Welcome to the Jungle

Watertown, SD has some awesome community gardens.  Welcome to the Midwest jungle...

One of my walking routes takes me by a local park where my senses are treated to the happy bark and furry play of dogs in the dog park, the squeal of kids running around a big open field, the concentrated, solemn walk of couples along the paths of a cemetery, and the bright bustle of locals tending to their plots in a community garden.  I absolutely adore walking by this hub of outdoor activity.  During spring and summer I'll spend hours walking in and around the gardens and watching things grow.

Flowers and wildlife are my favorite things to enjoy.

However, this park has caused me to ponder my own ability, or lack of ability, to grow plants.

On and off through the years I have joined the throngs of people at nurseries picking out baby flowers to plant in the spring.  Most years I diligently care for these plants for a solid month.  In a good year I might keep up a good pace of watering into late July, but it's rare for a plant in my care to remain vibrant into late August.  I'm not sure what area of my brain is missing or a bit defective, but something doesn't work quite right because no matter their beauty, no matter the lack of stresses in my life, come mid-July my plants are abandoned and left on their own to survive.  (Note:  They don't survive.)

But the community gardens, full of all varieties of brightly colored, touch-inviting vegetables, along with my penchant for listening to too much news with the world seemingly on the verge of water-starved, overheated, zombie apocalypse, gun toting bandits, must-abandon-the-city-for-an-uzi-protected-plot-of-land, have me trying to decide if I will ever need to be able to provide my own food.

Does my future well being depend on me getting a community plot and learning how to grow food?

Certainly many, many people in rural South Dakota excel at growing all manner of crops.  At each place I have worked there are co-workers who will bring in bags and bags of produce for anyone who might want some fresh veggies.  These folks will surely flourish should modern transportation that brings food to our grocery stores suddenly ceases for a month.

A month... Ha.  Were grocery stores to lose the ability to receive shipments of food and citizens found out - food would be out in two days.  Probably one.

This reminds me of another weakness of mine -  the lack of any real emergency stash of canned goods.

It is not looking for me during the zombie apocalypse.

But I digress.  I've watched those who care for plants in the community garden.  They carefully plan their planting to minimize risk of rabbits and other pests, they pull weeds, and they water.

Then they come back the next day and they pull more weeds.  It is clear a garden is a lot of work. Yet there are things I haven't seen - do they fertilize?  Do they have to spray for pests?  How smart do you have to be about what you plant and where?  Without fertilizer and pest spray how do crops stay healthy and how do they keep rabbits away? These are things I do not know.

Whatever these folks do, everything looks so delicious!

Have I mentioned that I do know that the gardeners pull a lot of weeds.  Possibly some of them also don't read very well.  

Or is this some sort of gardener inside joke?

If I journey into an adventure in gardening, it seems like there could be a significant possibility that I would look really stupid, fully exposing my lack of skills.  Also I fear that I would end up with a barren plot.  I sort of don't want to be this guy:

But it seems like 'community' is a big part of the community gardens, so maybe if I join in some conversations and ask a few questions I would be fine.

And most plots seem to turn out a mighty fine harvest.

See, and grow, on.  In the meantime I will continue to ponder my future in gardening.
Julee

A Long Absence but Still Seeing On

Oh my.  It has been more than a year since I sat down and typed out a post.  Certainly there are the usual reasons - job got busy - two hour daily commute - family things - I'm getting older and really, really need to incorporate a bit of exercise into each day - I could go on and on...

But I also found myself feeling less excited about taking photographs.  I had learned all my camera settings, learned them well enough even to teach a couple of photography classes.  I could take okay pictures, but I had done enough shooting and editing to realize how much work goes into really fantastic images and I found I really didn't enjoy spending lots of time in Photoshop.

I've been continuing to participate on DPChallenge since it does keep my brain in the creative world, although my goal has transitioned from trying to create shiny, winning images more towards figuring out how to capture images that either evoke a bit of emotion or that tell a story.

This was my first real success.

I've learned that moody weather can make for interesting photographs, so I went out driving right after some rain one day.  The electrical towers and the surrounding farm land caught my eye - it my image that included the road, which I just took by happenstance, that was my favorite.  (I had other photos from the other side of the road closer up to the towers, photos I expected to be stronger, but this image really screamed RURAL SOUTH DAKOTA to me, and I found that exciting since I rarely get excited about the fact I do live somewhere so rural.)

Here was another I captured on my way home from work in the fog one day.

There haven't been many other successes yet.  Sometimes I still just go with something fun and a bit off the wall. (I took the image below for a challenge called "Portrait in Minimal".  I do not have a studio, I don't have easy access to kids or models, and the tiny city I live in isn't full of great street photography opportunities.  So I figured what was more minimal than an outline of a face.  True it wasn't a winner, but I still think it's an interesting image.)

So despite my absence here, my quest to 'See On' continues.  Just at a slower pace and with a bit more deliberation to the process.

See on,
Julee

More Flip n Blend, Abstract Wonderfulness.

So I have been spending a lot of time photographing lately, but most has been for 'competition' so I haven't been blogging as much as I would like.  A team event is starting on DPChallenge and I am on a team, so I've been getting to know my team and working really hard on submitting better photos.  (Now by the end of this blog post, you'll wonder what I'm talking about "better photos".  Haha.  I have had a couple of duds recently.  But I am putting in extra effort and I assume it will show any day now.)

I am feeling the pressure of this team thing since I'm a novice, I don't want to lose it all for my team.  But everyone seems very nice, and teams are made up of folks with all different skill levels.  I have noticed that I'm trying a little harder.  Plus the team is able to review images and make comments. So there is more trying something, then going out later and trying again.  

