Found on the beach

Gang of Gulls

I decided to make a sandwich of my beachy bird photos. Maybe I will display them this way someday - skinnies on top and bottom. As far as the first photo, I cropped out the offending Man in the Hoodie by copying and pasting small chunks of the sky at 800% zoom. It was easy because the sky was very homogeneous.

Piper school

Is there any difference? I did pretty much the same changes as for Two Berries below, but to a much smaller degree. These little pipers were funny. They kept together on the beach.

A tale of two berries

Before.

After: Again, no layers. (I really need to learn how to use them). Decr brightness, incr contrast, unsharpen mask, and just a touch of level (Layer --> Color --> Levels). I think the unsharpen mask may have been overkill.

By Gully

Simple tech. I did not use any layers. I decreased the brightness -10 and increased the contrast +10 then tweaked the layers under Layers -> Color -> Level. I wish I had been able to focus on the bird better but I had focused on it while it was standing on the sand and then it took off, and it was such a cool moment! I was worried the bird might fly into my face, but I guess I gave the bird too little credit. Oh, and I cropped off its blurry wing!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2008!

Here are my hand-made felt owls for loved ones. Lots of wisdom and happiness for 2008.

Brother's bread

Lately I haven't had any time to do much of anything except drag myself to work and back. Today I relaxed and looked at the Reuters Best photos of 2007. Some amazing work - I highly recommend a visit. However, my brother has been busy baking a new confection - a challah loaf! wowza! It reminds me of when we were little and my parents would pick up a challah for us at the M-der's.

A Fair Shot

I visited the State Fair with friends and had a fabulous time fotographing fun things. I still aspire to work some magic on the photos. Sadly, at the time, my filter had not arrived yet, but here are my first and last shots to keep you interested while I try to find the time to learn how to work the magic.

Campus in the Fall

I had a rare day off from work, and walked around campus taking a few photos with my new B+W polarizing filter. I'm not used to it yet, and several photos turned out too dark. Here are a few of the better ones.

Pretzels!

A pack of yeast remained in my fridge which was due to expire in 1.5 weeks. Wondering if it would still be active, I put it to use on a new trial of pretzel making. Actually this is the first time I've tried to use yeast in cooking - the yeasty (for lack of better descriptor), sour smell was somehow comforting. It reminded me of making LB broth for bacterial cultures in lab. Anyhow, the dough rose in the hot Indian summer quite nicely, the pretzels were boiled 15 sec per side, and then finished off in the oven. After I make something it often doesn't seem appetizing to me, so I'm not sure if they were good or not. But fun was had. Here they are in their pre-boiled state, followed by done and awaiting toothsome trial. So yes, yeast can be refrigerated till exp date.

Yes I am a novice

Yay! My photo friend took the Tahoe sunrise photo and worked on it to improve it further. Clearly he has some superior skills. Unfortunately, he was working on a small version, so let's see if we can tell how it turned out. Compare it to the ones below. I think the sky looks nice and pinker while the shore looks even more apparent!! Lots more pebbles. In fact, the more I look at mine, the more I think it looks worse after I've had a go!! I have to get back to zee drawing board...

Faking a Filter

My friend was telling me about the powers of a gradient neutral density filter for landscapes. I poked around a little on the internet. It seems most real photographers have a plate of graded glass which they place after metering for the exposure. I don't know how to do that, but I did find some websites online that illustrate how to apply a gradient on GIMP. Basically you can apply a gradient to allow more light from one section of the photo, and less from another. It can therefore be useful in fixing a photo with underexposed or overexposed areas. I decided to try the technique on a photo of Lake Tahoe at sunrise, which I took, but it's too dark in the foreground. I multipled another layer, and modified that layer to show more light and detail in the foreground (the shore). Then I applied a gradient mask to opacify the sky of the modified one, then changed the percent opacity to 50%, and flattened that brightened, gradient layer with the original. This melded to produce the products below. I still like the old one since it had a rosy sky. I can prob work on that.

Before


After

Hmm. On the small screen you can't tell the difference so much, but you can see that even the stones on the shore are more visible. The ski runs down the mountain are now apparent.

Links to how to apply a GND filter are here:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6411

http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/NDFilter/

http://howto.wikia.com/wiki/Howto_add_the_effect_of_a_graduated_neutral_density_filter_on_a_photo_using_the_Gimp_graphics_editor

Who wears the apron

I used to enjoy cooking, but now that I have to do it all the time, it's not quite as fun. A few days ago I made my first custard from Epicurious' chocolate cream pie recipe. It turned out well and it was exciting when the consistency changed at boiling point and little clumps of hot custard flew out of the pot like lava drops. But lately my brother is the real cook in the family. He has a cooking blog, in fact. Don't go there hungry! I've eaten this tartlet up above. Actually it has the name of "Vanilla bean patisserie." I couldn't pronounce it but I sure could eat it fast. My brother made it for me when I visited : )

Alter ego

I have also started sewing in the last few years. My production has slowed down immensely since my job started, but here is my first quilt from 2005 (has it been that long?). It's an applique with batiks, and I learned how to do it during a class at the (sadly) now defunct Cotton Boll. The teacher hand-dyes her own fabric and makes stamped appliques herself. The nice thing is you can just sew all crazy-crooked, and cut pieces irregularly, and not match colors and it looks better! My friend Julie took class there with me but she has a much different aesthetic (and is going to be famous some day). That is why she is now in New York. Visit her here.

Monkeying around

Today I pretended I knew what I was up to with GIMP. I managed to inject some color into a photo of an old shed in Wyoming. It was fun!!

For the first take, I may have overused the Unmask sharpen overmuch.

I backed off the Unsharpen. But it's less green. I dunno how to use layers yet.

Here are some photos to choose from:

This is my first entry!

I am very excited. I never thought I would have a blog. But, now my friend Haris is going to show me how to edit photos using GIMP. We will pick one of my digital photos and go from there. You can follow the process. Thanks for reading!