When Good Editing Goes Bad

Just for fun, I thought I'd give you a behind-the-scenes look at some of the wonders of photo editing. I was inspired by the recent blog post of one of my favorite photographers who had the confidence to post one of her pictures "in the nude" so to speak.

Don't worry, she's fully clothed. Just the image is nude.

As a photographer, I find it very encouraging when I see other people's work in its natural state. For the longest time, I wondered why I could never get the results I wanted---then I started to realize how much magic happens post-production. So I love it when I get the chance to see a good "before" and "after" shot. You can see the blog here.

I've decided to do my own version, a sort of illustration of the power of editing used wisely---and not so wisely.

This is my original, untouched shot.

As you can see, it is not very flattering. Renaissance dresses as a whole were a terribly unflattering business. They seemed to have been designed solely to be a fancy, frilly frame for the bosoms.  I guess that was all that mattered back in those days.

Here I have brightened and warmed up the original.

But I still look like I'm wearing a brocade nightgown. Time to do a little weight-loss surgery!

Ok, so I look a little distorted. And yes, my head and hands look unnaturally big. But the rest of me is so skinny!

While I'm at it, why not add Rapunzel hair down to the ground?

It's been a long winter. Better try on some spray tan.

Yes, photo editing can be lots of fun. But use extreme caution. One minute you're making simple color adjustments and talking about maintaining photographic integrity and the next....

Spring Fever

We've been freezing all winter here by the Canadian border (Canada: where winter goes to spend the summer). And I'm sure that's no surprise to the rest of you, judging by all the news reports about freakishly low temperatures across the lower United States.

But we've finally had a reprieve. And what a reprieve!

It's been in the 40's and 50's for days and days of deliciousness now. To some of you that may seem like a cold snap, but if you've been living in the minuses, 40 feels glorious. We're talking shorts weather, Baby! (Not quite, but almost.)

It's also the perfect time for a little photography outbreak. It's so much easier to get the best performance out of your models when they're not in danger of freezing to death. Divas! However, since I was planning to be one of the models this time, I have to say that in this instance warmth was a good idea.

I've had a really cool place I wanted to shoot at for a while now. I first saw it this winter while I was driving home during a baby blizzard. An abandoned old farmstead, it was hidden and softened by the falling snowflakes, but I saw enough to know it was pretty amazing. Unlike most wooden structures up here, the owners had built their farm out of stone work. There was a house, a stable, the foundation of a large barn and what looked like a chicken coop. I made a mental note to come back some day in better weather and check it out.

 
Well, the site more than lived up to my expectations and Tiggy and I began making plans to meet after school for some beauty shots of both of us. Pretty ambitious plan, to try to be both the photographer and the model in the same afternoon. Usually I spend a good portion of any given photo shoot on the ground searching for the best angles---not something I was eager to do in a fancy dress! Not to mention the constraints of a dress that was NOT made for vigorous activity.

Still, I hoped with a little planning I could make it work. I brought along a quilt to lie on in case that became necessary.

And I wore puddle stomper boots on my feet. Not very delicate, but a good call....

 Especially when I looked down at one point and found myself ankle deep in an ancient, yet somehow fresh and juicy, cow pie.

Someone else I know wore only slipper boots. Someone else was sorry. Very sorry.

Yes, I had it all covered. Except for the part about full-charged batteries. THAT part I left out! And so it was that after only a few pictures of Tiggy, my first battery died.

So. Not. Fair.

I changed batteries, but I knew the second one never lasted long and I only had a few minutes before it went dead, too.

Naturally, those few minutes were spent taking pictures of me. Hey, I only get fixed up every couple of years----this was an event!

Tiggy was playing mood music on her Iphone so we could be "just like real models", but once she started holding the camera, she had nowhere to put her phone. The ground was the consistency of thick soup, so we didn't dare set it down anywhere. I ended up with it stuck inside my sleeve. Interesting trying to be a romantic renaissance maiden while your arm plays Taylor Swift....

And then---the last battery died. After the heart-rending cries of dismay were over, I decided to make the best of it and use Tiggy's Iphone to take some more pictures----might as well as long as we were there. I'd never done much with smart phone photography before, but it was kind of fun and the picture quality was decent.

Until the Iphone battery died.

After that we went back to the house and charged up her phone for a few minutes so we could take some more pictures out in the yard. Not the most romantic place in the world, but better than nothing.

All the rest of these were taken with the Iphone. But don't feel bad if you've never gotten results like this---they were all edited to death on my computer in post-production.

