Tonight, we had a playdate with our grandsons. Aidan is four, and Craig is 10 months. The effect--Black & White with a slight reduction in opacity--is simple, but I like how it softened the portrait.

This factory, which once housed Sherwood Industries, is being made over into classy condos. I love the golden glow of the late afternoon sunlight on the brick. Film Grain really shows off the light as well as the weathered mossy character of the bricks.

Home again this afternoon, and we ran out to LL Bean to pick up some things for our big camping trip that begins next week. The rainbow of kayaks stacked against the wall outside caught my eye. Given the intense color, Posterize seems to be the perfect filter for this shot.

Saturday, June 27

We camped Friday evening in a deluge, but we woke to a brilliant rain-washed sky. Neither of us has ever been to Martha's Vineyard, so we decided to take the ferry over to see it. I brought my bike, and John rented one. We rode from Oak Bluffs to the Edgartown lighthouse, eight miles each way. This artist was painting a picture of the lighthouse. I used selective color to try to visualize the scene as he may have been seeing it.

Friday, June 26

My daughter, Sierra, had her senior pictures taken on Friday. This place even had a fake beach! Poster Edges streamlines a very cluttered scene.

We're going away for a weekend camping trip to Cape Cod, so I may not be able to post my photos until Sunday--but I promise to be sure to take them!

Queen Anne's lace is blooming at the edges of the parking lot at work. Accented Edges delineates the individual components of the flower.

Wednesdays in the summer means carillon concerts at Trinity College in Hartford. Weather does not deter us. This evening, it was raining AGAIN. so we sat in the shelter of the cloister. This is a picture of one of the cloister arches. Pencil Sketch renders it into an architectural drawing.

There's a big golf tournament in a near-by town. This blimp was apparently taking some time off. I've been looking for a photo that worked well with the Fresco filter, and I've finally found one.

Rain, rain and more rain...it's so dull, wet and oppressive that it's hard to get out to explore. These daisies were safely sheltered under an overhang at our gym. The sunny yellow (I do have a vague memory of the sun...) was very attractive to my rain-weary eyes. I used a combination of Posterize, Accented Edges and Poster Edges to play up the yellow and the textures of the petals and centers.

There's a genetics lesson here, I think...Using a combination of Water Paper and Accented Edges shows off the one yellow ducking.

At our town's weekly farmers market, this group of local teens plays folk music. Pencil Sketch does a nice job of highlighting their hands and instruments.

The windows of this medical office building in Hartford produced a distorted version of today's unsettled sky. The Cutout filter made it into an abstact.

Enough already with the rain! More rain today and more rain for the next week or more...summer is short enough here, and we've lost another month of it to low clouds, raw temperatures and RAIN. On the pro side, everything is green. We might be living in Ireland or a very chilly rain forest. The Charcoal filter added a touch of whimsy to these rain-dotted leaves.

Every Wednesday during the summer, we bring a picnic dinner to Trinity College in Hartford, where we sit on the lawn to listen to the carillon concert. We've been doing this now for 30 years. After the concert tonight, this young man was playing the organ in the great Gothic chapel, assisted by his mentor. To add drama, I used several techniques: the Vertical Fade effect with the Chalk and Charcoal filter, and then stretching the top part just a bit to heighten the loftiness of the pipes.

I was driving past the orchard this afternoon during a brief period of sunlight in our long stretch of drizzly gloomy weather. This stretch is being planted with new trees. To my rain-weary eyes, the grass seemed to glow in the unfamiliar light. The Water Paper filter shows forth the incandescent colors the way I saw them.

As I was heading off to work this morning, I caught sight of this work crew erecting a utility pole. In the grey gloominess of yet another drizzly morning, all the yellow stood out almost cheerily. I used selective coloring to show the way it grabbed my eye.

In arid little islands in the huge Stew Leonard's parking lot, there are patches of these yellow flowers. Colorful Center allowed the orange center to glow, while showcasing the texture of the petals.

We went down to Staten Island today for my Mom's 80th birthday party. One the way homw, as we crept along on the Brookly-Queens Expressway, I snagged this shot of the New York City skyline. Neon Glow put a little light in the sky while rendering the buildings in to simple black and white.

We in southern New England are just plain sick of the rain. June is supposed to be sunny and pleasant. Instead, we're just getting more March--one wet chilly day after another. This rain-spotted maple leaf was clining to the front railing this morning. Cutout did a nice job of reducing it to its basic elements without losing the deatil of the veins.

A side street in Hartford at early evening...Dry Brush softens the edges a bit, but diesn't dilute the color or the quiet motion of a city settling down as the sun sets.

Come autumn, these sumac leaves will be scarlet, and the flowers will have turned into flaming red seeds. In the tenderness of spring, however, the only hint of the fire to come is in the stems. It was the contrasts that I found attractive in this photo: the red against the green, the intense colors of the leaves against the soft yellow of the flowers, the lacy quality of the blossoms against the neat, crisp leaves. Dark Strokes with a touch of Watercolor plays up these contrasts.

Summer is late coming to New England. Intermittently, we have a few glorious days; but more often than not, the weather is chilly and damp. A sulky mist was hanging over the reservoir this afternoon. A subtle application of Green Tint and Fog softens the photos and gives it more of the sullen feeling of a drizzly day.

These daisies are planted outside the gym and were still damp with last night's rain. When I was trying out different filters, I found that Colored Pencil had the interesting effect of affecting the background more than the main subject. I played it up by erasing the effect entirely from the flower in the front.

Today, we visited my husband's sister in Queens. This is the view from her small backyard. It was the laundry on the line that attracted my eye. Given the brightness of the clothes on the line and the dull urban surroundings, I thought that selective coloring would be perfect.

Today, I did a ten mile bike tour as part of a fund raiser for the Farmington Valley Greenway. The air was clear and cool, the sky a startling blue. Along the way, I passed this iconic New England church. Pencil Sketch makes a crisp pen-and-ink style drawing of it.