Cactus flower

From Photo of the day (2009)

No idea what kind of cactus this is (if you know, tell me) - I tried to look it up with online pictures but I think its hopeless unless I can find a key sort of thing to work it out. Mom gave it to me when she came out on the weekend with Dad - the flowers are real, not glued on straw ones like you sometimes see. The spines make me think of a coral colony with the polyps out feeding.

I played with the highlights, sharpened, saturated, and cropped in Picasa.

Flicker

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

I spied this guy on my way into the house for a break at work - he was on the ground then went up in the tree. I didn't know if he would stick around until I got my camera, but on my return he was back to the ground. He spied me and went back up into the tree and I got some good shots, these are the best of the string. I couldn't decide which to post here so I thought - why not both? I entered the one with more white and less sticks into the DP Challenge of the week "Fauna" - a photo of animal life. We will see how it does. I never seem to get above the middle of the crowd with my shots, usually getting a 4.5 or 4.6 out of 10 (the winners get about 7.8, so its about average.)

Anyways, I played with shadows (it was a bit pale because of the backlighting), highlights, sharpened and saturated in picasa for both shots.

Crocuses

From Photo of the day (2009)

Beautiful day today, I spent the afternoon at Anita's sitting in the sun which I don't get much of at my north-facing apartment. Last minute before I left I figured I should get a shot, and found these in the garden.
Sharpened, cropped, fill light, shadows in Picasa.

Door

From Photo of the day (2009)

Saw this yesterday but didn't have my camera when I was going to pick up some curriculum stuff I had forgotten at the community center for my computer course today. Didn't get any shots yesterday as the parents are out and it got waylaid until too late.
This is a bit of a funny door - there isn't much on the main route through Agassiz except the backs of businesses that front on the next street over, but this door (to what I think is an apartment upstairs) is kind of squished in a corner. I liked the colours, yesterday was drier, and the shot would have probably looked better then but oh well. Still worked out all right.
Sharpened, highlights and shadows in Picasa.

House Finch

From Photo of the day (2009)

Found this little guy when I was looking for a kestrel for the DP Challenge of the week - I was also looking for eggs from Dave and Anita. He was sitting in their tree singing in response to another finch in the distance, unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of him singing. I cropped, sharpened, fill light/higlights in Picasa.

Cows from above

From Photo of the day (2009)

We are getting hay for the goats from above the cow feed alley now and I saw this just after George had fed and I was going to feed goats. It was actually shot as a horizontal while lying on hayloft floor to avoid getting any of the hayloft in the picture. The shutter was a bit slow so its not as sharp as I would have liked. Oh well. Saturated, sharpened and a bit of fill light in Picasa.

Post boxes

From Photo of the day (2009)

Cold and wet and rainy. I got finished at work by 1230, which was a surprise as a whole pen of smallish goats (about 25 roughly the size of Meg) had got loose at Paul's. I guess the gate into their pen wasn't latched right yesterday sometime and they pushed the door open, charged through all the feed, pulled vast layers of it off of the two big round bales in the back, then jumped up and hit the grain auger switch which unloaded about 12 five gallon buckets worth of grain on the floor (on top of all the hay) before it stopped and now won't start. ~Sigh~ My life would be so much easier without goats. We are hoping they don't sick from eating too much grain, though they looked pretty lively today.

I more or less forgot about getting a shot today until I went to check the mail and figured this would work. Of course as soon as I got in there and ready to go about 3 other people came in to check their boxes and I felt like a goon. I got three shots, this was the best, and it is heavily edited in Picasa (but looks okay for it). I increase the fill light nearly as far as it can go, straightened, and sharpened.

Island 22

From Photo of the day (2009)

Just some pics from Island 22 in Chilliwack where I took the dog today after going around with the vet this morning. I used to walk her here every Sunday when I went to Church in Chilliwack, but up until two weeks ago, I hadn't been here in months. I discovered the park the year I moved here when it was mentioned on the radio that the campground was being closed due to erosion and the place converted to a dog/equestrian park. You can still walk through the campground, which is funny cause as there is a fence running through it about half ways in that you can walk around on either end (and everyone does), with these signs stuck on it every so often. You'd think they would fence the whole thing off - I guess its not as dangerous as the sign makes out. But I certainly wouldn't want campsite 25 anymore.. I guess it really is eroding.

From Photo of the day (2009)

Kestrel, again

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

Spotted this guy on the way to Paul's, it might be (and I'm thinking it is) the same one I shot just before I started this blog. He is incredibly tame, a haggard (adult) though so I don't think I would want to trap him. If all goes well I will be flying one of these guys this year, yay! He was sitting on the wire then took off, flew right in front of me and pounced on something in the grass, missed, and took off into the distance. I did get a bunch of other shots but of course I had my cam set for the light on the wire so they were all underexposed. Argh. These two were the best, thought even they had to be a bit over worked in Picasa to get them to semi-decent state. I don't remember what all I did to them - sharpened, saturated, cropped, highlights, fill light, shadows.. way too much really. More of a salvage job than a touch up. Oh well. Some days......