This gentle "stream" is actually a mud puddle in my front yard. It's amazing what a little creative cropping will do! And it came with a bonus drowned rodent floating in it. Yech!

The flowing "stream" in real life...

And with a  little photo-shop magic...

Yes, digital editing is a wonderful thing. At last, we can always look skinny, never have flaws, and remain radiant and ageless...as long as we never actually leave the house so people see us in person!

Life

I used to have one.

A life, that is.

But that was then, this is now.

I started my new job at the end of December. I began my two college classes, Introduction to Computers and Incomprehensible Algebra in mid-January. Neither life-change by itself would be that challenging, but the two of them together have managed to suck up whatever spare time I used to have.

So I get up in the morning, head off to work, come home to let the dogs out, then drive back into town to wrestle with algebra for an hour or so. Once in a while, I am so excited to have an evening to myself-----and get to indulge in activities like washing dishes, putting away laundry, or clearing away clutter. Last night I even mopped my floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And on a very good day, I even snatch a few minutes to run outside with a camera. It's helped with the motivation that the weather has been a wee bit warmer this past week. Stuff has to be pretty doggone beautiful to tempt me out when the temperatures are below zero.

We even got a 4-inch snowfall one of the days. It was beautiful, fluffy snow, the kind we don't get very often. The typical prairie snow is more like grit out of a sandblaster, but this stuff settled like a delicate cloak over everything, beautifying and freshening our winter-worn landscape.

Then one of the mornings we even had a little bit of fog. Back in California, you don't get excited about fog. January and February are National Fog Months there, and you don't see the sun unless you head up a mountain and get above the clouds. But here fog is a little more rare and can certainly add to the beauty of a winter morning.

No, there's nothing like the magical loveliness of winter.


I can't WAIT until spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting My Vitamin D

After all the cold weather in December and early January, people were beginning to expect a very cold winter. And don't get me wrong, it's not too late for that, by any means! But lately, we've been enjoying almost spring-like temperatures in the 30's and even 40's. Our snow is almost melted, which could actually be a very bad thing if the temperature suddenly plummets again. A thick layer of snow is what protects all the plants from tragic and early demises each winter.

Besides, snow is kind of critical for skiing and sledding.

But if you can't have sledding and skiing, at least there's some great hiking around here. Saturday was a beautiful day with temperatures warm in the 20's and 30's. There was a bit of a wind so I had to bundle up, but otherwise I could almost have gone without my jacket.

I took both dogs with me for the company---and to protect me from any rabid pheasants I might run across. Cooper is loving all the wide open spaces.

I only walked about 4 miles, but I think the dogs ran about 5 times that. They would plop down in the snow and take snow baths when they got too hot.

It was so pretty and peaceful. It's actually kind of hard not to be peaceful when there's not another soul for miles. 

 
I hiked through several different types of fields on my walk. First there was a whole field of bare dirt, plowed under by the farmers in the fall in preparation for spring planting. Then there was the wild, uncultivated parts that farmers are subsidized to leave undeveloped. That might be great for the wildlife, but they are considerably less fun for humans to traipse through. The nice, smooth-shorn slopes of the alfalfa fields were a delight and I heartily recommend them. Wheat stubble looks easy to walk through, but by the end of a 3 hour hike those little trenches filled with snow are a lot more challenging than they appear!

 It was such a treat to get outside again. Winter can get to feeling a little claustrophobic at times...I'm grateful for good health and a functional body that allows me to get outside and enjoy myself. Even if I do have to come home and take a nap afterward!

Punting It Down the Field

 

When I was little, I was often told how much I looked---and acted---like my mother. I was little. I was cute. I was funny. She enjoyed the comparison

As I'm getting older, more and more often I am hearing from my mom, "You are just like your father." Usually this happens when I am displaying characteristics such as determination (stubbornness), confidence (close-mindedness), and focus (obtuseness).

Evidently my genes didn't splash only in her side of the pool.

But there is one key way I am totally unlike my father, much to his everlasting regret. And that attribute was on full display yesterday.

My dad would make a Boy Scout look bad. His motto is "Be prepared----for anything and everything up to AND including world destruction." The back-up systems of his back-up systems have back-up systems.

He's tried to instill the same ethic into me, especially now that I live out in the country by myself. And to a certain extent, it's worked. I like having lots of back-up systems. That way, I have lots of things that can quit working before I ever actually have to do anything about it!

