I started this blog in 2006 to share my job hunting journey in my fields of technology and education and to share my amateur photography passion. However since then I've strayed into other topics, including (oddly) Marilyn Monroe; a piece of Americana called the Cafe Rienzi; Belgian draft mules; antiques and furniture refinishing; artists Firma Duchene Philips, Tom Durant, and David Grosblatt; and a television series called PREY. And those are just for starters - so browse and enjoy!
Prairie Light eBook Series
Check out Jeanne's new ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Store:
Every once in a while Mother Nature sends us a beautiful misty morning when the clouds appear to rise up from the ground and end just above the tree-tops. Gaggles of geese fly low, cloaked in mist, and the shrouded sun rises on a hazy horizon. On these mornings, literally everything is drenched in dew, beads lining each blade of grass; each flower petal, stamen and pistil; and each little insect leg and antenna.
These mornings don't seem to come often.* This year there were two of them.
One such morning came for me in the early spring. The winter had been hard and very cold, but on the morning of April 17th, the world was newly green and blooming in the sun-kissed mist. I grabbed my camera to look for beaded spider webs and other wonders and was rewarded with the following pictures:
Magnolias in the mist
Morning dew and mist
Pasture through the mist
Reflecting dew drops on lily leaves and spider web
Another such morning came just this past September 12th. As the winter of 2015 had been unusually cold, so had the summer of 2015 been unusually wet. When the calendar reached August, I began to notice a predominance of spiderwebs in the yard. Actually I couldn't help but notice because I was always walking into them and brushing them out of my face and hair. =:o They would stretch from the tree branches all the way down to the ground and from the clothesline clear over to the flower beds that hug the summer kitchen. They adorned all the shrubs and bushes. On a sunny day I couldn't walk outside without unintentionally walking through a spider web! So when I awoke on this misty September morning, I grabbed my camera and went outside hoping to find spiderwebs bejeweled in dew. I was not disappointed. Our yard was literally decked out in spiderwebs that morning, especially along the shrubbery and the chicken run. I decided we'd been blessed with some very artistic spiders! I will end this post with a few samples from this once-in-a-lifetime misty-morning exhibit:
It's a cool morning three days past mid-August. There is no need to run fans, night or day, and the windows remain wide open even though an intermittently cloudy sky has been spitting rain. Through the windows floats a cool breeze and the almost constant crescendo and diminuendo of the cicadas' chorus, drowning out other songs of summer. The school buses have started running their routes again. In stores and nurseries all over town, the traditional stock of summer plants has disappeared almost overnight, replaced by Mums and pumpkins. Even though the bean and gold-tipped corn fields are still green and yards are awash in blooms, there's a feeling of fall in the air, signaled perhaps by the scent of summer growth maturing and seeding out, the aging light of a sun sitting lower in the sky, and by a slight change of pace as the traffic-flow starts to increase. The days are getting noticeably shorter.
Hello, World. Perchance send a gnat or a mosquito my way?
Welcome to my world!
Signs of encroaching fall aside, however, it is still mid-August. The tomatoes are red-ripe on the vine and the vegetables are fresh from the garden. There is still plenty of summer left to enjoy! One morning last week, a slight movement on a leaf of one of my cleomes drew my eye to this little baby tree frog outside my kitchen window. By the time I got outside with my camera and found him again, he was clinging to the cleome's seed pods - he's only about an inch long with his little spindly legs and suction-cup toes tucked around him - so tiny! Made me think of all the little tadpoles that occupied our flooded ditch this wet, wet summer and wonder if he had been one of them.
Tussock Moth Caterpillar
And WOO HOO! I finally have Monarch caterpillars on my Milkweed plants! The Milkweed plants I came by a few years ago at the Master Gardeners' Garden Expo. I always look forward to this annual spring event at the fairgrounds because the Master Gardeners dig and sell plants from their own yards and gardens. It's a great way to get inexpensive starts of plants that are resilient in this area of the country. Various vendors also participate and the Master Gardeners offer educational lectures as well. This particular year, I stopped at the booth of a lady who was advocating to save the Monarch butterfly. I made a donation and she sold me a Milkweed plant. Milkweed plants have been happily thriving in my garden ever since. I had never really noticed any Monarch larvae on them, however. (Probably because I didn't know what Monarch larvae looked like, lol.) Then this summer I spotted five or six of the creatures shown above right crawling around on my Milkweed Plants. I was so excited! I assumed they were Monarch larvae. False alarm. They are actually Tussock moth larvae.
