Sunday, July 27, 2008

Suddenly the Interweebs make sense...

Did you ever wonder why the Internet was created? Why people keep blogs and now exactly what they twitter about? This guy seems to have figured it all out. It's so obvious to me now...... LOL!

 

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Everyone Loves a Baby

This is a shot I took several months ago and have been meaning to do something with. I took several shots of this Momma and Baby orangutans interacting, and it was very difficult choosing just one. I finally decided on this one because I like the expressions on their faces. The second runner up had the baby making 'kissy lips' at Momma, but it wasn't as sharp as this shot. I still might revisit it sometime in the future though.

Although this particular photo was taken at my local zoo, I was thinking about one of the innovative things we saw when we visited a different zoo. The National Zoo has the coolest thing set up for their orangutans. They have a "Think Tank" for them to interact in. The animals don't live at the "Think Tank" though... they live in another exhibit that is a fair distance away. The Zoo came up with a pretty ingenious way to allow the animals to have access to the interactive exhibit and their house.... they set up something called the "O" line. It is a series of cables that are set on towers and allow the animals the choice of where they want to be!  We really enjoyed the exhibit and the unique way the curators figured out to make the situation not only work, but be another form of enrichment.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I'm trying to finish up a project and still trying to play with the new program. So far there is only one change I dislike and I am still hoping that there is a way to 'do it the old way'. Most of the improvements have been nice. Still, sometimes they change something that doesn't really need to be changed though. Sigh!

One of the improvements I like is  a way to upload directly to Flickr from the organizer. I've only got a free account over there, but I have been thinking about upgrading to the Pro account and this might be the thing that pushes me to actually do it. The only reason I've not gone 'pro' before now is the thought of taking the time to organize and decide what to upload. This may actually push me to get my butt in gear and get my online life organized... well, at least the picture part!

 

Thursday, July 17, 2008

It's Thursday... and I'm actually posting 2 days in a row! ;p

Ooooh... Look! Two days and two entries! Don't get used to it, but I do plan to be around a little more often than I have been the last couple of months.... which would be like um... Zilch. I've been around the interweebs.  I read journals/blogs. I even do online research. I just couldn't seem to find time (or maybe inspiration) to actually write an entry. Part of this has been my lack of time to play with (or even take) any photos. Now, why would that keep me from posting? I'm not sure, but I have gotten into a habit of posting a photo along with an entry even if the photo had nothing to do with the subject matter. No time to play in Elements equals no new photos to post equals no posts. And part of the problem has also been that even though I'm busy, I'm boring!

Yesterdays photo was me playing with my new Photoshop Elements 6. Yep, I went straight from Ver 4 to 6. I skipped Ver 5 because it didn't offer anything new that I felt was compelling enough for me to switch from the version I was used to. I'm not sure I really needed this version either, but it had a couple of new features I was curious about AND I found it on sale for half price. I had been wanting it, and I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket. LOL! I only played with it for a few moments, but I think I really like the improvements in this version. The new interface is really nice. I don't know if it is new for Vers 6 or from 5, but I like the darker colors and ease of switching from one thing to another. I also think the organizer is faster than the version I was using. I still haven't deleted Ver 4 from my hard drive because I want to be sure I have all of my brushes and things switched over to the new version before I do that, but it is just sitting there for now.

I'm also recycling! I'm sending the disks and the books I bought about Ver 4 to my DIL as she was interested in it when she saw it on my computer when we visited. She has been using whatever came with her camera and it was very basic. I think she is ready to move up to something a little more, and I am glad to be able to help her out by sending along Ver 4 to her.

Tonight's picture is from a photo shoot that I did for a friend who needed some new publicity shots. After we were done doing her pictures we had her daughter do a few poses with the horses since they were already cleaned up and looking pretty. She is a lovely girl and with such subjects it is almost impossible to take a bad picture. I'm finally starting to go thru the rest of the shots I took from that day and get them printed out for her. I worked on her mother's photos right away so she could send them out, but hadn't gotten around to her pictures till now. She has been amazingly patient..... and I've been amazingly slow! Still, I thought I would post one of the shots here and see what you all think of it.

Oh, Oh, Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I'm officially a published photographer!! One of the publicity shots that I did for my friend (during the photo shoot mentioned above) just appeared in a magazine. She showed it to me today. The ad for her appearance is on the inside of the front cover and it is one of the shots I did for her! Yeah, I know it's not like really being published, but I'll take it! LOL!

Anyway, here is the shot of her daughter and Ricco. Some of you might remember Ricco. He is an Andalusion stallion and I have had shots of him up here before.

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

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