Goat blur

From Photo of the day (2009)

Another DP Challenge entry - for the challenge "Abstract motion", where you either move your camera when taking a photo, or take a photo of a moving object. So this is intended to be blurry. I was at a bit of a loss for what to do for challenges this week (the other option was "Language") but the goats were cooperative (in one sense) by fighting for a good bit of time - enough that I could get a few shots like this. I picked this one out as the best one. It is an interesting style, not my usual, which is why I like this challenge thing - it gets me doing some things I normally wouldn't have thought of or tried.

I sharpened (a lot), played with the fill light and shadows, and saturated in Picasa.

The one below is the one I played with in Photoshop which has more options in an effort to make it just that little bit different for the challenge (this one is my real entry). I also cropped this one to centralize the goats more, and get rid of some of the wall. Which do you prefer?

From Photo of the day (2009)

Pussywillows

From Photo of the day (2009)

I meant to shoot this yesterday evening, but forgot my cam at home so I missed out yesterday. There is a total of about 7 pussywillows on the entire plant - I think they started coming out in Feb when it was nice and then stopped when it got cold again. Confused! Anyways, today they were sopping wet as it rained all day, with only a slight pause at an opportune moment so I could scrape out the cows. I sharpened, cropped and slightly increased the shadows of this one in picasa.

Lamb

From Photo of the day (2009)

So I managed to get a shot of one of these guys before they grew up. This one is a ram lamb that was born a week ago exactly, from one of our two Southdown ewes. The other one lambed on the weekend, and I will admit that these things have to be one of the only fuzzy critters that is not cute just after it is born - they look like shriveled old squinty men with eyebrows that are way too long. After a week when the rest of their body gets some more fluff and they fill out a bit they are pretty cute. Hopefully the weather will improve so they can run around the yard with their moms! Right now they are confined to the sheep shed out in the field across from the cheese plant.

I cropped this, sharpened, saturated and played a bit with highlights/fill light in Picasa.

Primordial

From Photo of the day (2009)

This is another DP Challenge entry - its snowing again so I went with a "studio" photo for today. The challenge was to take a photo where the light source was your main subject. I was originally thinking matches or somehow getting the tungsten glow in a light bulb, but had an epiphany the other day that glow sticks could be a lot of fun - especially when you ignore the warning "do not break open plastic tube". The stuff is non-toxic but there is another glass tube within it, and really they just don't want you to cut yourself or stain your clothes. I bought three larger sticks, two yellow and one green and started with one of the yellows. I cut it open and tried pouring it into a bowl, but there isnt really much in there and the glass gets in the way. I managed to get most of it out took a few pics and then opened the green one and dumped it around the edges (this is one of those shots). Oh, and this is all set up in my bathroom with the lights out. I had a tripod as the shutter speed was about half a second and my hands were more than full. I did some more with the extra yellow stick but this was the best shot. I played in Photoshop with this one to increase contrast (in an adjustment layer) to bring out the swirls in the goo, and then sharpened with unsharpmask. Oh and I cropped it too. Fun stuff!

Baby goat

From Photo of the day (2009)

I have yet to check the breeding records, but George insists this kid's father is our young oberhasli buck goat, Steve. From what we have heard the breed colours are very dominant - and these kids sure are making us believe that. From a black la mancha mother with *very* small ears (almost none whatsoever) we got two females, both of which look exactly like this - which is exactly like Steve. I've been meaning to take some pictures of the babies we've gotten this spring, but keep forgetting or putting it off. I will have to get some pictures of the lambs before they get much bigger.

I played with the fill light/highlights, cropped, saturated, and sharpened this shot in Picasa.

Fridge

From Photo of the day (2009)

Can you tell that I am a bit short on ideas? It is remarkably hard to continually come up with the energy and ideas to shoot a new picture each day - especially when it has been crappy weather. Anyways, I was debating whether to shirk my photo duties today while doing the dishes and then saw this sort of random shot when I put a few dishes in to soak and the cloth on a particularly stubborn bit of pudding dried on the counter. Granted I did re-arrange some of the words but this is pretty much how the top of my fridge looks, the bottom is nearly empty as I never notice it. I wonder how much this says about me? Or does it speak more about the people who gave me half the stuff.....

I had to play with the fill light and highlights to bring up to brightness, even though I did use a flash. I also sharpened and saturated in Picasa.

