Nightmare on Toddler Street

    I have been learning a bit about making composite photos. I have a great book, "Adobe Photoshop Masking and Compositing" by Katrin Eismann. She begins with the basics and provides photos for the reader to practice with.

    Still, it is not easy for me. Perhaps I didn't get some of those basics. While working on this composite my mantra was "this is fun, this is my hobby." Otherwise I would have thrown the computer out of the door and into the back yard.

    The first photo was fun to make. I took this one over the Christmas holidays. My camera was set to shoot several frames per second and in one of them he had the expression I was looking for.

    Then I searched around the house for an old doll. It turns out, we don't have many old dolls here. But I found this one and she possessed just the right amount of creepiness for my second photo.

    I placed her against a solid red background. It should be easy to "cut her out" from that right? Not so much. But I finally got the job done. Then I moved her onto Jake's photo, blurred her a bit, and here you have it, one toddler nightmare! If you click on the photo below it should go to full screen for you.

    Compositing (or Photoshopping) could be a lot of fun. Imagine Jacob jumping out an airplane for the first time. Or Kira visiting Buckingham Palace and meeting the Queen's Corgis. If you have a suggestion feel free to place it in the comment section below.

Smile!

    I have been thinking a lot lately about buying some portrait studio equipment. Strobes and backdrops and such. Not so much for human portraits. For my dog.

    This will come as no surprise to those who know me well. I am the one who had to stop myself just short of telling my grandson "Good dog!" today when he obeyed a command. 

    Correction. He didn't obey a command. He he did what I told him ;)

    I am also the grandma who has seriously considered clicker training my only grandchild.

    Speaking of clicker training, Kira and I have been working on "stay." Kira will do anything if I have the clicker and some cheese. She will stay several seconds now. It seems like a long time to her, but to me it felt as if I had to take this photo very quickly.

    Since I don't have any nice studio stuff yet I rigged up some things and took this (quick) shot last week. It's not perfect, but I like it.

Momma

    Momma. There's nothing quite like that word, is there? Whether you are thinking of your own momma or you are hearing your child call your name, the word causes your emotions to run strong.

    The first night I began to write this blog I searched high and low for words to express the love between mother and child. Just as I began to believe it was hopeless I came across a news story about a woman who refused cancer treatment in order to spare her baby's life.

    In March of this year Stacie Crimm discovered that she was pregnant. She was overjoyed because she had been told that she would never have a child. Four months later Stacie was diagnosed with cancer. She decided against chemotherapy because she was afraid it would hurt the baby. In August, as Stacie lapsed in and out of consciousness her two pound baby girl was delivered by C-section. She was able to hold her daughter only once before she died. For the full story you can click here. 

    Stacie's actions express a mother's love better than any words I can summon. The only thing I have to add is that Grandma will be a pretty cool word to hear too. I'm sorry that Stacie will not get to hear it.

Boxing

    Don't waste your money on toys for Grand Baby. He often is unimpressed by common baby toys. He prefers to entertain himself with things he finds around the house. 

Here he contemplates where next to look for entertainment.

  A cardboard box! What could be inside?

    A shiny red cup makes a good toy.

You know that feeling that you're being watched?

Cats like boxes too.

Bath Tub Baby

"Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing."

Eugene Ionesco

    Grand Baby came to visit tonight. The whirlpool tub was filled at a cozy temperature.  He splashed and played in the fragrances of flowers and dew. Afterward he was gently dried in towels as soft as a butterfly's wing. Eventually he was dressed in warm clothing, carried safely home and placed gently in his bed.

    Sweet dreams, Baby.

The Shotgun Versus the Binoculars

"I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them."

Roger Tory Peterson

    "Look at the photo I got today!" I practically shouted. I put this close-up on the big screen of our desktop for Honey Bunny, certain that he would be impressed at my skills as a nature photographer.

    The phone rang just then. It was Lovely Daughter. I couldn't get any verbal feedback from Honey about the photo so I glanced over at him. He was definitely not giving me a thumbs up. When my telephone conversation ended I got an earful.

    "You should have killed it! You are going to get hurt doing such things!" H.B. never shouts. But he was uncharacteristically loud. Very stern. I was disappointed. My most stalwart supporter was definitely in unsupportive mode.  

    This is a Redbelly Watersnake. She is not poisonous, but if I had crowded her too much she would have bitten me and sprayed me with a skunk like musk for me to bring home to my dog for sniffing. However, since I was using a telephoto lens I was never very close. My biggest concern was that she would retreat into her hollow log and I would not be able to take her portrait. Try telling this to Honey Bunny.

    While surfing for snakes on the internet I learned a fun fact. The Brown Watersnake, a relative of the the Redbellly, feeds on catfish and is sometimes observed with the bones of catfish sticking out of its body walls. The bones will fall out over time and no harm is done to the snake. 

    If you are interested in snakes Davidson College has a great herpetology web site. Just don't tell your Honey Bunny if you see one outdoors!

Mountain Man Scramble

   

   The morning of our last day in camp we had Mountain Man Scramble for breakfast. This appears to be a recipe designed to avoid waste. As such it includes all the leftovers from five days of camping. George prepared an excellent meal that combined sausage, bacon, roast pork, cheese, eggs, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. When served with a hot cup of Cowboy Coffee on a cool morning outdoors it is an unbeatable meal.

    This will be my last blog about my trip to Montana so I am going to serve up a Mountain Man Scramble of photos.

   

    If you make the drive 10,000 feet up to Sawtelle Peak you can see this FAA equipment.

    I thought it just cried out to be painted to resemble a soccer ball. But since the FAA is not known for humor it will never look like this.

   

    One afternoon the wranglers saddled up and rode the horses so that we could get some action photos.

    Keith splashed across the stream for us. Some of you may notice he is using a bit-less bridle.

    Even though it was his day off one of the mules insisted on joining us.

    Craig packs a manny so that our equipment can be loaded onto mules. This is hard work as each manny  weighs as much as 100 lbs. He has to wrap them snugly with rope, and tying the knots is an art.

Leaving our first camp.

Pack mules, like people, have personalities. This one is reluctant.

This one, mischievous.

Mule Deer on Main St,  Ennis, Montana

    This photo was taken in Nevada City. While there is a Zang's Beer brewed in Colorado, I suspect this building was not native to the ghost town. It was probably used in one of the many movies filmed there.  Little Big Man, Lonesome Dove, Missouri Breaks, and Thousand Pieces of Gold were all filmed in Nevada City.

     TheNevada City Music Hall houses the largest public collection of automated music machines in North America. Many are in working order. They are decorated with ornate carvings. Some are beautiful.

   

Some are just plain creepy.

    I almost forgot that the same thing that makes a good HDR photo also makes a good black and white photo. This shot originally perplexed me because the fence in the foreground was new and it clashed with the old train. I wanted to keep the photo because I loved the landscape in the background. Thank goodness I finally remembered to convert to black and white. With the color removed the fence is not so jarring to the senses.

One more black and white from the ghost town.

Ending with a bit of humor and a nod to the Talking Heads.

"You may ask yourself, 'How do I work this?'"

    I hope you will save the address to my blog so you can visit again. Next time you can see the photo that had the unusual effect of making Honey Bunny raise his voice to me :(

    And remember, if you click on any of the photos they should "grow" to full screen for you.