smith-corona orphan finds a home

Well, look what I found on my doorstep last week.

My niece found this old beauty with some family belongings, and thought of me. Go figure. Not only do I like old stuff, I like taking photos of old stuff. How lucky can a girl get? Isn’t it a beauty? Oh, I know she’s not as old as some of the lovelies showing up in the Mortal Muses Flickr pool, but she’s been around for a long while.

I have a confession to make. I learned how to type on one of these oldies.

Any of you remember what this part is for? Yes, that’s right, instead of using that handy little Enter key on your keyboard, you had to remember to raise your hand up and push the handle over to the right to begin another line. I think I should write a poem expressing my love for my enter key.

And look at those keys. Can you imagine having to press down those keys now? How did we ever get any speed at all, typing on one of those?
If you enjoy looking at vintage goodies, be sure to check out the Mortal Muses blog this week, the theme is Antiques and the Mortal Muses flickr pool is full of beautiful vintage items.

I’ll be posting my Antique photo challenge on Friday at Mortal Muses. Now if I can just decide what to shoot. *grin*

♥ maureen

grunge barn & a recipe

Hello blog peeps. How is your weekend? I've had a lovely one so far.
We have had a break in the extreme heat we’ve been experiencing and it was time to get outside and catch up on yard work. Is it me, or do weeds thrive in 100º temps?
After working around the house for most of the day on Saturday, I decided to grab my camera and take a drive. The sun was quickly dropping toward the horizon, and I was hopeful that I would find an old barn or something interesting to shoot before I lost the light.
I got lucky, just a few miles outside of town and found a lovely old barn, peeling paint and all.

I quickly took some shots before I lost the light, and made a note to return to explore it further. At home, viewing my photos on my computer, I was reminded of Kim’s shots of her evening prairie drive.  I used her recipe posted here, for the most part, and her new Extreme Grunge texture on the barn shot.

I took this shot of another weathered, smaller building near the barn.
I love that old handle.

 

I used textures from Jerry at Shadowhouse Creations for the second image.

My recipe for the second image: 

1. 
   
   Duplicated the background layer and changed the blending mode to soft light 70% opacity. 
2. 
   
   To remove most of the color I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer, adjusted saturation -59 and adjusted light to +4. 
3. 
   
   For the first texture, All Hell Breaks Loose, I set the blending mode to Multiply and left the opacity at 100%.
4. 
   
   For the next texture, What’s it’s Name, I set the blending mode to Overlay and adjusted the opacity to 73%.

And that's it. easy peasy. Be sure to mouse over the images for the before & after.
And that’s likely the only type of recipe you’ll get from me. I don’t spend much time in the kitchen anymore. :)



Thanks for stopping by,  have an inspired week.

♥ maureen

edited
aak . . . okay Blogger, what's up with the formatting on the numbered list?

happy fence friday

Another photo from Augusta, MO. The town is full of quaint scenes. And fences! So many cute fences in such a small area. The birdhouses above were perched on top of a white picket fence.

You may remember the purple fence I posted a few weeks ago. This is the darling little cottage inside that unique fence.

In front of the house is an iron gate with a trellis. All of it, too. stinkin. cute.

One more fence shot (for today anyway, I do have some more on my camera card)

taken right across the street actually.

Well worth the trip. Pretty scenes and a nice glass of wine at the end of the day.

What about you? Have you been anywhere fun this summer? Even for an afternoon?

black and white . . . almost

My turn to post at Mortal Muses today. The current prompt is black and white. I don’t often shoot in B&W, I usually have to be, um, pushed inspired into it. I just don’t think that way.

I tried a few different shots, but I was still coming up empty handed.

And then I saw a photo in the Mortal Muses flickr pool. It really caught my eye, so simple, so beautiful. I remembered there was a similar shot on the card in my camera.

This is the original straight-out-of-the-camera shot. Pretty in pink, isn't it?

You can see the B&W version here. And I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

But I wanted to try a bit of color in this shot.

So, I tried Kim's recipe and texture, Uncle Clarence, on it.

So sweet and soft, dreamy.

Because I am a texture addict, I decided to try it again a little differently.

This time I used Kim's Beatles inspired texture She Loves You Yeah.

Soft, with a hint of pink.

These beautiful, delicate hydrangeas make me think of a bridal bouquet.

I thought Kim’s She Loves You Yeah texture was a proper choice to compliment them.

Be sure to make a visit to the Mortal Muses blog and flickr group. Lots of inspiring images there. We’d love to have you join us. If you are inspired by what you see on the Mortal Muses blog or flickr pool, I’d love to know. Leave a link to your blog or flickr stream in the comments so we can see your images.