Bonus - I've already learned new settings on my camera.

We have had a number of 'expert' editing challenges, and you're shocked, I'm sure, to learn that I am not an expert at Photoshop.  But I did, however, try.  One exception to my lack of skill involves "Flip n Blend".  You've seen a few of my flip n blend's before, and it's quite a bit of fun to play around with.  My entry even did quite well - another personal best unless some 'mean voters' show up in the next hour.  

Here is my newest 'winner'.

I also entered the 'winged' challenge.  I had a fabulous opportunity to shoot butterflies at a Butterfly House, but my focus was off just a bit.  (I suspect I was just too close for most shots.)  I had one shot I really liked, and in hindsight I should have entered this:

But instead I took on the challenge of doing some 'expert editing'.  I took a neat gargoyle my mother has and shot him at dusk.  

And then it all went horribly wrong.  

In my defense, there were folks on the site saying they really wanted to see effort at the 'expert editing' and that they would vote lower any "regular" photo.  Well, I suspect they were exaggerating - but I also figured it was high time I try inserting an object from one photo into another photo.  I really do not know how I decided that blue and fluorescent green were the best idea.  I think it just happened.  I was mentally tired from all the work getting one gargoyle into a different photo that apparently I lost all sense.

But what's done is done.  (And I didn't even get last place, so there's that.)

The bonus is that I did learn a new photoshop task - I'll have to work on it - but I did it!

See on,

Julee

Spring.

Finally we have some green leaves and lovely flowers to enjoy.   I have been busy working on submitting photos to challenges, so again have neglected my blog some.  (It's frowned upon to post photos while a challenge is going on, but by the time voting is over my brain forgets about the finished photos and is on to new photos.)

But today I ran out for a bit just to capture one of the few spring days we get in South Dakota.  I did not venture far, just walking around the blocks near my house.  But the new, green leaves seemed nearly fluorescent after today's rain, and two flowering bushes I noticed had some wonderful colors.

I wanted to see how a photo turned out with everything intentionally out-of-focus, that light coming through the leaves was just beautiful.  So here is my abstract 'spring tree'.

And then there is my second flowering bush shot.

I had a 50 mm 1.4G lens on for all of the shots.  Since it was cloudy and nearing sundown, perhaps I should have used a tripod because my focus on the flowers was not quite right.  (Although I also was playing with the F:1.4, so perhaps that depth of field was just too shallow.)  Proper focus seems to be my biggest stumbling block in taking pictures, although I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this.)

Finally, here is a leaf shot put through the Photoshop 'Flip N Blend' process.  Perhaps not a real winner, but I liked the colors and that there were still some leaves that could be identified.

Flip n Blend is extraordinary fun.  It's a complete mystery what a mash-up will look like until it's tried.  While today's attempt wasn't all that fabulous, I did have some luck last week.  (And one photo is still in voting, so you will just have to wait for that wonder - but here are two from last week that I thought were quite lovely.)

See on,

Julee

Looking for symmetry.

Two photo challenges in one week have dealt with symmetry.  It was a topic I was fairly excited about, although I was a little unsure where to start.

But here is where I ended up:

I love it!

This photo came about because I happened to glance up at the mantel while watching TV tonight.  The mantel is where we put cards we get over the year.  Last week a cat had knocked all of the cards off, and I had picked them up and just stacked them flat, back up on the mantel.  A Valentine's Day card had the ribbon hearts that you see, and they were dangling from the mantel and all of a sudden I saw this beautiful symmetry.  (I have learned that the trick to great pictures is often beauty and fabulous lighting.)  So I spent about an hour playing around with those hearts.

Unfortunately, for the DPChallenge crowd there is too much processing in the photo I posted, and since the sharpness of the front heart was not quite as nice as I would have liked, I'll have to do a little more shooting tomorrow.

My first shot with symmetry was at the lake.  I guess all I can say it that indeed there is symmetry.

This next shot was my attempt at some abstract symmetry.  (The stripes are a stair rail.)

This last shot is of part of a sign at a park.

See on,
Julee

Eggs outdoors.

As Easter came and went, I tackled a challenge on photographing eggs.  I had previously had some success with this topic, but those eggs were photographed indoors.  How would I do taking them outside?  (Which despite a late cold spell, was feasible since all of the snow was gone.)

This was basically my first shot, but since the Lego chicken-man was not in sharp focus, I wasn't sure it was the best. Here are a few more outtakes from my shoot.  (I actually went out two days in a row - trying to duplicate the pleasing photo from day 1, but with improved sharpness.  Unfortunately it was much windier and my lego guy kept falling over.  I never did capture exactly what I had in mind).

See on,
Julee

One bloom.

Spring is coming.  Here in South Dakota it is making a S-L-O-W entrance, but it will arrive.  The greenhouses are stocked with flowers, and those few days that get above 50 degrees get me excited.

It is, however, too soon to plant gardens and pots.  Evenings can get down to freezing, and it's only been a little over a week since our last snowstorm.  (But poor northern Minnesota had a snowstorm just yesterday - we just got rain - so I do know it could be worse.)

But the coming of flower season has me longing for colorful blooms, so I bought myself a calla lily after work on Friday. They are so pretty and soft.  I had a black and white photo challenge coming up, and I thought that this lily, with its delicate stripes of color with lovely waves in the petals, might make a pretty black and white image.

I was ever so delighted in my results.  We had just enough sun that I was able to photograph in natural light, and I played with an 85mm and 105 mm lens.  Both gave me just beautiful results.

I am ever so excited for summer!

See on,
Julee