Fall on Whidbey Island

There's a pretty tree in our front yard that I haven't identified yet. The overcast light yesterday afternoon was so soft that the tree glowed yellow.

Using my iPhone 6+ I experimented with a couple of apps just to see what would happen. Foolishly, I neglected to take a "normal" picture of the tree so you could see how it really looked. Maybe today.

Using the Brush Stroke app, I created the first two images, each of which has a different painterly look.

The third photo was made using an app called Slow Shutter. Not only is the shutter slow, but I also purposely moved the phone during the exposure.

All three photos were then processed with Snapseed to give them a bit more punch.

October. My favorite month. Color and daily change. Love it.

Along with changes in local flora, local fauna is also changing. The owls aren't nearly as vocal, with just the gentle hooting of the great horned variety and an occasional complaint from the barred owls. The terns have gone, along with their strange raucous calls. The coyotes are a bit more subdued. Saw a pileated woodpecker the other day -- only the second time I've ever seen one and (bird nerd that I am) it was rather exciting to see that huge form and bright red head clinging to the side of a pine tree. A couple of what sound like ENORMOUS frogs are in residence, croaking loudly from time to time, all day and all night. And I'm still hearing the ravens, so I hope they're nesting nearby.

You know what's really weird, though? And I'm told by someone who has lived here all his life that it's NEVER been like this, is the constant hum of bees. Stepping outside you notice it immediately. They're not honeybees, though, but yellow jackets. We have a nest under the eaves both in the front and the back of the house, way up high. And undoubtedly they're nesting in the trees surrounding the property. Once the weather gets really cold, we'll get rid of the nests. But right now? Frankly, it's kind of scary. They seem to be scouring the grass both front and back, flying low, checking out every little anomaly. Luckily I'm a big anomaly and thus not quite as interesting.

Happy fall! May yours be yellow jacket-free.

  ©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!

Around the house . . .

Early morning shadows on the living room wall. As the sun begins moving farther south, shadows in the house are constantly changing, appearing here one day, there the next, nowhere the next. On this morning, the sun peeked through all the trees and their shadows, as well as the window details, all showed up on the wall. For just a moment. Shot with iPhone 6+ and processed with Snapseed. The shot was incredibly noisy, so I used Topaz DeNoise to smooth things out a bit.

The studio? Funny you should ask. It is so close to being ready to paint that I'm champing at the bit. But the work schedule has been sketchy. And it's making me crazy. We cannot unpack anything more until the work is done. They're going to be here at 9 this morning. Crossing my fingers.

©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!

Courting danger in quest for Internet access . . .

We live on a dead-end road. For the last three days, what's separated us from "civilization" and electricity has been a tree that fell across our road, taking an electrical line with it. And for the last three days the tree has been sagging more and more, with less and less clearance for a car to pass underneath.

Yesterday afternoon, after the house generator stopped working, for reasons yet to be discovered, we decided to take a chance, zoom as quickly as possible under the tree, and head to Coupeville Coffee & Bistro for soup, sandwich, coffee, and a fast WiFi connection. Not necessarily in that order . . .

This place is great. Good food. Good coffee. Comfy atmosphere, and free Internet access.

As I was sitting there, just looking around, iPhone at my side, I thought I'd take a few shots, again using Camera Awesome and the "Lone Star" effect.*

First thing I found was my empty coffee cup. It would be better if you could see actual coffee in it, but I still liked that I was able to focus in on their logo.

And then you see my view from my chair, just a simple overview of the place.

I then looked up at all the graphic elements in their overhead lighting and took a photograph of that.

And finally a shot of the doors leading to the restrooms. All this from my comfortable armchair.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can show you before and after shots, of what the scene looked like without the special effect and then with the effect. Why? Because it's what I do . . .

Wishing you a stress-free and electricity-full day today.

*I know I'm overdoing the "Lone Star" photo effect. But instead of jumping in and using every app and effect I find and then remembering none of them, I'm being more methodical, working with something I like, learning it well enough that I'm not constantly fumbling around with it, and then moving on to something else, always keeping this current effect in my mind so that I can switch over to it when I think it particularly appropriate. 

©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!

iPhone photo du jour . . .

Photo taken yesterday afternoon from my "Knead & Feed" restaurant window table in Coupeville, Whidbey Island, Washington. Good view. Good food. Then walked a couple of miles on the beach to hopefully work off some of that good food!

I may be getting tired of the "Lone Star" photo effect, but I still find little glimmers of joy using it. It works especially well on already-old subject matter (would love to use it at Bodie Ghost Town in California's eastern Sierra), or to make classic subject matter look old (like the ferry photo I took the other day). A lot of the time, however, it's just annoying! Kind of like me, I guess . . .

©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!

iPhone photos du jour . . .

Washington State Ferry and a photo of late afternoon light on the front porch. Both were taken using the Camera Plus/Camera Awesome app and then processed with Snapseed.

I particularly like the ferry shot because it just looks old.

I like the porch photo because of all the repeating lines. Look at the vertical lines on the railings, the horizontal lines of the siding, the wooden deck, even on the overhang, and then the strong shadows leading your eye this way and that. This is a scene that I believe I'll be revisiting as the light changes throughout the year.

Yesterday, as we were waiting in line to catch the ferry back home, there were a lot of fishing boats offshore, big nets, lots of activity. We asked the ticket-taker what they were fishing for.

"Not sure. Probably humpies, you know, pinks. It's too early for the silvers." We nodded like yeah, we understood. We didn't. But we thought maybe he was talking about salmon.

A quick check and yes, pink salmon are also known as "humpies" because the males develop a hump on their backs during spawning. But get this, their spawning runs happen only every other year. This from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife: "In Washington, pink salmon runs only occur in odd-numbered years. Pinks have a very regular life history, living for two years before returning to spawn the next generation. This is why pink runs in Washington only occur every other year; there are no one-year-old or three-year-old fish to establish runs in the other years."

Don't get it? Just nod like you do and then go look it up!

©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!

iPhone photos . . .

Had to have the car serviced in Corvallis yesterday and, as usual, we walked through some of the back alleys so I could find grunge, texture, maybe something weird.

I have a good eye for composition, but post-processing on the phone is a real challenge. Most of these were processed using Photo Toaster and Snapseed. I then brought them into the desktop computer, put the black frames around them with my signature, and then they're ready to upload.

Much more study and experimentation in the future, but for now, I continue slogging along. I have the utmost admiration for those of you who do this well.

©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!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I've got a collection of old grungy paintbrushes (and some of you are saying, "of course you do!"). They were in the studio. The phone was in the studio. So I placed the brushes in front of a monoprint to give them an appropriate background and took a few photos. Processed with Snapseed.

©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!

iPhone test...

Testing the possibility of "mobile blogging" and the iPhone camera. I shot a pottery bowl (thank you, June!) containing rocks found on the beach. iPhone 6+ plus Snapseed and Photo Toaster. This post created in-phone, so not sure how it will look on a "real" computer...

Hmmm . . . not bad, actually, on a "real" computer!

Copyright Carol Leigh