Good day everyone.

Yesterday presented a nice sunrise and one or two of my photos might be worth processing.

Another photo initially looked terrible: very blurred due tn unsteady hand, and the horizon was far from level. I was about to delete it realized that it had a nice abstract quality so I did a little processing (mostly brightness and contrast and a little tweaking to color saturation).

   

Not bad but certainly not among my best.

Then I thought to increase the canvas size on the right and at the bottom, copy the initial image, rotate them as needed and paste each rotated version into the three new unused corners. I again adjusted brightness and contrast and boosted color saturation here and there. I blurred the bottom half and darkened it a bit to suggest reflections in calm water. Finally, I sharpened in places of the top half. All this resulted in a nice image that suggested in an abstract way a hill and a nice sky reflected in the water.

But it was too static - a perfectly symmetrical composition, so I cropped it for a better composition...

   

I'm pleased with the result. Something a little different that was fun to create.

Happy Hump Day.

Sorry to have been AWOL for a few days - been busy getting started on my income tax returns.

Here's a sunrise shot taken yesterday morning...

   

Still cold and snowy but a warm up coming tomorrow!

High windchill yesterday so didn't get out of the car to "work the subject."  Will go back when it is warmer and get a better view of the stature.
 This is our Liberal Arts college in town, Dakota Wesleyan University. A brand new building on campus, The School of Business Innovation and Leadership. with a statue out front called, Power of Possibility.
DWU was established in 1885.

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Good morning all from somewhere off the coast of Cuba, on the way to Ft Lauderdale. The end of the cruise is fast approaching. We should get home late tomorrow night. It has been fun and interesting. Unfortunately I don’t think I got a lot of great photos, but I did get numerous travel snapshots. Hope to catch up more once we get home and more settled.

For those tired of cold temps, here's another colorful sunrise taken about half way through my usual early morning walk on 2024/01-05)...

   


My football predictions for this Saturday and Sunday:

SAT 01/20/2024
  Houston @ Baltimore:  I have to go with Baltimore, but Houston rookie QB Stroud has been amazing so I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls off an upset win..
  Detroit @ Tampa Bay:  This game should be an even match, but I'm going with the Lions to get one more playoff win.

SUN 01/21/2024
  Kansas City @ Buffalo:  Maybe KC QB Mahomes can revive the KC offense, but BUF QB Josh Allen and the Bills are hot. I pick Buffalo to win.
  Green Bay at San Francisco:  Green Bay has had 2 impressive wins, but it ends against San Francisco, the best team in the league.

Next week
  #2 Buffalo @ #1 Baltimore: Buffalo is the hottest team in the league, and I think they'll win a close game against Baltimore.
  #3 Detroit @ #1 San Francisco: I am a long time Lions fan (born and raised in Michigan) and I applaud their great season. But they have little chance to beat the best team in the league.

Super Bowl
  #2 Buffalo vs #1 San Francisco: Buffalo is scary good and certainly could upset San Francisco. But I think SF is such a balanced team (great at both offense and defense) that they will win; maybe something like 37 - 24.

Personal Note:
  Few fans are neutral about Dallas; some are rabid in their devotion while others hate then. I hate them. They call themselves America's team, but I didn't get a chance to vote. And the way owner Jerry Jones treated legendary coach Tom Landry was shameful. Landry was a class act; Jones is loathsome. So I coun't have been happier when Green Bay knocked them out of the playoffs in an absolute thrashing.

Hi, hope you are hungry and that this looks appetizing.
I think I worked on this too long and am still not happy with it.
It needed something because it was too plain.  
Our special assignment is FOOD for this week's photo club meeting.
Have a terrific Tuesday,
LORELL

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Hi Y'all,
How is it going?
Today is a good day, make that a great day for all the people in the METRO DETROIT area after the Detroit LIONS victory over the LA RAMS in a nail-biter, 23-24 victory. The first playoff victory in 32 years. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder people were crying in the stands.

So, is everyone staying warm out there?  Wow, what a blast of cold temps out there.  I am sure glad that we did not lose power over the weekend despite the super heavy wet snow and windy conditions.  There was and still is so much ice out there, one has to be careful just taking out the garbage.  I was going to take my camera out and take photos, but thought better of it after I spent enough time out there shoveling snow and ice and freezing my fingertips and toes.

This week is our monthly photo club meeting, so that means I have some photos that I will run by you.  I don't think I even took a photo with my camera in the last month, so I have to use photos I took with my cell phone or from my archives.  

Here is one.  One of our categories is Color Creative.  Although this is B&W, there are a lot of manipulation applications applied to the original. And that is what we are supposed to do.

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Good day all! The wind is howling, the temp is -13 F, -25 C and windchill in the -40 F and C area. I don't want to go out but I have a funeral of a Church member to go to. Thankfully it is in town and only 5 minutes from home. Streets are clean too.

This photo was shout with my Yashica Mat 2 1/4 square 120 roll film camera. I used a red filter to enhance the clouds. Wind was blowing a bit ( as normal ) so the tops of the tree are blurry. One of my favorite photos. I also painted an oil on canvas  when I learned how to do that. I titled it "Lone Tree."

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I noticed lack of a FRYDAY thread so I started 1. Well the Mercury is buried at -40 C = -40 F
We are not strangers to these temperatures. Actually we have had a pleasant winter until this cold snap.
Here is a hand coloured B&W taken -40 in 1979 when most of the winter was in the deep freeze.

   

The QE Power plant keeps the water open on the Saskatchewan River. This creates ice fog....

Back from the dentist. In hte process of getting my two front teeth that I just missed out on for Christmas.

Thought I'd wake you all up to the fact that it is now Thursday.

S hould have put the mistletoe up but there you gor.



It is called Fleshy Mistletoe and despite apparently being a parasite, it doesn't kill it's host.