Cemetery

From Photo of the day (2009)

I was looking for something for the next DP Challenge (A photo of something forgotten) at the cemetary - hoping to find a very old grave with most of the writing gone or something. Didn't find what I was looking for really, and now that I re-read the challenge it is titled "Remember those?" which makes me think more of fads and styles forgotten, not dead people. I will have to reconsider what I will enter. The other option is a photo where your main subject is the light source, we will see what happens. I still have 3 days. Anyways, at the cemetery I was amazed at the number of snowdrops - especially since we had such cold weather recently and these seemed to have survived quite well. Then the stairs going up just made a good photo. Meg is only in the shot because I really couldn't keep her out of it - oh well. She gives the shot some perspective as to how steep those stairs really are. Seeing as everyone who is in that cemetery died in the 30's or earlier I can't imagine many relatives that would visit would be able to get up those stairs, so it makes for a good, if pensive, dog walking area.
I have increased the shadows a bit, sharpened, and saturated this shot a bit in Picasa.

View

From Photo of the day (2009)

I've tried to climb up this clear cut across the street from work before, but from the other side (from the land owned by my previous boss) but it was too steep. This week I noticed a road cut but barricaded going in from the next plot of land. I parked in the road and took the dog to see where it went - I managed to get up there! I had pretty much given up last time. It wasn't too hard and the view was spectacular. Next time I go I will take a picnic and go further up and along to the rock bluffs. You can just make out my farm - it is just right of center, down and to the left of the big fuzzy patch (hazelnut orchard).

I stitched this together from six vertical photos in PanoramaPro; cropped, sharpened, saturated in Picasa.

The small version here doesnt really do it justice, click here to see a larger size on Flikr (my picasa account doesn't show it much bigger than here).

Robin

From Photo of the day (2009)

Fantastic day today - cold in the morning but everything has thawed out except for the bunker water. Sunny and warm (relatively)- I was hoping to get some cow pictures today but George fed them and they had minds only for food, not for going outside. Hmm. Now that I think about it I could have made something of that. Oh well. I snapped this guy as I was leaving for Paul's - I was going to shoot a singing house finch but by the time I changed my lenses he had left. I don't know what all the robins have been eating for the last few days as the ground has been frozen solid. I hope he's finding more today!

I played with the lighting and sharpened in Picasa.

Aerial Goats

From Photo of the day (2009)

I got this idea after I did the one of the cows, then was waiting for a day when I had enough time and energy and sun coming in to do it. I climbed up on top of the roof of the goat dairy which is kind of built like a little insulated building within the goat barn. I couldn't see as many of the goats as I was hoping for and the studs supporting the roof in one part were more distracting than I thought, so I took this one by sticking the camera on the other side of the studs and just shooting the one pen. There is slightly more space to this pen on the other side of the studs but this one is the largest. It currently holds 78 goats in the group known as the "soccer hooligans" for their terrible behaviour in the parlour. Granted they have improved beyond belief since August when it was not uncommon to hear me cursing loudly at milking time. Things flow fairly smoothly now, thank goodness.

I played with a few things in Picasa - sharpen, highlights, fill light, I think that's it.

Soapy

From Photo of the day (2009)

We have returned to pre-christmas weather out here in the Fraser Valley with arctic outflow wind warnings, subzero temperatures and the occasional bit of snow. BRR! With the time change I am up and out almost two hours before the sun is up again so it is even worse. My cow parlour was frozen this morning, all the automatic water systems were frozen again.. I thought this was march! Someone switched the weather from february to march and we got our march weather last month. Anyways, the cold is not really inspiring to go out and take photos in, especially after you have been out in it for 8 hours or so. So I've got another pseudo-studio pic I put together with a glass, some soapy water, and my ever useful (yet dog hairy) black fleece sweater. I wasn't planning on making it look like the glass was tilted but I got one like that by accident and I thought it made it look like the glass was falling over, so I kept it.
I increased the shadows to black out the fleece, highlights to bring back the glass and soap bubbles, cloned out some stray dog hairs, sharpened and cropped in Picasa.

Vanishing

From Photo of the day (2009)

I am having fun with my flash and tripod. I was half asleep at work this morning because of the time change (had to get up at the equivalent of 3:30 am - ergh) and it was cold so I didn't take shots there.

I saw an entry in DP Challenge with this technique - using a long shutter speed, a rear curtain flash, and the removal of one one object in the photo to make said object appear to be vanishing or ghostly. I made do with some props in the house. This is the same jalepeno as was featured in the banana shot a few days ago. It has quite the talent!

I had to play with the colour a bit and increase the shadows to make my "black" background appear more black and correct the colours.

