Experimenting with Lightroom

Tags

Basket Weaving, Basketry, baskets, CLOSE UP PHOTOGRAPHY, hand woven baskets, Lightroom, Oak Handles, Oak Hoops, Ribbed Basketry, Shooting in RAW, Weaving

Even though I know that I cannot cause the Lightroom program to self destruct, it is with great apprehension that I click, Import or Export. I take a deep breath and hope that I can get the pictures where they need to be so that I can place them into blog posts in Jpeg format.

Well, to my shock and amazement the pictures did go to the locaction there were supposed to, what a relief. I am sure if I worked with all the program enough, and on a regular basis, it would become second nature. I am hoping it will.

I did the photography on these tulips last year, and forgot about them, until just now, this is a very pleasant suprise indeed. These were just experiments using my extension tubes, as well as to have things to play with in Lightroom, and learn something in the process.

I hope to make and additional post this week, as I was on the Skyline Drive this afternoon taking pictures and hope to process them this week. I have learned my lesson and the camera NEVER leave RAW mode now! So much more versatility in RAW!!

     

   

 

Along with learning Lightroom all over again, which I will admit, today seems to be coming back to me fairly quickly. I am also showing work in progress on basket weaving, which I started back to at the start of the year. 2017 seems to be a year or returning to the creative things in life I like to do, basket weaving, photography and all that goes with it, blogging, and watercolor painting, which I have nothing of merit to show for it yet.

I will be making more substinative posts soon, everything I do seems to go hand in hand with blogging, all of which requires photography. It is my desire once I get the Lightroom going again I will be making topical posts with a direction.

 

 

There are now 3 times as many Oak Hoops and Handles hanging up drying as what these pictures show.

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LIGHT ROOM–LEARNING TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!

Tags

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP & LIGHTROOM, Basket Weaving, Basketry, Blogging, Blue Ridge Mountains, Converting RAW Files to JPEG, Elkton VA, photography, SKYLINE DRIVE

Good Morning everyone, well yesterday my friend Gene Sandridge and I went up on the Skyline Drive, in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virgina along the Appalachian Trail. I took some pictures, which made me anxious to get home and figure out everything I had forgottne in Light Room!! Like learning it all over again!

I gave up yesterday and decided to start over fresh this morning, which took me about an hour, until I reached the point where I wanted to choose which of the 240 pictures on the card that I played with in Light Room, and wanted to group them into a folder and convert from RAW files to JPEG and export them, so that I can get them into several blog posts!! Guess what it is time for me to walk away now!!! I don’t have many hairs left to pull out, the few that I have I might like to keep.

I know there is a way to select say 20+ pictures of the 240 images, and export only those from the develope module and convert only those to JPEG and export them to the pictures in a file on the computer so that I can pick and choose for a blog post. OH for the gift of sound mind! I know the answer is right in front of me. If any of the photographers that read my blog, can send me in the right direction, it would be most greatly appreciated.

So in order to get back into the swing of posting to my blog, I am going to choose some images, from the past for today.

It is my goal this year to once again return to posting several times a week, on topics such as photography, sceenery of the Shenandoah Valley, basket weaving which I started in earnest again this year. watercolor painting etc. It has taken a long time over the past five years for the rollercoaster I was on slow down and come to a stop, and back to a normal settled life where I can once again start doing everything and finally get a routine to life back once again.

People have written to me asking me where the Canning, and Mennonite and Amish recipes have gotten to, well to tell you the truth, it has been very difficult for me over the past several years to concentrate on cooking the recipes and doing the photography for the foods which I can no longer eat, due to Diabetes and insulin, unfortunately for me, it is rampant on both sides of my family and nothing that I can do, could stop it. It is what it is, I just have to learn to deal with it, and try to figure out how to do the the cooking /baking I used to do, without eating any of it, as I did make everything to do my own photography.

 

 

This week I will be getting a years pass to the Skyline Drive, so that I can go up multiple times per week to do two things, walk and exercise for diabetes, and see something new every time I go, and to do nature photography which I love, so this gets me out of the apt. and helps me health wise and gives me plenty of material to blog about.

