Blog Archives
Icy Textures
Friends, this icy scene is a black and white of a previous image that i showed you in color, I am practicing black and white conversions of colored images, however, in the winter most of the images that are taken are probably more accurately rendered in black and white. Not much color in nature in the winter here. Frustrates me no end. I will have to settle for icy textures this morning, til Tomorrow MJ
Icy Lake Superior
Friends, this image of Icy Lake Superior was taken where the surfers, a few days ago were enjoying open water, now it is frozen and slivers of ice cover the bay. Part of this image is my new header and it will remain at the head of my posts until I see the green of spring, a little rebellion from the photographer who is pretty sick of winter, til Tomorrow MJ
Stoney River
Friends, this snow covered landscape is the stoney river of northern Minnesota. You can see how it got its name, and the beautiful frosty morning when we flew by on Hwy 1 from Lake Superior to Ely Minnesota. I made the husband stop so I could venture back across the bridge to shoot pictures, you like??, I do, maybe a print for my wall, til Tomorrow MJ
Sky problems
Friends, This beautiful morning on the way to the Wolf Center in Ely Minnesota, the temps were around zero F, so frost was very heavy near Lake Superior. The bottom image is of the same region. I have globs of something on my sensor that will not clean off with the sensor cleaning kit, also the dust delete software solution by Canon has limited range of removal capabilities. Found a Photoshop solution that seems to work with these images, make a duplicate layer of the background, run the filter/noise/dust , set the level to 30-60, this will blur the image significantly but will also get rid of globies, now put a mask on this layer and paint with brush to get back the detailed areas, cool , it works, til Tomorrow MJ
Minnesota Surfing??
Friends, these brave souls are surfing on Lake Superior in February. They usually surf here at Stoney Point but not this early, the lake is open this year and the surfers are having a ball. They even have a surfing report on wave size and wind speed here, and the day we visited about 4-5 surfers were sliding on the water. There are also some u-tube videos here if you look up stoney point surfing. The water temp is 34-5 degrees F and the surfers are clad in neoprene from head to toe, Brrr, I say, til Tomorrow MJ
Icy Lakeshore
Friends, this icy sculpture was found at Stoney Point on Lake Superior yesterday. We were owl hunting but found no owls. The temperature was near zero Fahrenheit and the wind carried slivers of ice. But this formation was irresistible to the photographer within me, the waves were moderate and occasionally broke over the top of this ice. The shutter speed of 1/5000 was used to freeze the water splashes. This morning the temps are even colder and we are in a lodge on the shore of the Big Lake. til Tomorrow MJ
Winter Light on Lake Superior
Friends, this is Lake Superior in the winter, but a very thin cover of ice. We are going north again today to celebrate our 17th Anniversary, a little early but we felt the need to go owl hunting. Trying out my new landscape lens, I love the early morning light on the Lake, so til Tomorrow MJ
Motorboat Mallards
Friends, this image did not need much in the way of photoshop and i loved the wake behind and ahead of the birds. They are swimming very fast after a fellow mallard who got some bread from people feeding the ducks. Reminds me of the saying, “be like a duck, calm on the outside and paddling like mad under the water” My father always thought that was a wise saying and as i was a wall flower when i was growing up, I took faith that the paddling would get me where I needed to go. so I am still paddling. til Tomorrow MJ
Beach Cleanup
Friends, this male Mallard was crusing along the edge of Lake Superior that in January is still not ice-covered. The mallards don’t seem to mind the icy weather. I didn’t like all the leaf debris among the ice so i deleted it with several Photoshop tools, mostly the patch and spot healing brush tools. Sharpened with Color Effex Pro 4 detail extractor tool. I think the image is wilder and the absence of debris is less distracting. To each their own, til Tomorrow MJ
Lake Superior Gull
Friends, this seagull is standing on a cement wall over Lake Superior and I liked the image and so will share the original and the altered image in an animated gif. I used a mask to limit my changes to the bird only so I didn’t sharpen the background and make it more noisy. Experimenting with photoshop so I can make adjustments faster and more decisively. Looking at the altered image I may have overdone the feather detail of the belly, but i like what i did with the chest and head. Maybe a 50% mask of the lower part of the bird would help. Hmmmmm. So the image below is a 50% mask on the lower belly feathers so those feathers don’t look like they were combed through. til Tomorrow MJ
MJ Springett 