Blog
A rose by any other name
I did this today to send in to the Monochrome Madness series being done by Leanne Cole Photography and Laura Macky journey of the body on this earth . If you haven’t been there, go check it out. There are amazing photographers posting–every one of them is amazing. I don’t know about me, but Leanne makes me do it.
Good morning busy bees
I haven’t posted in a few days. I was lacking motivation, but this morning I went out with the camera. Here is a compound photo, created using my favorite aspects of three photos and three software applications. 
I was up and out early enough to catch wild bees at work.
I have a visual image in my mind I want to create. I wanted to do it with a tulip, but I have noticed in looking through my photographs of tulips, that tulips grow straight up. In fact, it seems like almost all flowers aggressively seek the sun with an unequivocal upward open thrust. This was a thought-provoking and enlightening realization, however, I wanted a lazy floppy flower. This morning to my surprise, I found one right outside my door. Oleander!
For some reason, it had to face to the left. No problem. I took the picture as it was, then flipped it. This approximates, somewhat, what I had in my mind.
Food trucks!
Good news! For me anyway…Saratoga Eats is an annual event. We sampled the Indian Street Food, WeSushi and Siam Loco Wraps.
Power lunches
I had lunch in Menlo Park with a friend the other day at a wonderful restaurant called Cafe Borrone. We sat outside and split a goat cheese platter and salads. Behind us I spotted this fabulous door, and that’s when I remembered my camera bag … which I had left at home. 😦 Okay, for me, this is what phone cameras are for … desperation. Some people take incredible photos with their phones, but I just have some random app on my Android phone, and it’s really not very good. But thank goodness for smart phones anyway, or I wouldn’t have been able to take this shot.
I didn’t notice the BBC on the door until this morning when I started fiddling with the photo for today’s post. BBC stands for British Banker’s Club, which was a rowdy bar until it was closed by the ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) in 2012. Well … technically the ABC can just pull the liquor license, but I liked how that last sentence sounded, and anyway, when a bar loses its liquor license, the result is it’s closed. No great loss, IMO, after reading about some yucky history there. But now this historic building will get new life as a lovely restaurant. That’s great, but … really … I just liked the door!
Okay, the one above is still a little crooked. My eye doctor says one eye is higher than the other, and that’s why I stand with my head tilted. I was like … really?! He said look at some photos, and sure enough, yes, I tilt my head. But if I straightened this photo any more, the BBC was lost.
Here are some other crops, with no adjustments other than crop.
In this one, I like the way the letters glow.
So … was this a power lunch? Yes, of course. Whenever two friends make time to have lunch together, there’s a lot of power.
I also just won the bid on Brenda Novak’s auction for Diabetes research for another power lunch–this one in New York City in July!
Here’s the description:
This is a triple threat package–lunch, advice and brainstorming with NYTimes Bestselling Author Brenda Novak, one of her editors, Margaret Marbury, VP of Harlequin Enterprises, and her agent, Dan Raines of Creative Trust in New York City during THRILLERFEST, (at a mutually agreeable time and place).
Do not miss this opportunity to pitch ideas, ask about publishing trends and generally take advantage of literally decades of publishing experience!
I’m not going to Thriller Fest as I don’t write thrillers at the moment. I’m just going out for the meeting using my frequent flyers and staying with one of my very close friends. I have no idea what will come of this meeting, I just had a very strong impulse to bid on that item on the first day of the auction. I almost lost the bid during the last hour last night. It was incredibly exciting to watch the count-down on the timer. I really couldn’t bid any higher, so I watched the minutes count down with my heart in my throat.
Needless to say, I didn’t get a huge amount of work done during that last hour! Once I won the bid, I made my plane reservations and this morning I confirmed staying with my friend, who is going to take the days off and pick me up at the airport at 5:30am.
There’s that power of friendship again…. Maybe that’s what it’s all about?
Mossy tree in the light
I liked how this looked in the light.
Stormy sky
It certainly doesn’t look like this where I am now! This photo is from a storm outside Reno, Nevada on May 21. The storm had lightning, which started a fire, then snow, which put it out (along with a lot of firefighting efforts.)
The sky made for a wonderful backdrop, though.
Lake Tahoe as a canvas
I think I finally figured out how to work with water as a colored texture. I like the idea of textures, but I wanted the water color. The key was to select just the subject from the photo you want to paste onto the texture. For the pinecone I did this with freehand select using my digital pad and pen. For the bush I used select by color, copy, paste, as many times as I could stand. I was okay with a little bit of an abstract bush. It’s not all filled in, but that allows more water to come through.
The pine cone was very small! I put it on a post to photograph it. I should have changed off my telephoto lens, but I managed to clean up the slight blur on the cone afterwards by using sharpen. The bush is from the East side of the Sierra, growing at around 5,500 feet above sea level. (Lake Tahoe is 6,000.)
Nicci Carrera 