Monarch Caterpillar chewing away on a Milkweed leaf
So I was somewhat disappointed - and humbled because I had uploaded a photo on Facebook and told all my friends it was of a Monarch caterpillar. But a few days later, along comes the real deal (as show to the left)! I have spotted three of these on my Milkweed plants so far. So, enjoy the rest of your summer, and keep your fingers crossed along with me or send up a prayer that my little visitors survive to have long, happy, and productive lives!
Greetings, everyone who happens upon these pages! A few months ago I wrote a blog post introducing readers to my "Scrappy" photo gallery site. Today, I am announcing the website has just gotten its new "summer look" with new feature photos and one new exhibit:
Ben pulling a wagon with the Allis Chalmers D in Sunday's parade at the fair
Ben always exhibits his old Allis Chalmers D and Ford Series 2000 tractors at the County Fair Antique Tractor Exhibit and he and his son Steven drive them in the three tractor parades that take place during fair week. This year I tried to get a picture of all the entries at each parade. I didn't succeed 100% but I got most!
If you like county fairs and enjoy old tractors, drop by my photography site and have a look! While you're there, check out my other feature exhibits:
I wrote this post almost a couple of weeks ago at the end of July, so if the seasonal information seems dated, that's why. Today is a misty, cool August morning; the sun is not yet up and the ground is drenched with dew as are the spiderwebs. I hear the coo of the mourning dove at dawn. Then a honking sound alerts and I look up to see a flock of low-flying geese cloaked in mist making their way over our barn and I wish I'd had my camera at the ready.
Spiderweb in the morning mist
I'm always a little sad to see my ditch lilies go away at the end of July or early August. Actually it's kind of like that with every seasonal flower, starting with the forsythia, pussy willow, crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths of early spring, then progressing to the tulips, lilacs and all the blooming trees and bushes of May, and as we approach Memorial Day, of course the peonies. Then there are the roses and hollyhocks of June. Watching these favorites fade away gives me a feeling a wistfulness mixed with hope - like how it must feel standing on a shore watching a ship-load of your friends sail away on a year-long voyage and wondering if you'll live to see them all again.
But it's especially like that with the ditch lilies - I suppose because they accompany me most of the summer not only in my flower beds but in my house.
In the country the pace of summer usually picks up in July, right after Independence Day celebrations. The county fair is two weeks away and there are projects and entries to ready for the Home Show and 4H exhibits. There's pre-registration. Then there's getting these items to the Fair. And then there's the week of the fair, By then the weather usually turns blistering hot and the vegetable garden starts producing. There are summer family reunions to attend, the usual home chores to complete, the yard to mow, and the garden and flowers to water (but not this year). People start to meet themselves coming and going.
Ben and I really enjoyed the week of the fair this summer. Ben participated in three tractor parades and one night I brought my ninety-year-old mother, so we were there almost everyday for one reason or another. We usually ate dinner at the pork and cattlemen's tent and visited with friends and neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. Ben also loves the stand that sells roast'n ears (corn on the cob). The Extension Homemakers run a Country Kitchen that is air-conditioned. They serve breakfast and family style meals in the evenings - we usually eat there at least once with our friend Lowell Oesterling. And then there's the carnival. We get ice cream cones and lemon and orange shake-ups from the carnival vendors - and ever since I discovered funnel cakes at the State Fair a few years ago, I am always sorely tempted to buy one. YUM!
Ben pulling the surrey in Monday's Antique Tractor Parade
Ben defied the unusally rainy weather and drove his Ford and Allis-Chalmers tractors in for the Antique Tractor Exhibit the Friday before the fair, the Allis in the morning and the Ford after lunch. He pulled a little surrey with a fringe on top behind the Ford for the grand-kids to ride behind the tractor in the parades. I drove behind him on that second trip to town. Our half of the sky was sunny most of the way but all the while a vast black sky loomed before us. I could tell by the water tower that it had swallowed the fairgrounds. The rain cut loose a few blocks before we reached Teal Road. Ben pulled over and made a dash for the car but still got absolutely soaked. Good thing I thought to bring along a change of clothes, just in case!
