Day 24: Cloudy

The clouds of day parted as the sun set over Table Mountain, casting the trees into shadow. As the stormy day verged onto night, the sun showed itself for one last time before it moved on to brighten other days in other parts of the world. The sunset, fading, shot last lingering rays of silver and gold through the charged atmosphere. Then twilight, calm and smooth, spread like a blanket over Starlight Farm once more.

And I was there, of course, with my camera ready ;)

Day 23: Beautiful Light!

Tonight, after finishing my dinner of farm-fresh cold cucumber soup, the light outside was amazing. In Colorado, we often get bright, clear, golden light in the afternoon, and today was a perfect example of this type of light...

This is a panorama I made of my house using Hugin and Picasa. When we built the place ten years ago, there wasn't a tree on it. We have terrible clay soil with brackish water, so gardening is always a challenge. Through enough hard work, though, we've been able to achieve some pretty satisfying results, especially for the trees! This year has been amazingly rainy (at least 3 or 4 inches this spring and summer), well above average in my region of Colorado.

Note: You may end up seeing all of my old posts in your RSS or e-mail feeds. If so, I'm really sorry, but Picasa Web Albums messed up, so I have to re-do ALL of my previous posts! :O

Day 22: MORE senior portraits!!

I took this picture yesterday and edited it for 3 hours last night and another couple of hours today. Retouching is a ton of fun, but it takes forever and requires lots of patience!
Here's the original picture:


And here it is after these changes:

• Eliminating pimple, freckles, and a small cut


• Using Dodge/Burn to add highlights to my face and hair


• Using Blur/Sharpen to selectively make some parts of my face a bit softer


• Smudging my eyes to make them larger and clearer


• Adding blue to my irises, darkening and enlarging my pupils, and adding reflections from the flash in my right eye


• Lightening shadows around my eyes, nose, and mouth


• Extensively retouching the background, darkening the branches of the willow tree so they blend into the background better, and adding some leaves to branches without any


• Adding a Glow effect in Picasa


• Darkened eyebrows at the edges so they look more natural
  

...just to name a few...


Please click through to see the pictures full-sized and tell me what you think!!
Thanks!
Colin

Day 21: The Sun Sets Low over Suburbia...

This picture was taken at the place where I'm house-sitting... Sunset as viewed through a lamp.


Also, this one is a super-cute pic of Claire and Tucker at Trail Ridge... it was soo windy! :O

Day 20: Trail Ridge Road and Senior Portraits

We went up to Trail Ridge Road after a delicious breakfast at Lucile's in Longmont.
This panorama took forever to make, so enjoy it! I know there's a visible line between the top row of pictures and the bottom, but I used a free Linux program called Hugin to stitch each row, then I had to manually add the two rows into one picture...


I've spent a ton of time making various senior portraits using a picture we took at the top of Trail Ridge Road. Check out this slideshow, and try to guess which one is the original! :D

Day 19: House-sitting is hard work!

I've been taking care of three dogs and one cat for a week now. But one thing makes it all worthwhile........


We're having guests over tonight, so I might take pictures then and update tomorrow, but I wanted to get some pics "in the bag" for today :)
And the pool is absolutely amazing!!! :D :D

Day 18: Collage Sunset and Composition

The air was soft and humid after the rain on the fifth day straight with precipitation. Driving down the road, I saw the beautiful Rockies arranged in the distance like a collage, with each successive layer a different shade, receding far into the distance at the snowy peaks of the Continental Divide.


Composition is everything in these shots. Look at how different the mood is in these two shots, taken just seconds apart. In the top picture, the car and road add interest and a foreground subject, but they're also distracting. In the bottom picture, the mountains are exposed and then cropped to be the sole focus of the shot. I like the bottom better, but I spent an hour editing the top picture, pasting in mountains from a different shot and adjusting the exposure of the foreground in GIMP.



Please click to view full size on both of these!

If I have time, I have a great edit in mind where I change the hues of the different layers and then overlay a texture on top to create a "real" collage.