Two left hands

From Photo of the day (2009)

I was in a rush at work today as I had to get back to do some laundry before heading off to the beginner's computer workshop I help teach on Saturday afternoons. Hence, no farm picture today. I checked out the past DP Challenge challenges for ideas for today and was going to play around with some sunglasses but then the guest on Quirks and Quarks (CBC radio) was mentioning bones in the hand. That gave me and idea to try get some shots with a flash through my hand, as a kind of x-ray look. It didn't work. I guess the flash that my friend had years ago was stronger than mine. Then I got around to some double exposures once I figured out I *can* make my flash flash more than once in 20 seconds, it just takes a lot of warming up. I was nearly late for my workshop. This is the best of my playing. I had a black fleece sweater hanging on the shower curtain rod (I wish my bathroom wasnt my only dark room!) and then with a 15 second exposure fired the flash twice, the second time after I moved my hand. The resulting shot has be cropped, fill light/highlights, shadows greatly enhanced (to get rid of the light on the fleece - dog hairs!), and then warmified to give my skin a better tone - all in Picasa.

Cows

From Photo of the day (2009)

I am now getting hay from the loft above the cow feed alley and I saw this while fetching feed for the goats. After I looked at it in the camera, I found I really liked the shadows of the cows heads and the head lockers on the floor. Once on the computer though, the original was too... glaring, if I had brought a polarizing filter up with me I would have used it. I did use a fill flash but it was simply too far away to do much good. When I transferred it into a green filtered black and white in Picasa it seemed to take away some of that glare. I also increased the fill light and sharpened it.

Peregrine

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

As I was driving home from Scott's Meats, I saw a raptor fly into a tree beside Morrow road. I thought it was a mature cooper's hawk, possibly setting up a nest, so I slowed and had a look in the tree as I drove by. I was surprised to see malar stripes (only found on falcons) so I stopped and put on my four way flashers to have a look. On second inspection - what I could see through all the branches with my bare eyes - it almost looked like a lanner falcon (native to africa but flown by falconers in the lower mainland). Then I knew I needed a real look and went to get my camera and long lens. These are two of the shots I got through the branches, they are not bad but you will have to excuse the excessive editing and cropping (shadows, highlights, sharpening and cropping all in Picasa). It is definately a juvenile peregrine falcon, but the paleness of the head and breast, as well as the narrowness of the malar stripes (lines that look like they come down from the eyes/corner of the mouth) almost make me think it is a tundra subspecies. But I suppose it could just be a very pale individual.

Old Truck

From Photo of the day (2009)

I keep seeing this truck on the way to work in the evening - the light at that time of day always makes it look great, though I see it from the other side. It sits in the field in front of Mr. Yang's farm - he grows pea shoots for a lot of oriental restaurants and a produce store in town entirely without dirt. They are very good. Anyways, normally I am in too much of a rush to get to work to stop for photos but I hadn't taken anything yet today so I planned for it. I parked at the Happy Prospector gift shop, which meant I was on the opposite side of the truck from what I wanted but the light was still good and I didn't have time to walk around on the highway, maybe I will save that for another day.

I barely played with the fill light and shadows in this shot, nothing else.

Bananas

From Photo of the day (2009)

I did take some farm animal pictures, but this one that I've entered into a challenge for DP Challenge has beat them out. The challenge was "skin" - and to take a photo of some kind of skin. Don't know how this will do but I started off with the idea of cow/goat/dog skin then thought.. what else has skins? Bananas have skins.. then thought of the saying "wolf in sheep's clothing" and tried to figure out how I could do a play on words - ended up with "wolf in a sheep's skin" and stuck a jalepeno in my banana. It's remarkably hard to set up a photo to match an image you see in your mind, especially with limited studio equipment. This weekend I had tried this differently with single bananas and used my door mat and the light from the window. I even entered two of them (one replaced the other) and then I replaced the last one of those with this. I had to go buy more bananas. This one I did a lot more setup. I got a big sheet of white poster board I had hanging around and taped it over my kitchen counter so there would be no edges or corners in my background. I used a really pathetically dim reading light I got from Ikea to light it from the side for the shadow because it had a stand and a flexible neck so I could aim it however I wanted. And then I used my tripod so I could have a large F-stop which meant a long shutter speed. Oy. All for a still shot of bananas. I doubt this is the sort of thing they will be looking for but at least it will be original.

I messed around with a curves adjustment layer in photoshop to lighten it up a bit more without blowing out the contrast in the front banana.

Crazy kids

From Photo of the day (2009)

Went to Anita's for lunch and a walk after church - didn't see anything for a photo on the walk. I got the kids to make faces for the camera when we got back. They had fun, I had fun taking them, and I got a decent shot for today.

I lightened it a bit in Picasa, nothing else.