Happy New Year

Just Smokin'

I spent this morning and part of this afternoon editing smoke images. The variety and effects that can be created are astounding. You can see so many things in the smoke. It has been a few years since I have done smoke photography so it was loads of fun to do.Here are a few images from the session.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Dancing Woman

It has been wet,rainy and cold for the past few days. It has forced me inside to try and be creative in other ways and to process some images to post for stock. This evening I did some smoke photography and my favorite image from that session reminded me of a "Dancing Woman".

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

The Addiction Continues

I didn't think I would ever find something as addictive as water drops but it appears that I have. I spent some time last night and very early this morning photographing water and oil. Oh the cool colors! Hopefully this is the last post I will have on this subject unless I come up with a more creative method of photographing the @#$#%@ droplets. As stated before the patterns and possibilities are endless. Enjoy while I try to rperess my addiction.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

A Frosty Morning

Yesterday morning I ventured out along Willits Creek to photograph the frost and leaves along the Par Course Trail. It didn't take long to find some icy subjects. Once I started I got lost in creating images until before I knew it the time was well past eleven o'clock.I headed back for the pick up. Before I left I jumped the battery for some poor fellow whose battery went dead in the parking lot.Once home I had a good time editing images. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Playing with My New Christmas Present

This afternoon I installed some new software on my computer. I added Red Giants Magic Bullet Photolooks and Knoll Light Factory plug ins for Photoshop. After the installation I watched the introductory videos to figure out how to get started using them. Then started working with images from my files to get the hang of how to use them. I quickly learned that of the two programs I'll be using Photolooks a lot more often than the Light Factory. Here are some sample images from Death Valley that I applied some filters from Photolooks to. The same effects can be created in Photoshop but it's just faster using the plug in from Photolooks. I probably won't be using the model effect much shown on thebottom image but it was fun to try it out.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

This Ones for Kelley

This morning Lenore and I walked the Par Course Trail in Brooktrails. It was twenty eight degrees and sections of Willits Creek were frozen over. There were frost covered leaves everywhere and in some stretches of the trail it looked like a light snow had fallen.Because we were walking the dogs I didn't bring my camera. This evening when we were at out friend Kelley's house she asked I had taken any frost pictures. Sadly I had to tell her no. So these are some images from the Par Course Trail last year. Perhaps tomorrow I'll venture out and take some more.

Merry Christmas to all,

chris

When the Lights Go Down in the City

When the lights go down in the small town of Willits the Christmas lights come on. Tonight while driving to a friends house for a christmas party i couldn't resist stopping and photographing a few Christmas lights along the way.

God bless and Merry Christmas,

chris

Water and Oil or Playing With Patterns No. 2

Over the past coupe of days I have been thinking about how to improve the set up I used to photograph water and oil patterns. This morning I finally figured it out. Progresso Soup! Now you are thinking that I've lost my mind. I know you are. What the set up needed was more working distance to blur the background more. It also needed to be something that I could easily set up and take down.Two stacked soup cans under the corners of a glass tray would be the perfect height and it would be easy to set up and take down.

I set to work at it early this morning and I had a great time finding all sorts of colors to slide under the tray to provide different colored backgrounds. I used Christmas cards, ads and pretty much anything else that was colorful that I could find. The results were stunning. I'm thinking of enlarging one of the images up to poster size to hang in my office.

A Merry Christmas to all,

chris

Put a Little Light on the Subject

Had some fun tonight light painting a guitar with a laser.

God bless, chris

Playing With Patterns

I have been reading for some time now about photographing the patterns that oil and water make when they are mixed. Today I photographed some samples in a small plastic dish. The results were interesting enough that I might try it again with a better set up.

A Merry Christmas to all,

chris

From Another Time

It was once again time to clean the office/ studio. In the process of cleaning up I came across this old lighter. Most likely it was from one of our parents. All of them smoked earlier on in thier lives. Now it is more of a collectors item or a museum piece. I was really attracted to the design and lines of the lighter. I began thinking of other images I could tie to it from another time period. I finally remembered some old B+W negatives that I created way back in the eighties. I scanned one as a background. I think they go well together.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Losing My Marbles

I'm going crazy. Actually I'm stuck in a rut and I need to take a vacation. We had planned a Tahoe ski trip but that fell through due to a considerable lack of snow. As a consequence I'm feeling a little trapped right now. The only thing that has got me feeling creative right now is marbles and I feel that I have reached the end of those for awhile.

This morning I did some fog and Redwood images and the I moved onto mounds of marbles. Hopefully this will be the last of those until I move onto ornaments.Something to spark my creative spirit.

God's love and blessings to all on this Merry Christmas,

chris

More Marble Madness

I have found that marbles are almost as addicting as water drops. Though marbles are a bit more predictable as to the outcome. This morning I arose before the sunrise and made quite a few images of "Sherwood Castle". Sherwood Castle is my name for the flat topped redwood tree on the Sherwood Ranch. Later on I played with the marbles for awhile. The bright colors are so captivating and interesting.

Merry christmas,

chris