♥ maureen

my buddy

buddy . . .  the bud man . . .  mr underfoot . . .

has a guest appearance over at the Mortal Muses blog today

look at that face

all he wants is for someone to throw. the. ball.

c'mon mom, step away from the computer

have a great week!

sunny saturday & a giveaway reminder

the weekend is finally here, and I’m frantically trying to catch up with

things I’d rather not do

laundry

cutting the grass

cleaning the bath

grocery shopping, blech

and

things I love doing

Flickr surfing

blog hopping

taking photos

processing photos

reading my new copies of Artful Blogging & Where Women Create

how many hours are in a weekend?

never enough

I took the above photo during a walk through the

Farmer’s Market in Naples last weekend.

is it really only seven days since I was in sunny Florida? *sigh*

I used Kim Klassen’s Create overlay and 

the texture Vintage Ochre 1 by Rhonna Farrer on the sunflower image.

Also, don’t forget to enter the giveaway over at the Mortal Muses blog.

You could win this darling vintage camera

and

your very own set of textures from Kim Klassen.

drawing closes Sunday night and winner will be announced on Tuesday

hope you find time to do the things you love this weekend

happy purple fence friday

 Isn’t that the craziest fence? I love it. How can you not love it, it’s purple. Doesn’t it have a sort of cottage-y Alice in Wonderland, Disney meets Barney look to it? I came upon it while taking an early morning walk when visiting Augusta, Missouri. The house and grounds really are story-book cute.

This unique fence was along two sides of a darling cottage.  Built in 1867, it’s a guest cottage that’s part of the H.S. Clay House Bed & Breakfast Inn, located in Augusta, MO.  Looks like a fun place to stay, with just a short walk to a local winery.

happy fench friday ♥

 

shooting in manual mode

Happy Thursday bloggy friends.

I was looking through my book shelf recently, and decided perhaps it was time for another book review. This time it’s a photography book. If you are still shooting in auto mode, and want to take a walk on the wild side and turn that dial to M, this book is for you.

sorry, you can't look in side the book here, have to go to Amazon for that.

I borrowed Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson,  from the library the first week I had my shiny new Rebel. I sat down with the book and my camera and went through page by page, doing the ‘exercises’ as he suggests. From the beginning, because of this book, I’ve been shooting with my camera on manual. I’m more comfortable in manual mode than any other. Now, that’s not to say that I always get the ‘correct’ exposure, but I usually know what went wrong when I get an under or over exposed shot.

Bryan Peterson does an amazing job of explaining what he refers to as the Photographic Triangle. Aperture, shutter speed and ISO and how they impact each other.

18-55 mm at 21 mm, f/16 for 1.3 sec., ISO 100

There are lots of photos in the book, all with notations of lens, aperture and shutter speed. Often with multiple photos of the same object, shot with different settings so you get a clear idea of what happens when you change your settings.
I was inspired by his photos in the book to get the Ferris wheel shot above. He clearly explains what settings to use. I simply stuck my camera on a tripod, dialed up the settings he used and this is what I got. First try.
He explains why to use different aperture settings for different effects {bokeh} and when to change shutter speed for different effects, like panning, or freezing motion.
There is also a section on light. Front light, overcast light, side light, backlight and how to meter for the different situations.

55-250mm lens at 250 mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec, ISO 100

Using my telephoto lens, with a shallow depth of field [f/5.6] allowed me to isolate this butterfly without having a busy background to distract from it.

The book is only 160 pages long, and includes lots of photos. It’s easy to read and understand, without a lot of technical jargon. It’s written for the amateur photographer to understand the basics.
I highly recommend you at least check this book out from the library and have a look, there is so much good information in it. Don't only take my word for it, there are 586, 5-star reviews on Amazon for Understanding Exposure.
After I had to return the library copy, I decided that Understanding Exposure has enough information it was worth having a copy for my own reference.

Edited to add

I found Bryan Petersen videos on YouTube! This video is  about creatively correct exposure, which he explains in this book.


Go, grab your camera, turn that dial to M and play.

beach time

I love how the Hipstamatic app makes this look like a vintage photo

Is it really August 9th already? Somehow I lost an entire week. Part of the week was spent in the company of family, on holiday in Florida. I was fortunate to spend an extended weekend in Naples. It was my first visit there, and oh my, was it beautiful. The trip was a last-minute opportunity to grab my bags and go & I enjoyed it sooooo much. Many thanks to my nephew Matthew for making all the arrangements and including me in the trip.

this little guy was so funny, he kept dancing around in circles watching me watching him

I have lots of catching up to do. Blog friends, Flickr friends, you have all been so busy. Creating. Sharing. Inspiring. I’ll be by for a visit soon.

*sigh* soooo beautiful

sunday creative

Sunday Creative prompt for last week was naked.  {I'm a bit behind}

Each morning I run past an elementary school playground. It always strikes me as sad. An empty playground. Naked of children. No shrieks of laughter, shouts of games and play. Soon. Soon the playground will again be full of the movement and noise of playful abandon.