      

NEW TIMES, NEW CHANGES IN THE YEAR AHEAD 2017

Tags

Basketry, CLOSE UP PHOTOGRAPHY, creativity, Freedom, photography.macro photography, Watercolor painting

I know my subscribers to my blog have been wondering why the long abscense in posting to the blog. Well times change, we all change and we have to come to grips with things and change with them.

 

After 5 very long years of not being able to weave my baskets which I had done for over two decades, you just reach a point where you know that a suitable place cannot be found in which to do the behind the scenes work that no one see’s but myself. People used to see me demonstrate at local farmers markets and shows, that is the easy less messy part of the weaving process, where all the ribs are in the baskets.

What is not seen, is the very messy sanding of the oak hoops and handles, years ago it was suggested that hand sanding be minimized due to the possibility of Carpel Tunnel surgery on both hands should i continue to hand sand, one hoop set can take hours to hand sand and prep ready for staining & finishing. It was suggested by several wood workers, that i get a drill press, with a drum sander attachment and take the worst off of the hoops and handles, round the square edges, then hand sand to the smoothness of a babies bottom with 600 plus grit sand papers and stain, that fine sanding only takes minutes, compared to hours. Alas, the messy part takes a garage, wood shop etc. in which to create that mess, then clean up and get ready to stain and finish.

     

        

I have not been able to find a suitable place in which to do this, after 5 years you tend to give up and move on, this is the point that I have arrived at.

I have always loved horticulture, gardening, and working with roses and flowers, well that seems to be out of the picture as well. So I prayed about it, and was shown in a dream, watercolor painting, painting my garden of flowers and botanical, through loose and free painting, as well as botanical watercolor and botanical illustration, all which comes close to the intense focus and design that I felt doing the designing of hand woven baskets. Watercolors are a bit more involved than baskets though. working with the differing techniques of watercolor paint, such as wet into wet, wet into dry, use of transparent colors vs opague, mixing of colors to achieve what you want. when to use granulating paints vs non granulating to achieve multiple textures in your work.

         

  

Photography is a very important element in watercolor painting, collecting pictures of flowers and botanicals, yes and even landscapes, sunrises, sunsets, waterfalls and streams, all which uses diffing techniques to achieve the end results, which in turn gives you knowledge to apply to the different styles of painting.

I am looking forward to new adventures, and letting go what appears to never happen (basket weaving) again. I am not prepared to waste another 5 years, waiting for something which never will happen, if at some point I am lucky enough to come across a place in which to weave the baskets, then after 2+ decades if weavin I can once again take it up. However painting can be done within the confines of a small apartment very easily.

 

So my blog posts will be geared towards the “Adventures in Watercolor” and the journey this takes me on. Life is just too short to wait on something which may or may not ever happen, in the meantime there is painting. I am looking so forward to putting creativity at the forefont of my life again!

The last three photographs, were taken using extension tubes, focusing on various watercolor paintings I have done, what surprised me was the almost 3D effect that you cannot visually notice in the finished painting, This is where photography works for the minute details you can achieve in a painting, almost like miniature paintings within paintings.

POSTING TO BEGIN SOON!

Tags

Art, Basketry, Heritage Basket Studio, New Beginings, photography

This is a short post to let everyone know that posting is to begin soon. Even though I have not posted since August 17, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I have been working on six different posts.

Sometimes life gets in the way of posting, I have gone through rough times, lately, and some depressing times. I have managed to find new avenues for my basket weaving, ways that will allow me to weave with a means by which to sell my baskets, and give me incentive to weave even in the face of adversity.

Over the past several years I have been dashed down, on the basket weaving, I believe in hopes that I would just walk away from it all. however when God gives you something to do and shows you how to do it in a dream, you just do not walk away from it all.. You find a way and strength to carry on, the face of Nay Sayers. Thanks to dear friends in other parts of the country and through prayer, I know that it is time to pick myself up and dust my self off and get back into the swing of things again.

Yes I have had very depressing times the past several years, from which I did not think I would ever recover. Now it is time to move forward and forget the past.

Over the next several weeks I will be posting on basketry, art, photography, and  the art of living once again. The past two months has given me time to reflect on these obstacles and how to work around the stumbling blocks put before me and move on with what I have to do in life, for myself.