At 4:30 a.m.? What the . . . ?

We like it here because it’s quiet and private. We have no neighbors close by. No one can see our house from the road. And even Google Earth can’t see the place because of the trees. Perfect.

But then there are the jets . . . Whidbey Naval Air Station is located up at the northern end of the island. We live in the southern middle of the island. A few miles away is something called the Outlying Field, where, from time to time, Navy jets practice touching down and immediately taking off again, as they might have to do on an aircraft carrier.

Are the jets loud? Well, yeah. But not horrendously so. And for me, a Navy brat, military jet roar is nothing new, nothing really bothersome. And we are a distance from the OLF, so I’m not perturbed. And, frankly, I’m looking forward to standing right next to the field one day and photographing the action. And it's not like they're out there every day all day. Just once in awhile.

What I wasn’t prepared for, especially at 4:30 in the morning, were the ear-piercing shrieks and squawks of at least two, and maybe three, barred owls. At first I thought I was hearing dogs barking. And I was sort of cranky, thinking someone should be attending to their pets. But unless dogs have learned to hoot, these were not dogs. These were owls, perhaps two defending their territory against an intruding third owl, and all of them were screaming, barking, and doing howler monkey/kookaburra/toucan impersonations.

I had read about this. I had heard some of their “calls” online. And I had heard a great horned owl in Palm Springs one evening bark like a dog as a cat climbed a tree toward its chick. But on this super-silent night, when all hell broke loose and reverberated off the trees, I was completely unprepared for the drama.

And they weren’t even in our yard! They were on the next property to the north. Oh, my. Something to look forward to tomorrow morning when, if we’re “lucky,” the party will be held at OUR place . . . B.Y.O.M. (bring your own mice).

We had another guest at the front door this afternoon. I took a video, but I don’t know how to upload it here. Perhaps another day for that . . .

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: INDIGO!

Indigo is a tough color to find because there are so many varying tones, ranging from blackish-blue to greenish-blue. But here are three that I think conform to the indigo concept.

The top photo is a combination of photos I took of very old papers given to me by Kathleen Amt and, of the three photos here, it's my favorite. It's probably not YOUR favorite, but that's okay. Something inside me changes when I see it, and that's pretty much my criteria.

And then there's a photo I took of a rubber stamp impression, a rubber stamp I bought in England specifically for this purpose. To it I added some texture, some colors, and three postage stamps.

Finally, I included a photograph of a freighter sailing up the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. I toned it a blackish-blue to make the image more monochromatic.

We have been in the Whidbey Island house for a week now. Are we unpacked and everything in its place? Hell no! Were we ready for a heat spell the past few days? No. Were we prepared to have to get rid of a hornet's nest over the door to the deck? For deer that eat hydrangea flowers? For robin-eating owls? For a mowing-induced gnat blizzard? And for what I heard around 4:30 this morning? That would be no, no, no, no, and no. None of that was mentioned in the real estate listing before we bought this house.

So what happened at 4:30 this morning? I'll try to write about it tomorrow . . .

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Whidbey afternoon

Taken yesterday afternoon with iPhone 6+ and then used Brushstroke app for painterly effect. ©Carol Leigh

What I learned today ...

I learned that the deer we have on Whidbey Island are Columbian black-tailed deer and that we currently have two does, a fawn, and a juvenile male meandering through the property. I also learned that they enjoy eating hydrangeas. Sigh.

This young guy, with velvety antlers, was wandering around in the front yard the other day. Painterly effect on iPhone photo using Brushstroke. Marginal image yet still rather pretty as I continue to limit myself to the cellphone camera and various photo apps. ©Carol Leigh

What I learned today ...

I read somewhere that it's good to learn one new thing every day. Yesterday I learned that barred owls hunt in broad daylight. And are successful. Okay, that was easy. What about today?

Today I learned that when the lawn has not been mowed for two months, in the growing season, that when it's finally mowed, the air becomes filled with dust, dirt, and small bits of lawn debris swirling about. But then you realize NO! Those are huge swarms of gnats, a snowstorm of gnats. And they are there for the rest of the day. 

So what I learned is, if you're inviting people over for the afternoon, do NOT mow the lawn in the morning! (And in the evening, pray for bats!)

©Carol Leigh 

Nature isn't always pretty

A lot of birdie commotion outside, sounding as though there was an interloper in the neighborhood, robins zipping around all over the place. I suspected a cat, a coyote, a raccoon. And then I saw it -- a huge barred owl. The birds were dive bombing it. 

The owl just sat there on a branch, casually plucking feathers from a dead robin's body. The owl grabbed the dead bird by the head and flew off. 

I began writing this post and was partway through when I heard more robin agitation going on. I looked, and there was the owl, back in the same tree. I grabbed the iPhone and headed down to get a closer look.

He'd moved and it took me a few minutes to spot him, about 12 feet away and seemingly unperturbed with my presence. I took a few shots with the cellphone and then tried imitating the call of a great horned owl. That got his attention, once. So I went online and played a recording of a GHO on my iPhone. No response. No matter what GHO call I tried playing, no luck. 

