Saturday Drive

I labeled this Quilt Shops and Photo Ops (QSPO), but it is really only 1/2 that.  I guess the point is that it was an opportuntiy for the wife and I to do an excursion, hitting the road.  No quilt shops this time, but photo ops....  It all evens out in the end.

So, it was a nice Saturday afternoon, warm after a really cold spell, and my wife wondered if there would be eagles olong the Mississippi River.  So we went and looked.  Drove up the Great River Road, past Pere Marquette, explored a little up there, and drove back.  We didn't see any eagles this time, but had enjoyed the company and the scenery.  It was after 3 before we left, so we were up there for the late day sun (set).  And I managed some shots that I'm happy with.  So here you go:  Click through on titles to see larger versions at 365project

  Time Between Times.  along Great River Road, a bit north of Alton

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 Backroads, Not too far from Rosedale, IL

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Sunset.  From one of the overlooks on the Secenic Drive above Pere Marquette Lodge

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 Sunset and Ice.  Illinois River, in front of Pere Marquette Lodge

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Least Light / Last Light, along Great River Road, a bit north of Alton

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Music Birthdays - January 23

January 23, 1953 - Robin Zander was born!  He would, of course, go on to be the lead singer of Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductees Cheap Trick.  I saw Cheap Trick July 12, 1978, at the War Memorial Arena in Johnstown PA.  They were opening for Blue Oyster Cult, but more than held their own.  This was shortly after they released "Heaven Tonight" and about 10 weeks after the recording of what would be "At Budokan" which made them stars (when released in the US, in early 1979)...

January 23, 1944, Johnny Winter was born!  Blues guitarist extraordinaire, and older brother of Edgar Winter.  Johnny Winter died  in 2014 at the age of 70.  I never had the chance to see him live, but he is solidly represented in my music collection.

Which shall I listen to tonight?   Or both?  Now that would be an odd playlist!

Arched

St. Louis Arch, icy Mississippi River, northbound Barge....   From 33 floors up.

Old St. Louis County Courthouse

So, my son had a college interview in downtown St. Louis today.  We dropped him off on the 33rd floor of some tall building, and wandered around for a little.  We ended up at the Old Courthouse, which was pretty close.  We've lived in St. Louis area for 28 years, and I'd never been inside.   

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Pretty cool place, and I managed a few photos that make me happy.  The best (IMHO) is of the rotundra, from the 2nd floor.  Check out full version at 365project.

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Below is a panorama shot taken with my iPhone of the restored courtrooms.  Again, check out full size version at 365:

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And, of course, I had to squeeze in the obligatory b-and-w "artsy" shot:

Anyway, it was a very cool visit, but short.  We need to check it out for real sometime soon.

Any Colour You Like

My entry for week 2 of the 52-week challenge. Theme is:

Composition: Colour Harmony
Get out your colour wheel. Do opposites attract? Can there be harmony with opposite colours? Does the Hulk wear purple pants? Mix warm and cool colours."

I was struck by the randomness of this... Sometimes the colors mesh, sometimes they clash... all the while in triangular sets...  I really like one of the comments on my post at 365project:  "This says something about the illusion of choice."

Title from the Pink Floyd song:

Don't Ask Me Why, Just Fly...

As I move into my 4th year at the 365project site, I'm not really focusing on doing a photo per day.  But I'm still being active, I do like the site, and the community.  One thing I'm trying to commit to is a 52-week challenge.  There's a new theme each week, and one is tasked with taking a related photo.  Sounds interesting, huh?

The first week's challenge was Vision: Look Ahead - New year. New beginnings. New you. Look ahead. Interpret as you wish.

Here's my image:

 My comment on the post was:  "I was struck by these geese, headed towards new challenges, new locations... new beginnings. Moving out. At least I presume... aren't they be migrating?"

Title is from the old Pure Prairie League song.

