Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Sun Makes a Difference.....

Sunbeams through the window and on the wall shadows flow
The Sun beams through the palm tree,
and on the wall shadows show

The sun beams on the flowers and makes them grow

The sun beams through the flowers and make them Glow

Monday, September 28, 2009

Foto Foolishness & Fun

Digital Manipulation Is Fun
This piece of foolishness is NOT a photo, but a painting I made in Digital Image 9. My friend David gave me a painting he did in acrylics. I said, David I think I can do this on the computer. And I did.

These two are from my practice in Photoshop 7. The lizard I painted from a photo of a lizard on the back yard fence, the black and yellow gobbledy gook was he struggle with learning text.



In the above shot, I took a photo of a ride at the fair one night and I attempted to make it glow, still need much more practice on this one.
More Practice in creating shapes in Image 9. I have no clue WHY

Photoshop 7 Fun with cutting tool and filters on these two photos

Below is the photograph I used to PLAY with.


I sat the camera on the ground in the back yard and took a fairly good photo of a mushroom/toadstool. Played with filters for this one.

I am closing this post with my wild and wierd shot. I have a bust that is silver gray. I took its picture, then painted it and cloned it and dabbled and dibbled. So now I have a totaly useless picture of a statue that was painted yellow green. Don't ask why this color, because I don't have a clue.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13 is the Love chapter in the Word of God. Love is sadly missing in our new age society.


Love looks beyond what people are to what they can become. David Roper

Verse 4 through 8 says
"Love suffers long and is kind: loved does not envy; loved does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


The first 4 verses repeat over and over, no matter what we HAVE if we have not LOVE we have nothing. Not love for ourselves but love for others.
"And though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

Imagine our world if everyone had love for each other, no crime, no murder, no abuse, no theft, no divorce, no children in foster homes. On and on the list could go, But For The Lack Of Love.


Friday, September 25, 2009

PS Filter Fun


Yesterday I talked about Photoshop becoming my enemy. Today I want to say there is lots of fun to be had playing with filters. I love Pelicans and have thousands of pictures of them going about their daily lives. Photoshop has many filters that will change the picture. All of these have been changed from the orginal.

These photographs were taken at Jungle Gardens, Sarasota FL. The first one above, is the first Filter I used under my teacher, Rich. I completed it on his computer and drove right home and did a few more.


Photographs are wonderful, but I love to change them and make them different.


Pelicans are my favorite birds, Parrots are second. I think the colors of the parrots is the reason I love them, but I KNOW the reason I love pelicans.

They are awkward and not very pretty, almost ugly, I have always chosen the plain Jane dogs, and have a real heart for the ugly and unwanted. Pelicans fit the profile for all of this. I LOVE PELICANS.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Photoshop 7-My Enemy

About six months ago, my friend Rich started giving me lessons in Photoshop 7, after 2 or 3 weeks, I said this is to hard, I un-installed it and I am going back to Image 9, which I have used for many years. so many years they don't even make it anymore. I told him it is to stressful to learn, to hard, that I hated it and I was not going to make myself crazy with it.

He nagged me and nagged me to re-install and practice on his computer. I would go sit with him and he would walk me through steps. This is two of the first things I cut from one picture and added to another picture. I had Flamingos standing on a sidewalk, and mud flats with nothing in the picture. Voila A few weeks of fighting with it and I said, Rich I LOVE this, it is so much fun.

I had this truck I found in a parking lot, with other cars beside it, and the old oak tree at Emerson Point, so I parked the truck under the tree.

The next thing was to take my picture of an old train, find a railroad track on the Internet, drag it on the tracks and do a little digital image. These things are not easy.
Click to see details......... I used the same cut out of the 2 flamingos and made them bigger and off the landscape.
with a lot of practice and a few not so nice words and thoughts, and my patience stretched thin, I am getting better but not great. YET
Do any of you out there use Photoshop? Is it as hard as it is for me?