I circled around, trying to get closer, trying to get a branch-free look, but he eventually just flew off and everything became peaceful once again. 

This was around 4:30, broad daylight. I shudder to think what happens around here at night! 

We moved in on Friday. To date I've seen lots of rabbits, a coyote, a deer, flickers, juncos, nuthatches, bald eagles, watched hornets build a nest, a woodpecker of some sort climb a tree, various butterflies, and now a predatory owl. I've been here less than a week! What will I see if I actually start paying attention?!

©Carol Leigh

iPhone photo du jour

 

Just a quick note that we are now on Whidbey Island, the house is a mess and we are exhausted but exhilarated to be here. I'm posting this using my cellphone because we don't have Internet access yet, and probably won't for another few days. 

I've been watching the sun rise this morning and played around with taking some iPhone photos out the window. Here's the original version of this picture, which I then altered (above) using Brushstroke. Having fun!

ROYGBIV: BLUE!

Blue's pretty much a universally beloved color and it's always easy for me to find examples that incorporate blue. Not so easy, however, for me to find photomontages I've made with blue as the main color, but here are three I particularly like.

Scratched metal forms the basis of the first picture, undoubtedly photographed while I was wandering around the fishing boats on the Oregon coast. And I like the feeling of movement I created by using the red blobs, which seem to drift from left to right.

We move from movement to still life in the next shot of the pear, to which I added dripping paint and texture from the ubiquitous fishing boat. I like how the golden brown color of the pear works with the complementary blue surround.

And then lastly is a photomontage that yes, contains photos of fishing boat textures. The square boxy thing? I believe that came from a piece of paper I photographed, paper I'd used to clean a brayer after painting something.

I used to be able to identify every item in my photomontages, "Oh, yes, that's a part of my grandmother's earring I mixed with a photo of the bottom of an oil can and a picture of a blender lid." I've now made so many that sometimes I don't even recognize my own work. "I made THAT? When? Darned if I remember how I did it. But it's cool, isn't it?"

Ha!

It's now Monday and I pray that my Internet access via my desktop computer is up and running. Tough to do this on a cellphone. It's still Wednesday the 17th as I write, but I'm optimistic.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: GREEN!

And now we come to green, a particularly soothing color in nature. Because I'm less of a nature photographer than anything else, I find I have a plethora of green manmade things to choose for this category, such as the abstract design I found when wandering around fishing boats on the Oregon coast.

Next I feature a photo of birdhouses Chris made and that we had in front of our Oregon house. These eventually disintegrated and Chris made some more, similar in style. And this year we have tree swallows nesting in the middle house. Made us feel good to provide "affordable housing" for these birds.

And finally, a close-up of the side of a bus that June, Jill, and Gisela found for me when I visited North Carolina a few years ago. Do they know me well, or what?! This was such a cool junk yard to shoot in, although their "watch out for snakes" warning was a bit distracting . . .

It's now Sunday, although I'm writing this on Wednesday before the move. I am hoping that we have happily awakened in our familiar bed, that the cat isn't too freaked out, and that we can now begin opening boxes (which is actually a lot like Christmas -- we won't remember what's in each one!) and placing things where they seem to be most appropriate, knowing, of course, that in another three months everything will be all changed around again as we realize the couch looks awful over there, wouldn't it be better over here?

Green is an especially appropriate color for today because our house is completely surrounded by tall conifers, so much so that when the light is right, our white ceilings display a definite green tinge that's reflected from the trees.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: YELLOW!

Next in the color spectrum is yellow, a bright, cheerful color, a color that really stands out. So the "Beware Alligators" sign is pretty tough to ignore when you're wandering around Florida.

A painting show I watch says that shadows are always purple, so paint them some tone of purple. And yellow's complementary color is purple, making yellow look particularly striking. The photo of the yellow boat was taken early in the morning when the light was a bluish-purple, and yup, the boat looks especially good next to that purple-colored dock.

And in the last photo, I noticed how the buoys looked dramatic against the dark background of a fishing boat. A symmetrical composition, with the rope dividing the photo in two, seemed to be the right way to go. Clean, bold, simple.

It's Saturday today, the day the movers will be offloading our belongings. I'm writing this on Wednesday, so here's hoping everything arrives in one piece and that a new life/lifestyle is about to begin for real. I know you wish us well.

P.S. Happy birthday, Laura! A year older. A year wiser.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: ORANGE!

Go to an antique/classic car show and you're bound to find at least one outrageously orange car. I'm not so sure I would want to have an orange car, but I just love photographing them.

This coming weekend I'll be missing two different car shows -- one on the Oregon coast and another on Whidbey Island. Alas. But there will be more to come, and always with at least one orange car.

The first photo essay I ever sold was all about antique cars. Not the whole car, just the "parts." That was so long ago. But my love for the close-up and the abstract remains today.

By the time you're reading this, we are en route from Oregon to Whidbey. With the cat riding shotgun . . .