For the second week (which we're well into), the theme is Composition: Colour Harmony.  
Get out your colour wheel. Do opposites attract? Can there be harmony with opposite colours? Does the Hulk wear purple pants? Mix warm and cool colours.  Check back and see what (if anything) I come up with

#dogwoodweek1, #dogwood52, #dogwood2018

Milestone - 365-3

1/5/2018 marks the end of my 3rd year at 365project.  Yes, most folks start a "picyure a day" project on January 1st, but I was a little late.  And the project has continued to evolve for me.  Or maybe devolve.  As I noted last year, I've slacked off from the picture a day concept, but continue to use the site.  I like the community, and the challenges.  And having a forum to post.

But I posted 364 images in the first year (looking at the main album), and 321 in the second year.  And only 222 images over the past year.  But I haven't stressed too much about it.  My "mojo" has ebbed as much as flowed this year, but I've been doing this too long to stress about it.  I am hoping to ramp back up a bit in 2018.

Last year I posted my "Top Rated" photos.  One year later, only 1 has changed, so I woun't bother reposting.  But here's my images taken in the last year that made it to 365's "popular" page:

New Years Day...

Despite the bitter cold (8 degrees F with a breeze), I made a (short) excursion to WNC on New Year's Day, and managed a few images:

I asked my son (not quite 18y/o) which he liked better, and his comments were quite insightful.  He said he figured the top one would be more popular, but he liked the bottom one better, as it was more "me".

Smart kid, he is.

 

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I posted both to 365project (here and here).  After 2 days, the one he thought would be more popular has 60% more views, and qualified for the Popular page.

A Good Crop - 2017

Ansel Adams is credited with saying "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop". In that spirit, I've tried to pick my 12 favorite photos each year, and post them here.  (I don't know that anything I've done would qualify as "significant, after all)...

If you're interested, here's previous posts (I missed 2015):

2016 - A Good Crop

2014 - A Good Crop

2013 - A Good Crop

2012 - A Good Crop

So here you go, my crop for 2017.  Click though to see larger versions over at my 365project site

Cold and Lonesome

West Alton, MO

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Wide Open Spaces

Outside Bismarck ND

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Old Building #9554

O'Fallon, IL

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Flat As A Pancake

Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area, MO

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Tiki

Pittsburgh, PA

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Cape Cod

Chatham, MA

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Dinghy

Chatham, MA

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43041

Fairview Heights, IL

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Shadow

St. Paul, MN

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Little Grassy Lake

Makanda, IL

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Grand Opening

Collinsville, IL

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Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

St. Louis, MO

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F O R D

Here's another before and after.  The after is at the bottom of the post.  But I did all this tweaking on my phone, and there's a rather lot of it.  And I didn't log any of it.  So I can't tell you what I did....  But it involved filters in snapseed (Drama, I think), and a significant amount of selective exposure (similar to burn and dodge)

(sorry)

Anyway....  We took a trip to Atlanta over Thanksgiving, saw some family....  all that good stuff.  During a visit in Mableton, GA (west side of Atlanta), I saw this old truck, and decided to shoot it. I used my iPhone, for simplicity.  I tried a couple of angles, but settled on this one.  It won out (barely) over a version from a lower angle, which took that building in the background out of view (the one you can see through the truck windows).  But I liked the better angle of the hood in this one.

Original, SOOC version:

Overlook

Diving I-24 across Tennessee has some nice scenery.  Especially the stretch from south of Nashville to Chattanooga.   The high point (literally) is Monteagle, where the highway crosses a mountain, which might not technically be a mountain, but certainly acts like a mountain!

Anyway, there's a rest area at the west side of the "mountain", and ont the back edge of the westbound stop, there's this very nice view.  This is a simple iPhone shot, but significantly tweaked on my computer.  So similar to last week, I thought I's post the original with the final, and try to remember the process.  Everything is in Photoshop Elements unless noted.

