The Last Sunflower

in my backyard

Its neighborhood

Its brilliance

Its geometry

Its texture

Ruff Park Magnolias - 3

 Delicate details.

Macro Monday: Sea Urchin

Browsing through my old photos, I found this sea creature. I don't know that I've ever edited or posted it before. I played with highlighting the textures and bringing out the contrast. 

I took the photo of this sea urchin at an aquarium in Southern California twelve years ago.

I gave it a dramatic edit. To the naked eye, it's mostly white - bleached out.

Here's the unedited version:

#macromonday

Peaked

Let's play a game of "What the Heck IS that Thang?"

This is how my photo editing program thought my picture should look ...

This is what it looks like after I played with it a while ...

So what is it? My Nivea Soft moisturizer!

Who guessed meringue or cake frosting and who guessed moisturizer?

Fallin' In Love

Agape - Love for all

Eros - True, passionate love

Forsaken - Broken hearted love

Envy - Obsessive love

Ambivalence - Mixed emotions

Storge - Love for my granddaughters

Hibiscus

From my 2009 trip to Hawaii.

I ran across a folder full of unedited photos. This one deserved a little love and attention.

#flowersforfriday

Simple Pleasures #18 - Lovely and Shiny

The color. The texture. The sparkle.

The cover of my daily haiku journal. I have the simple pleasure of enjoying it every day.

Bonus: this glitter doesn't shed all over my desk.

Playing with Color

The rose variety I saw at the Owen Rose Garden that most attracted me is a climbing rose called Joseph's Robe. This plant has several different colors of roses on a single stem - from tangerines to yellows to reds to purples to hot pink with lots of variations. It smells very nice, too.

I decided to play with this image today, first by getting up way too close and personal:

then to wipe out the vibrant color by converting the image into sepia tones. This way the shapes and textures become dominant.

Every now and again it fun to try something a little different at the end of a busy day.

Minimalist #6

 

This white yarn is reflecting the colors of the ceramic bowl it's resting in. Cool.

Minimalist #5

Minimalist #3

 

I'm not convinced this photo is successful. Good to experiment, though.

Minimalist #2

 

At the neighborhood park

Minimalist #1

I'm lurking in an online group these days whose scope is minimalist photography. The images are more about shape, texture, form, proportion, color and lighting than about subject matter. It reminds me a lot of macro photography with those similar elements, but instead of close-up pictures, the subjects can be any size. For example, this photo was taken from across a room.

I'm going to play with this concept here and there. This is my first attempt.

New Year Cards

In the last holiday season, Dale and I decided to send New Year cards instead of Christmas cards. That way I had time after the main holidays to handcraft a card. Here it is!

I started by printing a deer shape onto red cardstock. Then using some very sharp scissors, I fussy-cut the design.

The plan was to adhere the deer to the front of the card. So I first printed the greeting onto cardstock and cut it to size with my paper trimmer. After that, I embossed the design.

I used this very cool embossing folder from Sizzix. To me, it looks like a snowstorm at night.

To finish the front of the card, I adhered the deer onto the snowstorm. This photo shows the sparkly red cardstock that the deer was cut from. The combination of glitter paper and embossing made for a very tactile card.

The inside greeting was inspired by a song I used to sing at church:

Finally, I signed the back of each card in my usual way.

I always use Christmas-themed postage stamps for the final touch.

It was pretty fun to make an entire set of 25 cards for a change of pace. However, I still prefer making one-of-a-kind cards most often.

Curly Fungi

Look what I found behind the fence

It's intricate and textural and lovely

(but I still don't like to touch it).

Shell Game

Earlier this summer I did some cat sitting and garden watering for our neighbors. They enjoyed some family time at the shore. They brought me some beautiful gifts-of-the-ocean when they returned.

This one reminds me of a dinosaur.

I love exploring the subtle color changes, the textures and the details.

Check out the spine!

Oh, so sleek and beautifully formed.

An arrow to the center of the ocean.

I listened hard, but couldn't hear the waves inside the shells. Guess I'll need to visit the Oregon Coast myself in the near future to take in the salt, the smells, and the pulse of the ocean.

She's Got Fuzzy Balls

Summer of P: Past

From 2016: Tennis Anyone?

I love me a macro shot.

The best part of this photo-organizing bender I'm on is finding old photos I've taken that tickle me. With this photo, it's all about the textures and simple colors. I also like the way the light is bouncing off the top of the ball.

The worst part of this photo-organizing bender I'm on is the emotional stuff I run into ... and the fact that my eyes are burning from looking at a computer screen for hours on end. The process is going well, however, so it's worth it.

Squiggle

Playing with form and texture today.

A standard elementary school fixture.

Household Sculpture - 4

It's a rubber band, man! A biggish 2-1/2 inch diameter yellow rubber band.

At least one of my friends figured it out. I was listening to a podcast, mindlessly twisting the rubber band in my fingers, then dropping it on the table. It looked cool. I took a picture

Played again. Another cool shape. Took a picture.

When I got into my photo editing program, I started playing around with tone and texture and sharpening. The shapes are starker and more sculptural when on the plain white background than this wood table. On the white, the black-and-white images made the rubber look like metal to me.

A bit of photo fun. I amuse easily. 

Household Sculpture - 3