Friday, November 18, 2011

Foto Friday - Some bees, some butterflies and a few trees


This week I am thankful
for the bees,
the butterflies,
and the trees.

I took another walk,
but this time it was back to my favorite trail
and I started off at the butterfly garden. 
Okay, let's say I lost myself in it!

But then I made my way 
over the bayou
and through the woods
to the beautiful Gulf of Mexico.

I was so immersed in my walk
that I almost forgot about my son's
basketball game -
how does one forget that?

And had I not filled the card on my camera
I might have missed it altogether.
So, to say the least
the last part of that 5 mile walk
that started out at 74
became a challenge
in what ended up a 90 degree day!


"Praise the bridge that carries you over"

- George Coleman


I love this walking bridge, it has carried me over many things in my thoughts!
{linked to Photo Art Friday}

After doing some of my favorite go-to's in Picnik I decided to try a few different things. First I used a little
orton-ish, then cross process. Then I tried ripple blocks fade 20%, HSL filter until I got the color slide
I liked. Then I added Hex cells at 55% size 8.68 and softened at 50% brushing off the bridge. The last thing - circle splash on screen mode faded 48% at a radius of 246.49. This is really different for me!


This is the before picture - no edits.


Before I even left the house though, I walked to the end of my sidewalk to enjoy the incredible smell
of this trailing purple lantana and was instantly graced by this skipper butterfly.
Maybe someday technology will be so incredible that I can share this fabulous scent with a scratch and sniff!


This one done in sepia brushing off to expose some color.

{linked to Fabulous Friday and Shoot, Edit and Submit}

From the butterfly garden, an orange sulfur butterfly which had an incredible brown markings on the inside
of it's wings. Of course it didn't stay long enough to capture that!


And the bees, lots and lots of bees - it almost felt like a spring day, not fall!
But I guess they are busy gathering and storing for the winter.


All summer I hadn't seen any Monarch butterflies, until the last couple of weeks. This garden was FULL of them, dozens and they were playing tag-your-it with each other and made it really difficult to capture
a photo. I couldn't get within 5 feet of one before they would fly off, so my experience last week when I got one to go on my hand is just that much more special!

The light that day was just perfect . . .


I even came across a little Christmas in the forest!


I kept thinking that any minute when I turned another corner I would find someone building a new
bench or something - it sounded like someone was pounding wood - more like pecking.
Is that not just a gorgeous woodpecker? A red headed Pileated Woodpecker!


Just a beautiful day all around!


Have a really fabulous weekend!
Love, Kim
XO




  Photo Art Friday
 
 
   

24 comments:

Deanna said...

Oh boy, did I enjoy your walk with you. What a beautiful day for your beautiful walk. That woodpecker is mighty impressive. I have woodpeckers here, but NOT that kind. You know, God works in the best ways, filling up your card so you wouldn't miss your son's basketball game, is just that little reminder that He is always working for us.

Kathryn Dyche said...

I love walks like that where you totally lose all track of time. Gorgeous shots, love the bridge.

Run DMT said...

You caught some amazing shots! Love your edits too!

Visiting her from Photo Friday! :-)

Kmcblackburn said...

Boy oh boy....I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the composition and bokeh's of that capture with the red berries! And I think you need to explore your editing creativity more often because that bridge "art" is just wonderful. Fun!

Kathy

Lisa @ MMT said...

Great photos! Looks so pretty where you live. I like how you captured all the little details from your walk.

Lisa Gordon said...

Kim, this is a stunning series of photographs!
I especially love the first one. It is truly magical.
Sending you wishes for a wonderful weekend!

Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

Your photography skills are stunning!!! The editing you have done on the first image is amazing. I'll have to go back and re-read your process to understand how you produced those rays of light leading to/from the bridge. Just beautiful Kim. Thanks so much for sharing with Photo Art Friday. How was the game?

Amanda said...

All of these photos are beautiful, but I can't BELIEVE you got a picture THAT CLOSE to a pileated woodpecker!! That's amazing! Congratulations on having the best photography day ever!! :)

Ellen said...

Kim, I love this post! You have everything - flowers, water, flying critters, trees, architecture and bokeh. i love the bee in flight, with his little wings just a-going. and the last pic is gorgeous. i need you to give me pointers some time, on making sun shots. I've been having trouble with it, so have shied away. after seeing this photo, i want to try again!

kareninkenai said...

beautiful images and lovely texture work. excellent post. thank you. kareninkenai (from PAF)

Stephanie at Grateful Heart Acres said...

Absolutely gorgeous photos! I am so glad you shared them. They look so relaxing and calm. What a great day!

Unknown said...

a lovely series from the garden

Torunn said...

Very nice picture with great texture. Great pictures down the page here as well.

Honey from the Bee said...

The bridge photo is so cool! I'm thinking you should explore those tools more often, too. Takes a beautiful photo into another dimension.

Have a great weekend

Ellie said...

Hi, I've been wanderling around blog land and came across your blog.
I wanted to say you have some awesome images here.

Alice said...

wow! gorgeous shots! i love the bumblebee flying right at you - what a great capture! gotta check out the rest of your photos :)

deborah said...

Beautiful, thank you for sharing your photos as well as your thoughts.

Sara said...

All gorgeous, but wow, I love the sepia butterfly, perfect amount of colour, so beautiful!

Marvett Smith said...

Love that first image, and that butterfly is stunning!

Seeing Each Day said...

Beautiful series of shots - absolutely adore the sepia touched shot, and of the butterfly flying towards the purple flowers. I'm thinking your clever capture of the red berries with the bokeh would look good on a Christmas card.

Kathy Reed said...

All those effects together along with the beautiful choice of the bridge and water are simply wonderful and so pleasing to the eye!

Lori said...

Oh wow these are stunning! I love the bridge edit, but when I saw the woodpecker, it stole the show! That's a beautiful bird you captured so well.

Lori

Terrie said...

These are so great I feel like I walked right alongside you! I don't know ANY of those processing steps you took, but the end result is so pretty, it doesn't matter! Great job.

Ross said...

These shots are great! Such a good job in setting up the composition in some of them as well.In some you really do get the sense that your right there?

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