Dairy Tent
The grand-kids worked in the dairy booth and showed dairy calves this year as well as participating in the rabbit and chicken exhibit. The rabbits and poultry are usually housed in the same building at the fairgrounds - one of my favorite exhibits, but this year sadly 4H participants couldn't bring their chickens, ducks, and geese in because of the avian flu. Instead the cages had photos in them - and I think the actual judging took place at people's homes and farms. We missed seeing all the beautiful and sometimes exotic poultry.
Double-page Scrapbooking Layout for the Fair
For my part, I usually bring entries for the Home Show's photography and scrapbooking exhibits. Every year I say it's going to be my last time, but every year I seem to end up with a few photos earmarked for the fair.
But today's farm story, while it occurred during fair week, actually took place at our farm - as a sort of respite from all the commotion and activities of a rather muddy fair. (Coming home to our old farmhouse in the country always seems so peaceful after being at the fair.) Tuesday of fair week, some former neighbors called and asked if they could bring their new neighbors out to see Kate and Annie, Ben's draft mules.
This little farm story starts with a Christmas gift a few years ago:
One Christmas I got a cute sunflower-seed bird-feeder in the shape of a snowman from my daughter. I hung it on a tree by the driveway to feed the winter birds.
That next summer, up pops a magnificent volunteer sunflower in my horse-hitch flower bed, close to where the bird feeder hung
One day after the sunflower matured and went to seed (sometime in July), I noticed a little goldfinch absorbed in eating the sunflower's seeds. I was able to get close enough to take this photo.
A portion of our yard between the road and our peony bed has been under water for at least two months because of the heavy rains in the mid-west this year (20 to 28 inches in a two-month period, according to different sources). Part of this area of the yard is actually intended to be a drainage ditch, but the rain water backed up over our driveway and into our row of peonies and stayed there, so a portion of our row of peonies as well as the surrounding lawn has gone aquatic. Ben thinks the pipe under the road is clogged, so yesterday, he got out the old sump pump, some blue discharge hosing, and a very long extension cord and proceeded to pump the water to another area of our yard where it could drain. When he was through, he commented that he had seen lots of tadpoles in the ditch.
In 2005 Ben and I packed up and moved to our present location just one (country-size) block down the road and a 100 years back in time. This was because we purchased the old yellow 1900's farmhouse with the two tall pine trees at the next intersection - after having lived in a modest 1950's ranch-style home since the early '80's. My husband being a country boy, both properties had some acreage - the one where we live now having 2.77 acres; so in 2009, just a few years after heart-valve replacement surgery, Ben bought a team of draft mules, Kate and Annie. That same summer we added chickens. And of course, the dog and cats go without saying, as most people who live in the country know (country folk don't have to buy their pets - their pets just show up on the door step). So we feel like we live on a little hobby farm, but I never thought to tell some of those country-living stories until I came across an interesting and attractive blog Fresh Eggs Daily. Lisa, the author of the blog, talks about raising chickens and ducks and using herbs in the nesting areas. She also sends out a weekly email entitled "The Week in Farm Photos."
So I thought, "Hey, there's an idea! Why not add yet another topic to this already over-crowded blog of mine and tell some of our own hobby-farm stories? LOL!
My readers in the Midwest will know how strange this summer has been. Almost like clockwork, everything seemed to go haywire after I turned 65 this spring. I strained my knee doing yard work and experienced complications going off some maintenance meds (luckily at age 65 I also became eligible for Medicare and can now afford medical services!) and the weirdness just went on from there. We have received anywhere from 18 to 28 inches of rain in May, June, and July, according to various sources. =:o This alone did a pretty effective job in keeping me off my leg and out of the yard not to mention keeping the farmers out of the fields to do their spraying and what-have-you. The rivers and creeks have overflowed their banks and remain unusually high for this time of year. And the vegetable gardens have been particularly hard hit by all the rain and lack of sunshine. Personally, I think this all started back in the winter of 2014. The infamous polar vortex of 2014 never quite went away, and as happened last year, summer and winter fought it out til the bitter end to see which would prevail - resulting in two cooler summers (I wore my flannels to bed in July both years) - as well as a very wet one this year with a bumper crop of mosquitoes and flies!
