Good morning and welcome to a new month!

I've done a little work on the 3 images from yesterday - can you see any improvements?  I'm pretty sure that I am going to use the fuzzy bud photo but haven't completely decided on which of the 'scapes to use. I welcome comments and CC. I need to decide so I can get them entered before the deadline, and get the prints ordered.  Thanks all.

I have named them Abandoned, New Growth and Coastal Sunset for the time being.

In other news, college football has started... my Alma Mater, UAB, won their first game 35 to 6 last night. Hope they keep it up.

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I titled this one Flamenco!

   

Some of you may remember seeing this image before; I'll repeat that it is NOT A PHOTO. It's a computer-generated image courtesy of one of the fractal generating applications I used to have followed by some work in Photoshop.

I chose the colors then began randomly tested different individual transformations until I got one that looked like it had potential. A few tweaks here and there and I had an image ready for processing in Photoshop, where I cropped and resized, and played with color intensity and values in some areas.

This one, taken more than 15 years ago but just now completely reprocessed, is special to me for a couple of reasons:

1) It's the first one of my photos that won an award (3rd place at my art league's large annual members show) and that got me thinking I might have some talent as a photographer.

2) The judge of the show went out of her way to help everyone; she took the time to write several comments, both positive and gently critical, on a 3 x 5 card and attached it to the back of every photo, painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. in the show - and there were over 100 items. I never again had a judge be that helpful.

Of this photo the judge noted that it was all about circles and arcs, and observed that the colors needed some correction (which I think I did OK in this reprocessing)...

   

C&C is always welcome.

Some time around 2005 I partnered with another photographer in a booth at the Friday Fair by the Huntington Beach pier. We hoped to make some money, but most weeks we struggled just to cover our costs.

But it was fun, and sometimes the sunset over the Pacific was gorgeous. I really liked the reds in this favorite; also thought about cloning out the vapor trail of an airliner but decided to leave it...

   

I've sold very few photos over the years; tried to sell more but I'm terrible at marketing. This one printed at 24 x 18", sold unframed by a home furnishings business about 15 years ago brought me $300. I don't know how much they charged the customer for framing.

I was standing on a footbridge at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Ecological Preserve, looking due north. A short but heavy storm had just ended and was moving away rapidly. The original full color shot was pretty good, but this high contrast B&W conversion was much better...

   

C&C is always welcome.

Another from 15 or more years ago, this is a Snowy Egret taken at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Ecological Preserve.

   

I retrieved the oldest version I could find and completely reprocessed it (new and better adjustments than I knew back then, and in this case a new crop) with twin goals of keeping the file size as small as possible and achieving the best quality image I could.

I am not a patient person by nature, but my times shooting at Bolsa Chica taught me the patience needed to ever so slowly get quite close to the birds. For this photo I think I got to within 3 or 4 feet from the egret.

C&C is always welcome.

photo(s) coming soon...

Macro

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Landscapes

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Are now open...  I think starting a thread in your own gallery according to the categories you choose is what was decided. I'm starting with landscapes and close ups, using the photos I posted in the daily.