Honestly Crazy » Photography

Hard Times

Randa — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:34:25 +0000

I am just finishing The Worst Hard Time about the Dust Bowl and the people who lived through it. Can you imagine remaining in an area where dust storms like this one rolled in every week? I guess if the land was the only thing you had in the world it would be difficult to leave it.

Temporary Tenants

Randa — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:33:04 +0000

There is a giant pile of bird poo just outside our back door. This is why:

If they weren’t so cute I’d be annoyed at the mess to clean up. The little guy on the left looks grumpy huh? He’s mad because we’re scaring off his momma by climbing up on a ladder to take his picture. He’s plotting his revenge – planning to poop on my head later, no doubt.

You know, that nest is really impressive when you think about it. It looks like it’s made of mud.

They’re driving our cats crazy…

In motion

Randa — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:06:05 +0000

Little Brown Noser at a Family Reunion

Randa — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:40:55 +0000

We went to a family reunion last weekend that was held on a Texas ranch owned by a family member. We had a great time visiting with family and a seeing the wide variety of animals that have been collected by the owner. Big J was sick, with nose constantly running. See how brown his nose is in the picture? He would run around playing outside, getting dirty, and when his nose would run, he’d just wipe it with his hands. He’d come into the “bunkhouse” where we were hanging out looking like he had stuck his nose in a pile of mud. Yeah, I know- TMI. You didn’t really need to hear about my son’s snot, did you?

There was some cool old stuff sitting around the ranch (click the pics for larger versions):

I love Photoshop. I love being able to take an average picture and turn it into something neat looking just by playing around with it on the computer.

As I mentioned, there was quite a variety of animals, and on Saturday we toured the whole ranch riding in the back of the feeder truck honking for the various herds to come get their dinner. These are Scottish Highlander cattle – I always thought Pretty Cow was rather an oxymoron, but these were really pretty.

Interesting seeing zebras in Middle-O-Nowhere, Texas…

This was one ornery donkey. He chased all the other animals away from the food with his girlfriend in tow. She’s giving us the evil eye.

The turkeys moseyed into the yard during our Sunday morning hymn singing, gobbling away like they heard the music and wanted to sing along. Such odd looking creatures.

Photoshop in Action

Randa — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:19:38 +0000

I love my camera. I had a point and shoot for a long time that I really liked, but grew very dissatisfied with it’s limitations after looking at the photography on sites like Notes From the Trenches and Pioneer Woman. I finally gave in to my lusting after a digital SLR and bought an entry level camera – the Nikon D40. It’s so much more satisfying to take pictures these days, and I love opening them in Photoshop and playing around with the images. Sometimes what comes out of the camera is pretty nice, but when you doctor the pictures up in Photoshop you can turn really nice into really special.

Here’s a good example, using some of the actions from the Pioneer Woman site. The first image is how it came out of the camera:

Cute picture… I like it and all, but look what happens when I throw some action on it:

Now I can’t stop looking at it. The changes are pretty subtle too. If you enjoy photography and are one of the few people not already reading the Pioneer Woman, you’ve got to check out her photos- beautiful stuff.