Happiness is...

...finding the right Christmas tree. We had raw, windy, gusty rain today--downpours at times--so not the best day to take the wagon ride through the woods and up the hill to cut our own as we usually do. But we also needed to get the tree this weekend, so that it will be up when our grandson comes to celebrate an early Christmas with us on Wednesday. We decided to get it at Stew Leonard's, a store that specializes in fresh meats, seafood and produce. We do most of our grocery shopping there. Despite the gloomy weather, spirits were high, and we found the perfect compact tree to fit into our cozy little house.

Brown

As the song says, "All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey..." Photo was taken with Hipstamatic (the new Dali pak is my latest toy.)

Late autumn

The leaves have been falling like sifting snow until today, when a steady rain pulled the last of them from the trees. This one was plastered onto the windshield. Hipstamatic caught it perfectly aligned with the trees in the background.

Seasonal

Late autumn: the colors are growing rusty and the leaves are drifting off the trees. The woods at Crescent Lake are stilling themselves for winter. Processing was done in Iris Photo Suite.

COLD: Snow drifts past bare winter trees.

Sunset created a mauve glow in the northern sky as I was leaving work today with the naked trees traced delicately against it. Pencil Sketch simplified the silhouettes; then I applied a gradient based on the original colors behind it to create what looks like a woodprint.

Nearly all the leaves are off the trees now; the only ones remaining are dry and brown. Graphic Pen is a filter I hadn't used before. It outlines the bark and branches quite nicely.

August 2: We had to go back up to NY State to collect the truck and the camper. We took advantage of the situation to take an extra day and camp at the KOA in Herkimer, one of our favorite campgrounds. In the evening as we sat by the fire, a mist rose up, gradually obscuring the trees. Using the Fog effect was a natural which showed the progression of the mist in a way my little point and shot could not capture.

It rained heavily last night, but as I was having breakfast, the sun was breaking through the clouds. By the time I left for work, clean white clouds were floating an a crisp blue sky. They were both reflected in a puddle in our driveway. I like the way Cut Out isolated the leaf. I "cheated" on this one. Ordinarily, I only apply the filter or effect to the whole photo and let it be. This time, I re-cropped. because some of the side elements that established place--like the bit of evergreen at the lower left that one would find at the edge of a puddle--were simply distracting once I'd applied the filter.

Today, we went to a craft fair where I took pictures of a puppet show and pictures of a funky artist doing a "flash painting" of a tiger...but then, on the way, we stopped at a supermarket. When we came out, the sky was on fire. We have had days upon days of grim grey weather, and then suddenly, there was this! I didn't alter the original other than to sharpen it a bit--this was the sky as we saw it. Dark Strokes deepend the color and intensified the sihouettes of the trees.

July 22: We drove all day in the rain, crossing Michigan diagonally. We pulled into this campground with not much time to spare in order to set up and prepare dinner for guests who were coming to visit us. There wasn't much time for photography, so I'll be the first to admit that this is not a great picture. It was actually, "OMG I haven't got a picture for my blog yet; I'll snap one of the pond real quick before it gets dark!" But it did give me a chance to use the Water Paper filter, which gives it a soft dreamy look.

July 15: We camped this night at Thunder Bay on a hill from which one could just barely see Lake Superior. As we went for our evening walk, the lowering sun lit up the trees. Accented Edges makes them glow.

This is November in Connecticut: the trees bare and teh sky barren. It reminds my of the lines in Shakespeare's sonnet:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

PSE allowed me to add some sunset color to the scene. I used Equalize to convert the original to stark black & white, then selected the black using Magic Wand. I saved the selection. I made a sunset gradient and applied it to cover the image, then loaded the selection and filled it with black.

Now that daylight savings time is over, it's dusk when I get out of work. There are orange tinted halogen lights in the parking lot that cast a warm glow on the leaves that are left on the trees. Fresco creates that sense of golden light in the gloaming.

We were waiting for our dinner guests to arrive when I looked out the window and saw this light in the western sky. The preternatural wind on Halloween tore the last leaves off the trees, so they are now November-bare. The sky behind them was suffused with this soft mauve light. An image this start doesn't give most filters much to work with, so I went played with some of the ones that create more radical effects. Neon Glow resulted in a rather striking effect almost like a negative.

When I went outside today, I thought I heard raindrops--but it was the sound of falling leaves ticking against the ones still on the trees as they fell. Each time the wind blew, leaves showered down. This image is so stark and simple that it was hard to find a filter to work with it. I went with Bas Relief, which separates the leaves and the branches from the sky.

Unfortunately, this is one of those pictures that looked better in the field than they do out of the camera. Now, to take it, I was pulled over to the side of a narrow winding road, keeping an eye in the rear view mirror all the while. I was only able to get off three shots from the car window before I saw a school bus coming up behind me and had to get going. I've never used the Sponge filter before, but it worked fairly well to enhance the contrast between the wet black truncks and the fading yellow leaves, as well as adding some texture to the lowering sky.

Today, John and I hiked to the left knee of the Sleeping Giant in Hamden CT. We got a bit lost in the woods on the way back, ended up hiking for four hours over steep rocky ground AND, when we got home, being accused by our teenager of being reckless and irresponsible. Is life good or what? The sun was setting as we limped back to our truck. A few stalwart picnickers were still enjoying the late summer evening. Dry Brush put just the right soft touch on the scene.

The wonderful thing about the orchard is that it changes week by week. The orchard I saw last Tuesday is not the one I drove past today. What I loved about this week's orchard was the fresh colors--the pale green of the leaves and grass, the intense blue of the sky, and the softer yellows of the mulch under the trees. Film Grain highlighted those elements.

The light at Paper Goods Pond this evening was incandescent. Everything was lit up with an internal fire. Quite a few filters looked god; but Dark Strokes was the one that showcased the extraordinary light.