July started off, of course, with the 4th, which seemed unusally quiet this year. Practically right on its heels - or so it seemed, anyway - came the county fair with the Home Show and the Antique Tractor Show and the grand kids showing in 4-H. After that came the Alward-Davis Reunion. Now that's all past and we can focus on the rest of the summer - which seems strangely empty without fruits and vegetables to pick and cook and put up. Some of my flowers have been pretty happy with all the rain, especially the lilies. It's been a great year for transplanting and for planting new flowers - clear up til August! Everything I've stuck in the ground this summer has been generously watered-in by Mother Nature. However, I have never seen such a poor yield from the vegetable garden as we've had this year - and many of our neighbors tell the same story. Fruit and vegetables are sparse and small - our cabbages were about the size of small grapefruits. Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber vines all bear beautiful blossoms, but nary a fruit. Our tomatoes are small and not too abundant - but they do taste great! Even the apples are small - little bite-sized treats for Kate and Annie. We're thankful for the rare neighbors whose gardens somehow managed to prosper in spite of the rain and who took pity on our scraggly little garden and brought us green beans, cucumbers, and corn!
The crops are looking really good in the surrounding fields, however (except for the low spots). As a friend pointed out on Facebook recently, the corn truly is "as high as an elephant's eye!" I worried that the farmers would never be able to get into the fields and get the hay baled - and in that case how would we feed Kate and Annie this winter? But today Ben brought home six large bales and our supplier (a neighboring farmer) anticipates another cutting in September or October. The last few days of the fair and since have been absolutely gorgeous so maybe summer and sunshine have finally won out. Almost. I do like these temperate sunny days in the seventies and low eighties and the cooler nights - many of which we haven't had to even run a fan, let alone the air conditioner!
Anyway, this post is my way of introducing the topic - so stay tuned for the occasional Story from the Farm!
This post represents a departure from my usual topics, because it deals more with faith and spirituality as they concern political issues in today's world. I have touched on such topics before, just not in this blog. In the 1990's, I experienced a real epiphany when Ben and I enjoyed a tour of the Mennonite museum during a weekend getaway to Shipshewanna, Indiana. I wrote about that experience for my writer's group in an essay called "In Search of the Remnant."
Let me apologize ahead of time for this blog post and ask my readers to please bear with me because it does wander around a bit. I come from a family of geologists and paleontologists, so I tend to back away and take the long view.
I generally date the church's departure from "church-as-I-knew-it" (when I was growing up in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's) to the late 1980's and early 1990's,
I keep seeing all these wonderful online ads about textures and lately, Photoshop Actions and Overlays that you can purchase and apply to your photographs to turn them into works of art. Due to cookies and other forms of internet magic, these ads keep following me around, teasing me and tempting me! The results shown in these ads look absolutely beautiful and the products seem like they'd be fun to learn. Until I see the price tag, that is. These products may or may not make my photos beautiful, but one thing for sure, they can be prohibitively expensive. So I want some certainty before I buy.
I've always loved drifting petals and petal drifts. A couple of years ago I happened to be in Virginia during cherry blossom time. Not only were the cherry trees gorgeous, but their drifting petals filled the air like falling snow. Seriously. I even tried to capture it on video.
So back home in Indiana this spring when the petals on my beautiful magnolia tree started blanketing the ground, I thought I would try to capture their descent. I guess there are many ways you could approach this ... a close up of a single petal in mid-air, a long exposure that would leave a trail of movement or even a multiple exposure showing the descent of a petal. All challenging shots in their own right (at least for me).
As it turns out, a simple, straight-forward approach was enough of a challenge! It's not easy to capture a petal in flight. But let me digress. Back in March I went with a friend to the Indianapolis Flower and Patio show at the state fairgrounds. While I was admiring a particular landscape display, a little book entitled "Steal Like an Artist" lying a coffee table caught my eye. The landscaper told me that his daughter was an artist and that this was her favorite book. Intrigued, I snapped a photo. When I got home, I ordered this book and another entitled "Show Your Work," both in ebook format and both by the same author Austin Kleon. I enjoyed them both, especially the latter. Some concepts I garnered from Austin are that you need to find a group of like-minded people - or let them find you; that online is the best venue for meeting like-minded people these days; and that to be found online you need to establish a long-lived online presence. Last but not least you need to show your work - only work to Austin is not just the final product - but also the process. He says we should be active everyday and share bits and pieces of things we are working on ... So I'm going to share a few lessons learned from some 200 attempts to capture petals in flight. I know, kinda lame, but it is one of the things I've been trying to learn how to do in my photography.
If you're going for stop-action on moving objects, then you need high shutter-speed (burst shooting capability is also nice). So any setting that gives you the highest viable shutter speed (whether you choose a wide-aperture or work in shutter-speed priority) is good. Also, for high shutter-speed you'll need good light - so early to mid-afternoon with its usually problematic high contrast is not necessarily a bad time of day in this case.