 ©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: RED!

The colors of the rainbow can be remembered by the acronym ROYGBIV . . . the rainbow colors of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.

The movers are here today, loading the truck, taking all of our stuff up to Whidbey Island. This means that I'm going to be computer-less until I get set up in a new office up north. Yikes! 

At least I've got a cellphone where I can stay in touch, but the creativity hub is in the desktop, and that's going to be out of commission for awhile.

Before we left, I set up some posts for the next few days, each one devoted to one of the colors of the rainbow. Hope they make you more aware of color and inspire you to perhaps search for one particular color today. 

In this case, it was easy for me to find the color red at the farmers' market, where tomatoes and radishes looked particularly tasty in diffused lighting. And the red buoys? One of my favorite subjects. Here, too, I shot in overcast lighting, which makes the red colors really gleam and pop.

So wish me luck! We travel up to Whidbey tomorrow, Chris in the pickup with the cat (oh, lucky him!) and me following closely behind.

For now, so long from the Oregon coast. Whidbey Island, here we come!

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Latest work: "Signpost Up Ahead"

This is a photomontage I made that includes my photos of various painted papers, patterns on the side of a fishing boat, and painted circles. I particularly like the bold, bright colors, the southwestern feel, and, yeah, just the overall weirdness.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Latest work: "Warrenton Woodwork"

These are two images I recently made available on Fine Art America. I offered two versions, one square, and one a horizontal "full frame" image. As always, I ask myself which one I prefer.

I do like the square format and I think that it helps emphasize the abstract calligraphy/circles in the picture.

But I think the bottom one, the horizontal one, has more of a feeling of movement; it's not as static as the square image. My eye tends to slide right and left along the horizontal lines of the background, and I find that more compelling than the square format where my eye goes blam! right to the center and then tends to just stay there.

I created this photomontage using photos I'd taken of fishing boats in Warrenton, Oregon, up by Astoria, photos of hand-created and painted circles, and calligraphy from various antique Japanese books.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Quiet confidence

I found this quote in a painting blog and I think it's a quote from the actress Amy Poehler. I then wrote it in my own journal because I liked the quiet confidence it has.

In case you can't read my writing, she says, "Care about the work you do, but not about the result. Care about how good you are, but not how good people think you are."

Basically she's saying, work at your art and care about improving, but don't rely on external validation for your sense of self-esteem.

Here's a photo I took of some toothbrushes. The response from certain people is, "Now WHO would photograph toothbrushes?" But I really like this photo! And I know WHY, which is important. I like the bold colors, the bizarre subject matter, the unusual composition, the repeating pattern, and the absurd wiggly movement of the brushes, almost a dental conga line!

So my point is to always be improving your work. You want to be the best you can be. And if you think your work is good, is the best you can do, then don't worry about what anybody else thinks.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Latest work: "Vintage Japanese Postcard"

Things remain a bit chaotic here, so I grab time whenever I can to try to make something, anything! Most of it's not working out so well, but that's okay. At least I'm keeping at it. My "routine" these days (if there even is a routine) is to simply rummage around in my photo files, try a little of this, a little of that, and see what happens. It's fun and it keeps my head from exploding.

This image, consisting of photos of vintage Japanese wallpaper, postage stamps, calligraphy, etc. is what I made yesterday afternoon. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

My physical studio, with all my paints, papers, collage bits, paintbrushes, etc. is completely packed and empty. My photo studio is the same. Looks weird! So for creativity I'm limited to the computer and my photos and that's working out well.

Thanks for stopping by . . .

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

What I saw / What I made

Back in 2012 we were at Lake Tahoe and I saw this tree. I photographed it knowing that how it actually looked wasn't all that wonderful, but that maybe I could do something with it later to make it different.

So here you see the tree, a pine, silhouetted against the lake. The background consists primarily of horizontal elements, from bottom to top, sunlit sand, heavy shadow, very bright sand, shades of blue, and then the mountains on the other side.

The strong vertical silhouette of the tree is what connects all that horizontality, holds everything together.

Three years later, I finally figure out what I want to do with this tree. I used a variety of Photoshop artistic filters as well as some painterly effects in Topaz and came up with this version.

The tree is now much lighter and brighter and looks fluffier than before. I like how a texture I used turned the horizontal stripes of the background into softer elements and changed the colors to shades of robin's egg blue and grey. And it's kind of cool how at the very bottom, that bit of sunlit sand now almost looks like another strip of water.

Done. Shipped off to Fine Art America. We'll see if someone would love to have it on their wall.

And now I shall resume rummaging around my photographs, seeing if, with the skills I have today, I can change something else I photographed years ago.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Stillness

“I think that what makes a photograph so powerful is the fact that, as opposed to other forms, like video or motion pictures, it is about stillness. I think the reason a person becomes a photographer is because they want to take it all and compress it into one particular stillness. When you really want to say something to someone, you grab them, you hold them, you embrace them. That’s what happens in this still form.”   - Joel-Peter Witkin

©Carol Leigh 
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!