Photoshop Fun - Flip and Blend Designs

I know. Someone is sure to say, "She's got too much time on her hands."

Maybe so.

But it didn't actually take long at all to make these pretty designs out of very ordinary photos. I don't know if there's any practical use for them, but they gave my mind a little psychedelic calisthenics for an hour this evening. They're called "Flip & Blends," because they are created by flipping copies of the same photo various directions, stacking them in layers, and changing the blending mode (to "difference").

This was, originally, a picture of a bookmark lying on the open pages of a book.

This was a picture of the Railrunner (train) engine.

And this was a picture of one of the giant antennae at the Very Large Array.

Another Year Older

We celebrated Tim's birthday last evening with dinner at Olive Garden, and cake and gifts back home. Here's wishing Tim a good start on his new job and an entire year full of all things good.

Maize, Cranes and a Couple of Geese

It seems I can't resist taking pictures of the Sandhill Cranes, when they show up to winter in this part of the country. They're such amazing birds! They vary in height, but the adults are usually between three and five feet tall.

Albuquerque has a number of open spaces, owned by the city and open to the public, for the most part. One of them, Los Poblanos, is a community farm. The cranes flock here in the winter to glean leftover maize and other grains from the fields.


Today I went there, wandered around in one of the fields, and took these crane pictures.




I came across a few geese, as well, joining in the outdoor smorgasbord.

Trying It Out

I haven't had a chance to go anywhere to try taking outdoor photos with my new camera, but I did take a few shots from our backyard. I was using the 55-200 zoom lens, zoomed out pretty far, and was not using a tripod. I thought the image stabilization in the lens did a good job (although for some of these I did steady my arms on the barbecue grill). It's going to be a fun camera to use!

This is a fence across the street from us:

And here's a view of the Sandias from our deck:

This morning I saw a hot air balloon coming down a block or two over, so captured its landing. The blurred fence in the foreground of the second and third pictures is ours, to give you some perspective:

And, as I was taking shots of the first balloon, another one passed overhead: