Photo of the Week! February 21st Edition

Here I am with this cockamamie 'Photo of the Week!' idea I came up with. I hope that you all will join in the fun, but even if you don't, it's gonna be fun for me. And really, 'fun for me' is what this blog is all about.

(Wink. Nod. Wink wink.)

Now, before we get started, I just have to ask you one thing... Before you read it up above, did you know how to spell cockamamie? Did you? Be honest. Because I didn't. I had to type a sorry version of it into Word (I think it was something like cacamayme or cacatootoo or cockitoome) so that it could spell check me and give me the correct spelling. But now I know better. And I feel empowered. I'm going to use that word way more than anyone ever should, just because I know how to spell it.

Alright, time to stop goofing off. It's time to get to the serious business of 'Photo of the Week!' Remember, anyone that stops by here can play along! Click here to read how.

Here is mine...

I chose it for a couple of reasons. The first is that I simply wanted to share this tree with you. It sits at the corner of our horse pasture, and when we moved here last summer, my sister and I were walking and I thought, "That would make a great tree for a tree house someday." And then you know what she said? "That would be a great tree to put a tree house in."

Great minds, I tell ya'.

Anyhow, every time I look at this tree I think about that tree house that might be, and my children happily playing in it. I'm hopeful. Then I think about how we might never have the time or the know-how to put a tree house in it (I don't think building a tree-house is as easy as it looks) and how someday I'll think of that tree house as 'the tree house that might have been'. I'm sad.

Hopeful. Sad. Hopeful. Sad.

It's silly, I know. I guess it just makes me think about how sometimes time goes so quickly, and before we know it we're looking back on things we haven't done. And that's o.k. when we know that our paths are in God's hands, but I'm just sayin' that this tree makes me feel all of these things -- rational or not -- and I wanted to share it with you.

Sometimes a tree is not just a tree.

Or sometimes a tree IS just a tree and Farmer Gal should get over herself.

The other reason that I picked this tree picture is that I had some fun editing it in Photoshop, and it lent itself to some colors that don't seem to end up in my photos quite as often, like the hint of teal in the sky. And just so that this isn't all fluff, I'm going to share with you how I edited this photo.

(You don't have to share your edits if you don't want to (although if you do, that would be fun!). I'm just including mine for fun and a very minimal educational value.)

Here we have the original...

I like this too. It's soft. Tranquil.

But I wanted to play around with it, so after opening it in Photoshop, I did this...

1. Created a duplicate layer (ctrl-J). This just lays a copy of the original on top of itself. By doing this you keep the edits from applying to the original. This is handy when you want to backtrack to where you started from.

2. With my new layer selected, I changed the blending mode to 'Hard Light'. This made my photo look like this...

See how it makes everything look... harder? More dramatic? That's what I was going for. Drama. Drama to represent the inner conflict that I feel every time I look at this tree.

(I know, I know, get over it already. Does anyone know how to build a tree house? I'll make you blackberry cobbler if you'll come help me.)

3. I bumped up the Curves to a slight S-curve, one point with an input of 94 and output of 72, and the other point with an input of 167 and output of 175. The difference between the previous view and the Curves edit was this...

(Edit with only the Hard Light adjustment is on the left. Edit with the Curves adjustment added is on the right.)

You can just barely tell, but the slight s-curve brought out the contrast between the light and dark in the photo a bit more. It also makes the sky a bit more dramatic.

4. I wanted to create just a tad more drama to the sky, so I played around with the color balance. With the 'Midtones' selected, I moved the Cyan/Red slider to the right (toward the red) to a value of +20. I left the Magenta/Green slider alone. I moved the Yellow/Blue slider to the left (toward the yellow) to a value of -20.

Then I selected the 'Shadows' (still under color balance) and pulled the Yellow/Blue slider to the right (toward the Blue) to a value of +15.

Next I selected the 'Highlights' and pulled the Yellow/Blue slider to the left (toward the yellow) to a value of -10. This just warmed up the light filtering through a bit.

Here's the comparison of the previous Curves edit (left) versus the addition of Color Balance changes (right)...

That was my last edit. Here's a side-by-side of the original and the final...

The way I edited this photo is quite a bit more dramatic than I usually would, but like I said, I was a bit of a drama queen about this tree, so I guess it translated in my editing choices. Normally I like to edit photos so that they better represent what my eye saw when I took the photo (when just the camera shot alone doesn't quite do this), but every once in awhile it's fun to be more... Well.... Dramatic.

I do apologize because I wanted to share my camera settings when taking the original photo, but I realized that it was lost when I transferred it to my computer. Next time I will be sure to include this.

NOW, if you've made it this far...

1. You're a trooper.
2. If you'd like to play along, and haven't done so already, read this.
3. Please share your own photo of the week and a story to go with it if you'd like...
4. ...and/or...
5. ...tell me if you knew how to spell cockamamie.

It will just help me to know I'm not alone in this world.

p.s. Here is an example of a permalink, using html code, that you can use in the comments section. I'm using Patty's post...

You can also paste your permalink into the 'Author URL' field. Hope this helps!

Comments

[patty]

I saw your comment at BrownEyedFox... and am excited about this!

First, I did NOT know how to spell cockamamie, so thank-you for that- I do feel empowered. :) Love BOTh of your images; the original is soft and calming, the editted is dramatic and beautiful. Do you use PS of PSE, just curious...?

I'm not sure how to make my perkmalink clickable... :) maybe you could advise?

http://blessedmoon.squarespace.com/journal/2010/2/20/lucky-green-photo-of-the-week.html

[Farmer Gal]

Patty - Thank you for your honesty regarding the word 'cockamamie'. I use Photoshop 7.

I wanted to tell you how to do the permalink here, but every time I type it in it... Well... Creates the link! And then you can't see the html code behind it. So, instead I'm putting a jpg of the code up in my post. When you type this into your comment, it should come out looking like this...

Lucky Green

[Cate]

Hi there,

Patty told me that I HAD to pop over here and join in, so being a good girl who does what she is told - here I am!

I've also started a regular post called "Sunday's Share" where I am encouraging people to post images or words that have inspired them this last week - that in turn will inspire others for the next week. Hope that you'll join with me on that one too., as it seems to segue quite nicely with your Photo of the Week.

Cheers,
Cate

[Greg]

Love that old cottonwood. It hardly looks like the same tree I remember. I'll never forget when it used to "shed" its cotton. It was like snow in the sunshine! If there was a strong breeze it would pile up just like wind blown snow.
Enjoyed the photo and the photoshoped version. If I'm not careful I could learn something!