Multiple vantage points work, but I found in looking at some of my 200 photos, that petals show up best either silhouetted against the sky or against something light - or if the petals themselves are gleaming in the sunlight, against something darker. In the wide-open Indiana prairies, petals do not fill the air like drifting snow (unlike Virginia). So wait for a breeze gust or better yet a steady wind. Aim and focus toward the direction the wind is blowing the petals to have a better chance of catching them. Focusing or metering on the trunk of the tree provided me a fairly nice medium gray tone and adequate depth of field. (I should also mention that the sun was at my back, in the west - and I forget whether I set the camera to spot-meter or to center-weight meter.) Also if you can, position yourself where you can see the top of the tree. Wait to see several blossoms start to descend - and press and hold that button! If you're lucky you'll catch 'em in mid-air. My frustration was that my camera only did three bursts and then lagged in recording them, thereby limiting my ability to keep shooting. Probably using a tripod and remote control would be good - but I need to brush up on those skills. I set the camera to ISO 100 which gives sharp, beautiful detail (but higher ISO's will allow you to work at higher shutter speeds). I think in my best shot I forgot I had set the focus to macro or macro zoom - and that actually lent a nice little exaggeration to the photo. (Or maybe that's just my imagination.) In post-processing, perhaps adding a motion filter to the photo would also help emphasize falling or drifting petals.
Falling and drifting magnolia blossoms - best viewed full screen
Falling and drifting magnolia blossoms - zoomed in
My final thought on this topic, is that this shot was a lot of work for relatively little return (capturing about seven little petals in flight), and is probably more easily and successfully attempted in Virginia during cherry blossom time. ;)
In the meantime, happy shutter-bugging!
JuneBug
May and June
In May and June when the flowers bloom, and the air is filled with a sweet perfume, and the petals blow like the drifting snow, then the neighbors forget their winter woe and greet one another on a sunset stroll.
May is the month I turn sixty-five and go on Medicare. (Yay, real honest-to-goodness health insurance where you pay an affordable fee and in return, they actually do something for you!) Actually I've been retired for almost two years now (due to serious family illnesses requiring my extended presence on the east coast), so, alas Liz Ryan's recent article at Forbes.com How to Job Hunt After Getting Fired comes along a bit late for me (where were you when I needed you, Liz - yeah, I know, probably still in high school, lol). But given that one of my original purposes for starting this blog was to network and connect about work life and job hunting, I just had to pass this helpful article along to those who may still be in the trenches. I thought the author offered an extremely sane and practical approach to what can be a daunting dilemma.
While I was at Forbes, I came across another other good article by Liz, the link to which follows:
Some time ago, I posted an article about a great new social sharing site for photographers called YouPIC. I responded to their Facebook ad in January and visited their site. They had a spectacular photo featured on their front page and also made some pretty startling claims on that page, to wit:
"Find high quality inspiration for your photography from millions of photographers"
"Showcase your best shots and be rewarded with tremendous exposure, awards, and love"
"Improve your photography dramatically ..."
Just by joining a site and uploading your photos? Even though I was a bit skeptical, I joined this online community, which is free and allows unlimited uploads.
I belong to a community of photographers at a site called YouPIC. Photographers on YouPIC take marvelous photos from all over the world. They rise early, they take their camera (and sometimes other gear) in hand, and they venture forth into the world to find that shot. They find wonderful vantage points and take photos of unbelievably beautiful places. And people. And animals. But I am a retired lady who lives in southern Tippecanoe County near Lafayette, Indiana. Let's face it - I'm more of a point-and-shoot photographer. I take pictures of everyday beauty as I go about my everyday life.
Thinking into this further, I realize that much that catches my eye is from a vantage point that is unattainable to the camera, for instance the driver's seat of a car speeding down the highway. Or at home from behind my screened, locked-against-the-wind (as much as against any intruders), plastic-wrapped window. Somehow when I pull the car over or step out of the house to get the shot, the image is different - because the vantage point has changed.