This same mentality carries over to my cars. As long as they are still running, I can deal with minor annoyances like most of my lights not working, or a door that's stuck on with duct tape. But eventually I reach that certain point where something must be done. The last headlight flickers out, or the last working door stops opening. And that is when I put my Extreme Back-up Plan into action---the CFD.

Call For Daddy!

Last spring, I bought a new-to-me car. Well, I started making payments on it, and this month I made the final one. It is all mine now, so naturally it is time for things to start breaking. When I bought it, it already had the funny little quirk that the gas tank door wouldn't open unless you used the manual release in the trunk.

No problem. I could handle that.

Then, when the cold weather hit, I started having trouble with the trunk. It wouldn't latch properly.

No problem. I could jiggle the latch around until it caught.

Everything in my system was going ever so smoothly until the day came when the trunk wouldn't open and the gas tank door was latched shut. At least I still had a full tank of gas, right? No need to worry about it yet...

But yesterday, a whole 6 months worth of chickens came home to roost when I couldn't open my trunk, couldn't open my gas tank, and was out of gas. Time to implement the Extreme Back-up Plan!

Is it just me, or is the Extreme Back-up Plan getting noisier? Seems to have a constant low-level grumbling noise emanating from the motor and something like the sound of teeth grinding in the gears. I should probably have that looked at----but no need to rush.

Why do today what I can put off til tomorrow?

Book Worm

When Finley was a young, impetuous pup, he had a number of strange chewing habits. He loved to steal picture frames and chew the supports off the back. He loved to eat the binding off of books, especially leather ones, and a number of very nice Bibles bit the dust. He also had a bit of a bra fetish and snatched one whenever he was able so he could run gleefully through the house with me in hot pursuit.

We don't talk about that much.

Thankfully, maturity has brought wisdom, and with wisdom, an end to those puppy peccadilloes.

But now, another has risen to take his place in the book chewing department. Pearl, one of our cats, loves to chew on anything paper that has corners. Sadly, this includes all books, my stock of circular-shaped books being very low at the moment.

My mom gave me a new book on photography for Christmas, The Unforgettable Photograph, by George Lange and Scott Mowbray. Well, actually it was a joint gift and I am supposed to share it with my sister---which I will---eventually.  Pearly found it entrancing. Fascinating, even. In short, she devoured it.

She wasn't the only one that enjoyed the book, though I chose to do it in a somewhat less literal sense. I must confess that my ego found it a little simplistic the first few pages---you know, the whole "I already know that..." kind of thing.

But I ended up really enjoying the book, in part because of that self same simplicity. It wasn't about the technical side of photography. It didn't try to teach me how to be a world-famous photographer OR rub it in that I could never hope to be a world famous photographer like him.

"You can feel the flow of moments, like feeling the flow of music. That feeling is essential to taking good pictures; it's as important as having a good eye. Ask yourself. 'What makes this moment and these people extraordinary?' Ask that, rather than, 'What's the pose?' or "How am I cropping this?'"


The book simply encourages its readers to love pictures and to use them to tell their own story. It was a fun reminder to throw perfection to the winds and just get out there with a camera. To be in the moment, thinking and feeling---then to try to capture those thoughts and emotions in a photograph. Most of all, to have fun telling my story.

And right now my story is cold. And snowy.

There really isn't much else to tell in North Dakota in the winter...

Chocolate Cherry Explosion Cake

If you like maraschino cherries and chocolate (I know, who doesn't?), than you will love this recipe. I got it from a lady at our community Thanksgiving dinner and am passing it on to you. Something this yummy is too good to keep to myself!

The idea is simple, as all great ideas usually are. The cake uses the same basic idea as a pineapple upside down cake, but you make with chocolate and cherries instead.

To make the cake, pour 2 jars of maraschino cherries WITH JUICE into the bottom of a greased casserole dish. (I found that it does tend to overflow during the baking, so putting a pan on the rack underneath will save your oven unnecessary hardships.) Sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Then slice a stick of butter or margarine into thin pieces and spread them over the cherries and sugar.

Pour the chocolate cake batter into the pan and bake at 350 until the cake is done by the usual signs---toothpick in the center comes out clean, top is firm to touch, cake has pulled away from the edges, etc.

Below is the cake recipe I used when making the chocolate cherry cake. I got it off  The Little House Living blog, which you can see here . It's a very simple cake to make, quick and easy. An added plus is that it uses no dairy or eggs---that means it's almost healthy!

                

Chocolate Cake

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cups oil

2 cups water

Mix all the ingredients and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

Thank you, Lady of Mystery, for your delicious idea. Next time, perhaps you can give me a nice exercise video to balance things out!