Taking Her Daily (Sun) Bath

Pearl is not laying on a Galveston beach, but on our driveway.  It is straight-up noon and she is once again laying in direct sun, and by her own choice I must say.  When I try to get her to move she looks at me like this, like she is so comfortable why am I bothering her?  She has been doing this often, and it has to be at least 100 degrees on that concrete.  Eventually she will finish cooking and get up to come in the house with no evidence of  heat stroke, thank goodness.

Maggie Is Recovering

Maggie had her right hip replaced this morning, and we just got the word that it went well.  One thing I did not expect was that the doctor said her bone, the femur, was atrophied as well as the muscle so he had to enclose the top of the femur in a wire cage to keep the bone from fracturing around the implant.  We could see that her muscle had shrunk a lot but did not realize that she was putting so much weight on her front legs that she also lost bone mass.  He assures us it will return as she uses that leg again.  I will be laying carpet scraps around my tile floor in the kitchen to keep her from losing traction in there, and we got a Mastiff-sized wire cage to kennel her in when we leave the house, so we are ready for her return and the recovery process.  It is going to be a long 6 weeks with no swimming and no walks but it will be wonderful when she is healed.  

Graceful Waves

Nikon D700, 60mm macro lens at f2.8 and 1/1000th, ISO 400

A couple of months ago I was cleaning up some terracotta pots and found some bulbs in the soil but I had no idea what they were.  I replanted them, set them in the shade, kept them watered and watched as green spiky leaves grew...still with no idea what they were.  Then just a few days ago I found a small calla lily blooming --- oh, yeah, I did have some of those last year.  After I processed this image in ACR, then in CS5 with several levels adjustment layers to darken the leaves (maybe too much?), I used Silver Efex Pro.  I started with the neutral setting that is used for all the images when the program first opens, and then went into the right panel with film options and chose Kodak Plus-X 125 PXPro.  I was so tempted to add a sepia tone as I usually do, but managed to restrain myself this once.  

Summer Blooms

Nikon D700 with 60mm macro lens at f4.8 and 1/350th, ISO 400

I planted a butterfly/hummingbird garden again this year.  Almost immediately I saw butterflies and dragonflies visiting although I have not seen any actually land yet.  These Echinacea blooms are very vibrant and I like watching the buds as they gradually open fully to the final cone shape.  They last a long time too. 

He Was Bribed

Nikon D700, 24- 70 mm 2.8 lens at f5.6 and 1/250th, ISO 800

I had to get help, and the assistant had to use bribery in the form of deli chicken, but I was able to get Toby to look toward the camera at least.  Originally I had in mind a composite for the Humorous assignment a couple of weeks ago but my other elements did not come together well, and as it turned out my idea would never have gotten a better score than Barry's Training Day.  I am happy that I managed to get a few current shots of our sweet (and camera shy) little guy.

It's Addicting

I keep finding more interesting combinations of textures and blending modes to use with those Pink Pom Poms whose real name is Pink Mimosa (Mimosa borealis). The tiny leaves did remind me of a Mimosa tree, so the name certainly fits.  Or isn't there a drink called the Mimosoa?  Maybe that is where the name came from and you feel all pink and fluffy after drinking it. Well, I thought it might be helpful to see the layers I combined as well as the final result.

The first image is 3 stacked images for a little more depth of field.  I still like the edges blurry, so did not mask in the sharp layer there:

Nikon D700, 60mm macro lens 

with Hoya closeup filters at f2.8 and 1/1500th, ISO 400

The next image is another one of mine, an accident that resulted in something circular out of focus in a green frame.  It is from quite a while back and I don't remember what it was, but saved it in my texture file because I knew I would use it someday:

The next layer is a purchased texture from Florabella, the Allure square.  

I added a Hue/Sat layer to make the edges darker green because

without that adjustment the edges were neon green:

And the final result, with the Florabella texture in Divide blending mode:

It's kind of like caffeine --- a little jolting, but cheerful.

Now For Some Pompoms With No Color

With the Les Brumes texture layer in Color blending mode 

(I don't know why it made the color go away though...)

 No texture, only Silver Efex with the Dark Sepia preset

No texture, with Photoshop's Black and White adjustment layer in High Contrast Blue