Original:

1. Adjust levels
2. crop to 4x6 aspect ratio
3. Adjust hue/saturation.  I think I boosted red and yellow, and decreased magenta (there was a bit of "purple fringing" in the trees.
4. resize to 1024 px on long side
5. Apply Unsharp mask.  My default is amount 48%, radius 0.6px, threshold 0
6. Create a new layer for effects
7. Apply Topaz - Impression filter. I actually tried several of the presets, adding a unique layer for each.  Then I could compare, by switching layers on and off.  I settled on "Oil Glaze"
8. Add texture filter.

Last Splash Of Color

Last weekend, I shuttled a group of kids to Little Grassy Lake for a church youth retreat.  Of course, I had to take a little time to wander the grounds, and take a few pictures (here and here). Same as I did last year.   So, this year we got to the camp just a few minutes before a storm was to blow through.  The light was pretty even and flat, no harsh shadows (even though it was mid-day).  So I hustled to grab a few shots before the storm.

Anyway, the image above turned out reasonably OK, but not until there was a LOT of tweaking.  Below is the original SOOC (stright-out-of-camera) version:

So, what did I do?  Well, I don't usually track my workflow real carefully, but this is close:

1. Try to fix the exposure:  Duplicate layer, set blend to multiply, drop opacity until it looks optimum.  This is a cool tool, think I learned it from a Scott Kelby book.  
2. Flatten layers
3. Fine tune levels.
4. Crop to 4x6 aspect ratio.  Just because I generally prefer 4x6, unless there's a reason not to...
5. Create a new layer for effects
6. Apply Topaz - Impression filter.  I'm pretty confident I used the "Edward Hopper I" preset.
7. Apply Topaz - Simplify filter.  I used the BuzSim preset, but tweaked the Simplify function way down, (<0 .10="" li="" nbsp="">
8. Adjust colors.  I selectively dropped Reds (to de-emphasize the dead leaves) and boosted the yellow a little, to make those leaves "pop"
9. Resize for publishing (I usually use 1024 px on the wide side for 365project.org).
10. Flatten and save.  

Sounds like a lot, but not really.  Maybe 10 - 15 minutes of time.  I'll spend that much easily dialing in a B&W conversion.

When The Golden Leaves Begin To Fall

"When the moon shines on the Blue Ridge mountains,
And it seems I can hear my sweetheart call,
How I long to be near to my darling,
When the golden leaves begin to fall"
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Title and lyrics from the Bill Monroe song, but the Wayfaring Strangers do a nice version, toowhich I was listening to while finishing this....

Isn't It Ironic?

No, not the Alanis Morissette  song, which uses non-ironic situations...

So...  one of my pet peeves is when people shotgun emails to huge groups of uninterested people.  Although it only really bugs me when I'm one of the uninterested people.  For example, at work today, somebody in one of our non-US offices added the group "US Field Employees" to an email response.This appears to include everybody in the US, but not in  the main office.  Probably a couple thousand names.  Text of the message was:

.Buenas tardes
[redacted name] sera el lider electrico de este proyecto
Gracias!
Saludos!

OK, not really that great a sin, probably not really worth getting too wound up about....  especially wound up enough to blog about it.  Except the inevitable response, the next sin:

Almost immediately, folk start to respond with comments like:  "I believe this email is for someone else other than myself ", and "I don't know what this is about" or "I'm confused why I received this".  All sent using reply-all.  I think this is a much worse sin, as it geometrically expands on the original sin. I'm pretty sure I've ranted about this before, even.

Which brings me to the ironic part.

The gentleman who, after three folk hit reply-all, sends out his own request:  "Can we please stop replying to all US FIELD EMPLOYEES?".  Which, of course, he sends via reply all.  

 I have to admit, I actually smiled a bit a that. And it didn't stop the replies, either...

Early Sunset

It has been almost a week since we switched away from daylight savings time, and I'm still adjusting. Just after 4pm and the sun is racing for the horizon... Oh well, 6 weeks and the days will start getting longer.