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.