It's About Time

I know - I know.  It's about time - right?  Yes, it is about time I made another post on my blog.  It's been a busy summer and fall and time got away from me.  But I'm back at my computer and looking over about six months of photos - so today is the day.  

Late this summer we took a trip to South Dakota and Montana.  Just love to ramble along in the mountains and high plains.  It sure is cowboy land up yonder.  We did a lot of exploring - Badlands, Black Hills, Custer State Park, Devil's Tower, Glacier National Park to name the biggie's.  We took our time and saw many things, met some new people, and traveled with family to Glacier.  It was a lot of fun and a lot of pictures were taken.  Here are some of my favorites.

I took this photo on the walk to the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village in Mitchell, South Dakota.  The color of the water at the lake's edge was really interesting looking. The indian settlement nearby dates back 1,000 years and it is an active archeological dig site. Very interesting place.

These were the most unusual cloud formations I have ever seen.  We camped in a gulch in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota and every evening we enjoyed looking up the gulch at the sky.

This was a shot of one of the streams near Glacier.  I loved the crispness of the green tree against the blue water of the mountain stream.  The photo below shows the vastness of the Black Hills. I'll be putting more photos of this trip on my Flickr.  Check back soon.

Another Photo and Photoshop Blending Example

This baby deer was lying in our front yard several weeks ago. It's mother was not too far away because one of the neighbors saw her watching over her baby from the next door neighbor's house.  I wasn't even sure this newborn was alive. I looked closely and saw it's open eye and that it's chest was moving up and down.  I wasn't sure what to do because I had to run an errand. So I got in my car and when I came back the baby deer was gone (hopefully following it's mother).


I am currently taking another photo blending class from Linda Sattgast at Digital Scrapper.  I decided I would use this photo of that baby to practice my first week's lesson. I love the way you can change the look of photos by using the blending modes. Here's my first week's work using the photo I took of that baby deer.

Original Photo

I could have chosen to lighten this photo of the baby deer but really liked the depth of colors I got with this blending and blurring of the grass.

Off to the Races

My husband, daughter, and I went to the races with my father's retiree group recently.  It is an outing they do once a year and is always fun.  We have a great buffet lunch, study our race books, and wager (small) dollars on some of the races.  We never win very much but most of the time we are either even or ahead a few dollars.  

Flowers Flowers and more Flowers

Tulips are probably my favoite flowers so late in April, my husband and I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden to see what was blooming.  The tulip beds were gorgeous so I took a lot of photos that day.  Hope you like them!

As always you can see more on my Flickr gallery here.

Playing Around with Blending in Photoshop

Today I sat down with Photoshop and did a blending layout with a photo I took on a recent visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. This is one of my favorite ways to feature special photos I've taken.

The blending technique is from oscraps.com - a tutorial called "Part Photo, Part Sketch".  At the end of the tutorial O-Scraps shows a couple other blending layouts.  Check it out here.

Johnson Shut-Ins

Last week we went to the Johnson Shut-Ins State Park in Middlebrook, Missouri to camp.  We encountered cloudy weather most of the time but had a burst of sunshine the day before we left so we shot some pretty good photos that day.  The Park is very beautiful and the facilities are excellent. 

Photos from Florida

My husband and I traveled to Florida early this year.  We camped at Florida State Parks and a few RV parks (because the state parks were full).  It does seem like reservations for the oceanside Florida State Parks are hard to get.

Winter in Spring

About a week ago much of the midwest saw record snowfall.  We had snow accumulation of 12" setting a record for our area.  I am more a mountain - cold weather girl than a hot weather beach girl so I was not so unhappy about all the snow. 

The kids were very happy we had that much snow because they did not have to go back to school for a day or two after spring break.