Sentinel Tree, Sublimity, Oregon, No. 5

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Here's the altered image that inspired the comment from my Flickr friend which, in turn, inspired these five posts this week and my name for the tree. He commented, "Looks like it is the guard for these rolling fields."

Say good-bye to the Sentinel Tree, but if you missed any of the other alterations, please take a look at the posts from Monday through Thursday this week. Today's alteration, the Orton app from PicMonkey.

Sentinel Tree, Sublimity, Oregon, No. 4

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Today's treatment of this photo is called Underpainting. I found that alteration app at BeFunky. It certainly changed the look of the Sentinel Tree and the fields around it.

In case you haven't been here this week, here's the back story: A Flickr friend who lives in Portland commented on an altered version this photo that I will post later this week. I took the name for today's post from his comment, "Looks like it is the guard for these rolling fields."

Tomorrow I'll share the photo that inspired my friend's comment. Thanks, Terry!

Sentinel Tree, Sublimity, Oregon, No. 3

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In case you haven't been here this week, here's the back story: A Flickr friend who lives in Portland commented on an altered version this photo that I will post later this week. I took the name for today's post from his comment, "Looks like it is the guard for these rolling fields."

Today's photo of the Sentinel Tree was altered with HDR at PicMonkey.

The view from ... ?

Guess, anyone? Looks like I've been to an exotic locale and didn't let you know I was going, doesn't it?


I will tell you that I took the photo, uploaded it from the D5100 to Flickr, opened it in Picnik where I altered it with two effects, vibrance and HDR-ish, then I cropped it as a square before putting it here on the blog. Then I looked at it for a while and decided to try to clone out the upright that is on the window pane. That's the photo you see at the top of the blog. I tried to clone it out, and for the most part, I'm pleased with the results. Well, sort of pleased. It's not easy to find colors and directions that you can use to cover up what you don't want visible.

Here's the original photo, straight from the camera.


OK. I'll spill the beans. My living room has four windows which look out onto the sidewalk that goes from the building's front door out to the sidewalk along the street. I pulled the blinds up on the east-most window and liked the look enough to grab my camera and take a few photos. I distinctly thought, "These should be fun at Picnik!"

So, I'm not crazy just because I thought this would be fun to play with at Picnik. You can see why when you look at the altered photo above, can't you? Hope so. Such outcomes are one of the reasons I adore taking digital photos and having a great camera to do so and then having a great computer, my beloved iMac which I have named ALL, a place to get busy with my photos.

No, I'm not crazy. I'm keeping myself sane.

No. 5, May 16, 2011

I am convinced these two people are father and daughter--look at their profiles here and here. Rain continued splattering as these two continued to walk. I stood quietly across the street with my water-repellant coat zipped to my chin, thankful for the narrow roof over my head. As I snapped photo after photo, another part of my brain occupied itself wondering, "Where's the bus? I need to get back to work. I found myself a new curling iron in Freddie's at lunch, but I need to get back to work." It's a good thing I didn't say any of that out loud, although, come to think of it, plenty of people talk to themselves here on a regular basis. I would have fit in, just like I believe I do every time I am walking along in the rain. I am a Portlander.

Flickr; Picnik; Create; Orton-ish with Bloom and Brightness changed from default; Fancy Focus with Focal Size, Edge Hardness and Intensity all changed from default; cropped and resized.

No. 3, May 16, 2011

Right about now good-sized raindrops begin to fall. She moves her right arm in advance of opening her umbrella. She scrunches her eyes shut. I'm across the street, thinking, "Rain, rain, go away!" I am lucky to be standing beneath a narrow strip of roof attached to the Fred Meyer's outer wall.

Flickr, Picnik, Create, Boost lessened from the default percentage, Focal B&W.

Light at the end of the tunnel ...

...let me explain. Besides things like family and fun thankfully taking up some of my blogging time in good ways lately, I've had some camera-to-computer downloading issues/frustrations and then additional uploading from computer to Flickr issues/frustations.

I had dealt with all of that pretty well and intended to spend a good deal of time Sunday, during the NASCAR race at Atlanta, working on a series of posts about one of several wonderful things I've been able to do in Portland recently, maybe the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Jimmy Mak's Jazz Club or Michael Cully's Puppetry at the Oregon History Museum or Sharon Wortman's Bridge Walk involving the Morrison and Steel Bridges across the Willamette. I had a bounty of specials to choose from, as well as the unique every day things I notice all around town, until Sunday morning.

When I opened Honk, my precious little iBook, and then opened iPhoto, there was a message that read something like, "For iPhoto to run, the iLibrary needs to be updated," and I really only remember seeing OK highlighted as a choice, so I clicked on OK. In seconds all of my photos disappeared from the iPhoto Library, all 6992 of them. I sat here, stunned into silence.

To tell the truth, my calmness at this unreal turn of events totally shocked me. I didn't wail, holler, sob. I knew that I had many, many photos at Flickr already, so I accepted what had happened and then promptly downloaded my three full memory cards into Honk and started putting photos onto Flickr.

Now for the light at the end of the tunnel part of this tale. Today on the bus ride home, I talked as I often do with a young man who is a few years younger than my younger son. When I told him what had happened, he promptly said, "Why don't you use Finder and search for the jpg's?" So, I did. And I found gobs and gobs of photos. It will be some time before I know if I have found what disappeared on Sunday, but I'm some kind of hopeful! And blessed!