One evening a couple of weeks ago before sunset - the golden hour - I was quite happily resting in my favorite spot, my old rocker by a tall narrow window in the summer kitchen. I looked out the window at the view and saw my beautiful magnolia tree in bloom, with some of the petals starting to drop. The day had been cloudy but had cleared around sunset and the light was beautiful on the tree and that section of my yard. I spent a half hour or so quite contentedly taking photos of that scene. I opened the window and threw up the screen - the breeze was pleasant, really the first mild spring temperatures we'd had this year. After a while my kitties wandered into the yard and sat on a tree stump and in the grass to enjoy the peacefulness and serenity. So then the subject of my shutter-bugging changed. Afterwards it occurred to me that the reason I had not seen this view before was that we had sadly lost a big old tree last summer in that section of the yard (ergo, the stump). It had been blocking the view. So these are probably the best shots I've ever gotten of the magnolia tree in the ten years I've been trying from various other vantage points outside!
Armchair Magnolia
Armchair Magnolia
Yard at Sunset from Back Window
Yard at Sunset from Back Window
I think I need to invent a new genre called Armchair Photography - vantage points for the rest of us! :)
Here's a photo I had during another armchair session just this evening during a beautiful golden hour!
And yet another later in the season during the early morning!
Greetings, everyone who happens upon these pages! A few months ago I wrote a blog post introducing readers to my "Scrappy" photo gallery site. Today, I am announcing the website has just gotten its new "spring look" with new feature photos and four new exhibits:
Hi, fellow photography afficionados! As per the title of this blog post, I wanted to alert you to a really, Really (REALLY) great new social sharing site for photographers called YouPic!
It's sort of a cross between Facebook and YouTube, so everybody gets a home page and a "feed" page
I get to see dozens of beautiful and inspiring photographs any time of day or night
and it's gotten my photographs more of a global audience than ANY OTHER SITE EVER, and that includes my own photography site!
What's not to like?
Well, I could go on and on but to give you a better idea of what it's all about, here's what YouPic says about themselves:
"YOU Inspired: Find high quality inspiration for your photography from millions of photographers."
"YOU Admired: Showcase your best shots and be rewarded with tremendous exposure, awards, and love."
"YOU Improved: Improve your photography dramatically with photography tips from peers and by following your progress"
Wow. What could you possibly have to lose? I know what you're thinking. Is it just hype or is all that really true? Well, ever since I uploaded my first photo (after responding to an ad that appeared on Facebook January 1, 2015), I've gotten 12,486 views, have been liked (favorited) 1,088 times, and have been shared (re-pic'd) 571 times. In only two months time! Plus, I've gotten to see, like, and comment on hundreds of fabulous photos in the categories of nature, landscape, black and white photography, street photography, portraiture, fine art photography, etc. from all over the world, in similar fashion as one would view or comment on Facebook entries. I feel like a world traveler without ever leaving home! :)
Other participants at the site have been so generous and so kind. It helps, I think, that YouPic uses an award system (and a points system) to encourage people to interact. And the more you interact, the more photographers interact with you. Even as a hobbyist I'm not a great photographer, and I certainly don't have expensive or fancy equipment. But on YouPic really great photographers actually take the time to enjoy my photos! What photographer wouldn't like that?
So, has my photography improved as they claim it will? Well, only time will tell, but I truly believe my photos will improve. For one thing, I can read what people say about their individual process, see what brands and types of cameras they use, and also see what camera settings they use to achieve a particular effect. Besides, I think it just helps to look lots of good photos from fellow enthusiasts - Other people's photos help you see the world in new ways, see things you've never noticed, and perhaps give more thought to how you want to fill your frame before you press the button.
Anyway ... you can tune into your favorite news channel and get all the bad news going on in the world. Or you can join YouPic and see all the beautiful photos coming in from all over the world. The choice is yours, but I think you know which one I'd recommend! Warning, though - just like bad news, beauty can be addictive!
:)
JuneBug
P.S. Here's a link to my YouPic home page. Come on over and have a look! Better yet, come on over and join us! Again, what do you have to lose? (except possibly some time well-spent?) :)
Junebug's watercolor rendition, derived from various methods. See
original photo taken in 2003 at the Attica Potawatomi Festival Parade - "Sunshine Queen"
If you google the phrase "how-to turn photo into watercolor tutorial" you'll get about 1,700,000 million results (as of this writing). To date I have only tried out four or five of these (see list below), so this little post by no means represents a comprehensive survey of the literature. ;) But if (like me) you genuinely want to know more about this topic, you have to start somewhere.
I started years ago by simply applying Photoshop's filters to not-so-optimal photos just to play with the software or to experiment with preserving a beautiful memory. But I felt I could do better if I only knew more ...
