God's Handiwork

I know that lots of folks don't believe in God, but I do.

I see a sunset like this and see it as His handiwork.

I love fiddling with images in Photoshop Elements. I tend to make minor changes in almost all of my photos.

I have my camera set as close to "flat" as I can make it. My photos tend to come out of the camera a bit dull compared to many cameras, since most people's cameras come from the factory set to enhance colors and contrast.

I then add my own amounts of contrast and color saturation as I see fit. I try to keep things as natural as I can, but there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate photograph, even in these digital days.

With 35mm film, I loved how Kodachrome tended to enhance reds, oranges, magenta, and that end of the color spectrum.

I found Fuji films to enhance greens and to a lesser extent, blues, and came to love Fuji slide film over Kodachrome after moving to Florida. The colors of the sunsets here generally needed no enhancements at all, but preferred how Fuji's slide films made the lush greenery jump out of the photos.

But even with my digital camera's controls set pretty flat, sometimes a sunset is so outrageous that the colors seem to have been added with Photoshop trickery.

Not in this photo. It's barely touched, just a smidgen of contrast and the border and copyright I add to my photos.

Good job, God. (If I may be so bold.)

Go Fly A Kite

On the beach in Indialantic, Florida.

Black and White #27

Someone left their treasures on the hand rail of the boardwalk along the beach. (Color version of this on my other blog today.)

A lady spends a peaceful evening ALONE at the beach. She has all she needs in the handy, rolling ice chest.

How many of you ladies out there would just love to have an afternoon on a warm breezy day to spend at the beach with no kids or husbands to bother you? All your favorite beverages and snacks and a good book to keep you company.

Also, you'll need to practice your "Don't even bother speaking to me" look before you go just in case some moron invades your personal space bubble and you can back them off with just a look.

Then just decompress.

Howdy! Nice Evenin' Aint' It?

When we were at the beach the other day, walking along the boardwalk there was this massive bush covered with these yellow flowers. They were each about 4 inches (10cm) across.

This one seemed to greet me as I looked over the rail at him. Thought I think the southern accent was projected on him by my own mind.

He's not dead, he's just mostly dead

(Any Princess Bride fans out there?)

Sorry about the non-posting and non-visiting of late.

Heavy work load, sleep and still dealing with my ever present back issues have kept me away from many things that I love to do.

Lovely Wife and I went to the beach Sunday afternoon and that was the first time I've been out with my camera in two months.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, though it was very windy and the surf was really churned up near the shore. The waves were pretty heavy.

In America, this is Memorial Day Weekend, with Monday being Memorial Day in memory of those who have served in the U.S. armed forces and died for the freedoms we enjoy.

I was not thinking of the holiday and when we got to the beach, I was shocked at all the people.

It wasn't totally overflowing like on Independence Day in July, but the crowds surprised me.

Today's photos aren't anything special, but they kind of captured a bit of the many cars and people out enjoying the beach and the beautiful day as we were.

A New Panorama

I took the photos for this panorama about a month ago. I just hadn't sat down and tried to stitch it together.

The light variation across the images was really too much to try to fix. I worked with it until I couldn't stand working on it any more.


Sorry for my absence, things are still kinda tough going for me right now.

Weird Stuff

This stuff is some kind of plant in the water down here, and sometimes washes up along the shores of the Indian River Lagoon. I have no idea what this stuff is but it's kinda neat looking.

Looks sort of like angel hair pasta.