a very cheap shot of that hunky Erik.  I promise I'll at least pick up the camera before 9:00 again sometime soon!