Picture Post, Sunday October 7, 2007

Yeah, it's another panorama, but I made this one from the highest quality versions of the photos that were assembled to make it. My previous attempts, the ones I've put on here lately were from lower quality JPEGs just to see how the panoramas would come out.

I've really liked them and am going back and starting to remake them, using the best quality versions of the photos.

This one is from one of our favorite spots to watch sunsets, so this one represents many hours of Lovely Wife at this park absorbing this view.

Have you ever seen an entire downtown in one building? Then you'll see that very thing in the next picture. Melbourne Beach, Florida has the Fire Department, the Town Hall, and the Police Department all located in one convenient and stylish building. Spiffy, eh?

Looking down a street in Melbourne Beach toward the Indian River Lagoon and the evening sky. If you compare that big cloud formation with the clouds in the panoramic photo above, you'll see that these photos were taken a few minutes apart from each other.

This massive and beautiful tree is in front of a wellness center. I think this is a type of mimosa, one of my favorite trees. I love the two different shades of leaves this tree has.

This plant was growing in this eye-level crook between branches of the mimosa tree in the above photo.

Have a great Sunday, folks!

Picture Post, Sunday September 30, 2007

(Y'all will have to enlarge these photos to get a good view so that you can see what I talk about in the text below.)

Straight photo of afternoon sun and clouds over the Indian River Lagoon, from the Melbourne Causeway, Melbourne, Florida.

Same exact photo as just above, after using the Orton process on it.

Straight photo of the Indian River Lagoon as seen from Rykman Park in Melbourne Beach, Florida.

Same exact photo as just above, after using the Orton process on it.

Orton process done on a photo of one of Lovely Wife's ixora plants.

The Orton process is a photography technique created by photographer Michael Orton.

He would use 35mm slide film, camera set on a tripod to allow several identical scenes to be photographed, and take, say, two photos of the same scene, both overexposed (too bright), one in sharp focus, and one way out of focus as to be pretty blurry.

After processing, he would take the two slide images, sandwich them on top of one another and make a print.

The sharp one, juxtaposed with the blurry one, ends up creating a gorgeous, glowing, soft quality in the resulting photo.

With the magic of digital editing via Photoshop Elements, I've finally, after much trial and (mostly) error over the past year to try to replicate this look in digital photos, come pretty darn close.

Here are two photos of the Indian River Lagoon, here in this area, with the Orton process look worked on them.

I have put the straight photo and the Orton process version of each on here.

The final photo, of some of Lovely Wife's ixora, has the Orton process worked on it as well.

This seems to have a much more pleasing and dramatic effect on photos with lots of sunlight in them. The ixora photo looks really nice, but it doesn't knock my socks off like the first two.

Which do you like best?

I'm totally loving the second one in the post, with the orangey sky and the Orton process' dreamy addition to it.

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I posted a new panorama today over at John's Daily Digital Images if you want to go over there and take a gander at it.

Picture Post, Sunday June 24, 2007

Howdy folks. I was going through some photos that I've taken lately and ended up with several evening photos, that although not spectacular, I thought I would post them.

I've lived in several southern U.S. states, and they all had appeal for different reasons. Lovely Wife and I tried to take advantage of the places we lived because we have moved so many times in our marriage that we never knew where we might be in another couple of years. I'd hate to look back and say, "Boy, I sure wish we had done such and such while we lived in Wherever."

Of course, most of the things we have done are the cheap things. For most of our marriage, until I went back to school, earned my engineering degree and moved to Palm Bay for my first, and thus far, only job as an engineer, we were pretty much broke.

We went to public parks with the kids, zoos and things of that sort when the girls were little, and so on.

Growing up, I was one of those young people who didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn't know where, I just knew that I wanted out of Monroe, Louisiana.

For the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Monroe. I'm just one of those people who knew I wanted out of there. Monroe has as good a bunch of people there as anywhere else in the world. I'm not saying something about Monroe when I say I wanted out; I'm saying something ABOUT ME.

I've always loved the beach and when I had my degree in hand one of the job offers I had was here in Melbourne / Palm Bay, Florida.

Now, having said all of that, one of the special things about this area is the water. I cannot tell you what it still does to me after ten years of living and working here to come to a point while driving where I can see either the Indian River Lagoon or the Atlantic Ocean. My heart leaps a little bit, even after all of this time.

So the first four of today's pics are a few afternoon shots that I've taken in the last week or two, that are a good representation of what evenings are like here literally 300 days or so every year. It's beautiful so many evenings and causes in me sensations I can't really describe to you.

Without further ado:





This final one is a bit different. I had taken this shot and when I pulled it up on the computer I realized why. To me, the street light over part of the Melbourne Causeway out to the ocean looked like those laser beam, eye thingies on the space ships in the original The War of the Worlds movie from the fifties. Zzzzt!

Y'all be particular now, hear?

Picture Post, Sunday April 29, 2007

These first two photos are of a porcelain angel Lovely Wife put in the house. The other day I noticed the sun shining through one of our living room skylights on this figure. It was beautiful. I got up and took some shots of it in that light.


These next two photos may seem boring, there's not much going on in them, but it's the view from my car as I'm about to turn onto U.S.1 here in Florida. They are in sequence, and I love that view when all of a sudden I drive up and can see the Indian River Lagoon. I never tire of seeing the big, open expanses of water down here. If I turn right, there's a sign that says Miami is 171 miles away; if I turn left here there's a sign that says Jacksonville is 181 miles away. Smack dab in the middle of the coast, I reckon.
I had taken a photo of a pelican at Sebastian Inlet recently, and was struck by how his webbed feet were gripping the wooden railing he was standing on. So I just cropped the picture down to just his feet. It's the story in that photo anyway, you don't need the whole bird.This man was going so fast on this jet ski that it startled me. Looks like fun.

Picture Post, Sunday April 8, 2007

We once were full of hope to know
He’s opened up our eyes
But if He walks across the sea
What does any of it mean
If He has died

But the stone was rolled away
And the angel came to say
He is alive, He is alive
But the stone was rolled away
And we just have to say
He is alive

Some lyrics from the song Friday To Sunday by Poor Old Lu, about Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. One of my all-time favorite songs.

Some of Lovely Wife's newly planted flowers for '07, out back by the pool.

A beautiful day at a Melbourne, Florida marina on Crane Creek.

Orange blossoms on our navel orange tree this year. Not very spectacular, but if I could figure out how to make my blog scratch-n-sniff, y'all would be sittin' pretty, believe you me, Bub. If you know what honeysuckle smells like, orange blossom smell is similar and very strong.

At a local park in Palm Bay on the Indian River Lagoon. Cool palm trees.

Hibiscus.

Sunlight glinting off the water of the Indian River Lagoon.

Matthew 28:6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

I wanted to post some special photos for Easter, but all I could come up with was pretty stuff. Sunshine and flowers.

I dont get all mushy very much, but when I think of the resurrection of Jesus, inside me is light. I don't know how else to say it.

Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!