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Happy Birthday Mom


In Memory of My Mother
1925-1990
Mary Lucille Overby McCall
born September 22, 1925
Palmetto Florida

If I survey all the good things that come to me from above
If I count all the blessings from the storehouse of love
I'd simply ask for the favor of him beyond mortal king
And I'm sure he would grant it again
I want to stroll over Heaven with you some glad day
When all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away
Then we'll enjoy the beauty where all things are new
I want to stroll over Heaven with you
So many places of beauty we long to see here below
But time and treasures have kept us from making plans as you know
But come the morning of rapture together we'll stand a new
While I stroll over Heaven with you
I want to stroll over Heaven with you some glad day
When all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away
Then we'll enjoy the beauty where all things are new
I want to stroll over Heaven with you

Today would have been my mothers 83rd Birthday, this post in dedicated to her memory.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Sandra's Sweet Memories

Friday night, my husband and I were watching a movie on TV. The theme song playing at the end was so beautiful we watched the words fly by and listened to the entire song. The auto harp was featured and it brought back so many memories.

My Dad was the Pastor of a church in Kentucky that very much resembled this one that I found on the internet. From age 10 to 15, I spent the happiest years of my life in 2 tiny little Baptist churches in the great state of KY. The church had a piano, but not always someone to play it. That is when the auto harp kicked in. We sang all the old hymns and harmonized with that auto harp. When the movie ended, I pulled up my good friend YouTube. The is what I found.

Farther Along, on auto harp, the words are at the bottom of the post. Sing along, I did and AM. this is one of the songs my Dad and I did as a duet, many times.





I do realize Brad sounds better than the auto harp and some of you may never have heard one.






Sing with Brad Paisley, don't forget to harmonize

Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrong
Chorus
Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by
When death has come and taken our loved ones
It leaves our home so lonely and drear
And then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after year
Repeat chorus

When we see Jesus coming in glory
When he comes down from his home in the sky
Then we shall meet him in that bright mansion
We'll understand it all by and by


Friday, September 18, 2009

Can You Guess What This Is?





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Purple Passion Flower, you have seen it before. I took this today. Love the squiggles



Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Queen Of The Night!



Night Blooming Cactus, also called Queen Of The Night, because it blooms only in the dark. Picture above was courtesy of my husband holding a flashlight at 4 AM, in order for my lens to focus on it in the dark.
I never noticed the blooms until July of 2007. At 6 AM as I floated on my back in the pool, I looked up and saw several blooms, it was not quite daylight and they were fully open. I grabbed the camera and started 3 years and thousands of photos of this amazing Queen that shows her beauty only in the dark hours of the night.
Click on above photo to see the progress of the bud over a 10 day period, it takes about 10 to 12 days to burst into full bloom. For July and August of 2007 there were 3 to 14 blooms several times a week, my neck began to get stiff from shooting up over my head, since these blooms are 30 feet in the air. On Sept. 5, 2007 I received my birthday present from the cactus. over 40 blooms that morning, there are 29 in the photo above, the camera will not focus in the dark on ALL the blooms.
Click on the above photo to see the bloom with rain drops.
The photos do not show how awesome this plant is.


The bloom falls about 2 weeks after it dies


On my birthday, Bob got a ladder and his extender saw and pulled one down for me. Above is his arm holding it, to show the size of the bloom, 15 inches tall and 8 inches across the top of the bloom. this one had already started to close in the daylight.

The plants opens in the dark and the moment the sun rises the bloom droops more and more as the sun gets higher, by the next morning it is in full droop.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I Think I Can!

CLICK ON the little arrow at bottom of picture to watch and hear the slide show I made from shots of an engine coming towards us on the day we visited the Railroad Museum.

I thought I could do this and I DID. Surprise to me! I think I can, I think I can...........

Monday, September 14, 2009

Monday 7 AM Back Yard

Our boxer mix dog, Jake has an internal clock. His clock says play first game of fetch the tennis ball at 7 AM. I have repeatedly told him, it is still to DARK to play. He wins, we play ball in the semi dusk. Today, Daddy threw the ball, Mommy tried taking pictures of flowers in the dark.
See Jake and Baby by clicking HERE


The result of photography by fill flash of a WEED.
Purple Passion Plant, not quiet up yet, the flower KNEW it was to early to be out yet.

This Passion flower almost made it up, needs a few more hours and sunlight to open fully.
Up close and personal with the gigantic Staghorn in the dark.
In the dark, in the light, any photo can sometimes be RIGHT. OUCH on the poetry. It was EARLY