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.

Primary colors

A bed of these happy flowers brightens the entrance to the town library. Frame and the barest minimum of touch up added with PhotoGene. This is the first photo taken with my new iPhone 4. Could be my fevered imagination, but it seems brighter & crisper to me than the earlier shots.

Today is the winter solstice. From now on, the dark will be retreating. What better time to feature these sunny flowers--zinnias growing in an AeroGarden to brighten up our living room? Combining Rough Pastels and Accented Edges softens them a bit, adding a painterly touch.

August 7: This sunflower glowed like its namesake. Using a combination of Cutout, Colored Pencil and Posterize gives it an exuberant poster-like effect.

As I pulled into the parking lot at work this morning, my eyes were struck by these ragged leaves caught by the light of the sun. Dry Brush keeps the light and color but blends it a bit to make it more striking.

July 12: In Mintoba there were great wide expanses of canola. It looked like they were growing sunshine. Posterize is just the filter for such exuberant yellow.

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.

The weahter here in New England has been nothing short of depressing for months now. A long raw winter eventually dissolved into a late, cold wet spring that went on until August, when we had about 10 days of sweltering heat and humidity. After that, we were back to chilly rain. The one good thing is that, somehow, all this has added up to spectacular fall colors. Every time I think we've passed peak, I walk outside on the rare sunny day and see something like this outside my back door. This WAS the blue of the sky this morning, and the yellows and oranges were just that bright. Posterize adds just a bit of punch, but the colors were so brilliant and so primary that not too much is changed.

It was cold and rainy today, so I skipped the Fair and ran some errands. The patterns of these leaves on the wet asphalt caught my eye. Conte Crayon tightens up the contrast and proveds a bit more detail.

It was really HOT today (at last!) so I ran my errands on my bike this morning before the heat really built in. I passed this backhoe and liked the color and the lines. Pencil Sketch helps separate them from the bright and busy background.

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.

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.

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.

It rained yesterday, it rained today, it's gonna rain tomorrow, and it's supposed to rain straight on through the weekend. When the weather is grey and gloomy, certain flowers--forsythia and dogwood, in especial--seem to have their own inner lights. This forsythia bush is fading, but it still had the capacity to light an drizzly afternoon. I wanted a filter that would highlight the raindrops. Watercolor seemed to fit the bill.

Outside, it was a dirty day with fitful showers of raw rain. On the altar at church, however, there was color in the stained glass rose window over the altar and the flowers that were around it. These three daisies caught my eye (and kept distracting me from the homily.)