The snow is almost gone now. Today was clear, but cool. I find myself hoping for at least one more really good snow storm before Winter leaves us this year.

Don't be shy - leave a comment, I love hearing from my visitors!

Don't be shy - leave a comment, I love hearing from my visitors!

This weeks PhotoHunter theme is "Average".

Okay, I admit it, this one is a real s---t---r---e---t---c---h.  I've only been playing with my fellow PhotoHunters for about three months now, but this is definitely my least favorite, and maybe I can say most difficult, theme.  As I have said before, I like to create a photo just for the theme, and I guess in a way I have, but it comes from one I took just shy of 4 months ago.

Hopefully the photo above wouldn't be considered average by most people, but it came from the photo below which may be considered average.  The differences are created by an average of about 3 or 4 minutes of processing in Adobe Bridge, and then a few more minutes of processing in Photoshop where I crop, frame and add my signature.

For more samples of average this week click here:  PhotoHunter

Don't be shy - leave a comment, I love hearing from my visitors!

The only thing done to this photo was a slight warming of the white balance.  The fog was so thick that it swallowed up almost all color.  I was only 20 to 30 feet from this old wagon when I took this.

Usually "challenges" don't get to me, but I was out looking for a new place to get great sunset shots tonight and maybe I found one, I don't know, but what I did find was today's photo. I probably wouldn't have even posted it because I don't think it's anything extraordinary, but I was visiting Bush Babe's blog and she posted a challenge about reflections. I do like water reflections and this one certainly had that, so here you go.

In my Eighth grade English class everyone was required to write a poem and as I recall there was no guidance as to the subject matter.  At the time I lived up on the side of the hill looking out to the West.  From there we had an excellent view of the sunset and being a visual person I truly loved sunsets.  I still love sunsets.  Like all of God's creations, there are no two alike but even better than flowers and bugs and birds, there is a visible change from one minute to the next.  The title of today's blog "The Yellow Sun Reflects" is the first line of the poem I wrote in that Eighth grade English class and it's about sunsets.  I believe there were three or four selected from our school to be submitted to the National Anthology of High School Poetry.  Mine was one of those three or four and mine was the only one from our school published in that year's book.  I haven't written very many poems in my life and that is the only one I even remember the subject let alone any of the words.  Maybe I figured I couldn't top it so I'd quit while I was ahead. 


By the way, these were taken two nights ago, on Jan. 31st and other than a tiny bit of processing from Camera Raw to JPG, this is pretty much the way they came out of the camera.  You may have noticed that these aren't the first sunset photos I've done in the last few days, and chances are they won't be the last.

A couple months back while perusing around the photography blogs, as I am wont to do, I came across something or someone called Photog Ave. I thought it meant Photog Avenue, so I had to go look at it. I soon discovered the name belonged to a young photographer named Avery who goes by the nick name Ave. I also discovered that she is an up and coming young talent with real artistic skills. She has already won several awards and accolades and when you visit her blog you'll know why.

I asked her to send me a couple of her favorite photos to post here and this is my favorite of the ones she sent me.

Thanks Ave, for letting me use your photo and please keep up the great work!

Not very many days before this past Christmas I learned of the suffering a family in our church was going through as they had recently found out that their dear mother/grandmother and wife had been diagnosed with cancer and that it had metastasized into several organs. The doctors did not give them a lot of hope, but they performed emergency surgery and began looking at all options to best care for her. She was able to go home on Christmas Eve and has begun various treatments.

I had first met this wonderful lady and her good husband only several months before and had visited with them several times, much to my enjoyment. Of course I went and visited her while she was still in the hospital and found her to be her usual positive, happy, charge-taking self, to which I was very relieved. A couple weeks later I was able to visit her at home, and again had a wonderful visit. I had thought over and over about what I could do to try and bless her life and let her know how much I appreciated the opportunity to get to know her and her husband. The only thing that came to mind was to get some photos of her. While visiting I finally worked up the courage to ask her if I could do that for her and her family and I was so happy that she was pleased to do that. I don't need to tell you that I felt that these were among the most important portraits I had ever taken.

I am so grateful to her, her husband, and her daughter and her husband who graciously let us use their lovely home, for letting me capture a few moments of their life.

I titled this post "Tragedy?" because even though it is a tragedy that she has cancer her attitude is such that she lifts people up and makes their day better for having spent some time with her. Had it not been for this "Tragedy?" I might never have had the opportunity to get some wonderful photos of them and one of them might have died from an accident or heart attack or some other cause and everybody would have said "Why didn't we get any good photos while they were healthy?".

Who do you know that needs good portraits taken? Well get off your seats and go take them.

Okay, I'm going to be a little tricky on this one. It goes like this:

A friend of mine and I were walking out to get a better vantage point on the upcoming Sunset Over Saltair (See yesterday's post) when I glanced down and SPOTTED our long shadows on the SPOTTED gravel.  I had already noticed the SPOT in the sky of the rising moon so I snapped a photo to share with you for our SPOTTED theme this week.

If you have looked carefully you have SPOTTED a few changes in my post format since last time you were here.

1.  New frame around every photo which is created by using the photo itself blurred in the background and then a shadow & glow effect added to separate the two.
2.  Improved signature on the photo adding the © symbol and the year.
3.  You probably didn't notice before, but the photograph was always cut off on the right side.  It was driving me nuts but became painfully obvious when I added the border effect.  Thanks to Els that is now fixed.  More about that here.

For more information on PhotoHunt or to see SPOTTED pics from around the world click here.

There is a big pavilion on the South end of the Great Salt Lake called Saltair. It has quite a history. Last night another sun set over it as I captured some pics.

As I was driving around yesterday I saw this nice little park with a pretty bridge over a fishing pond and I decided that when I was on my way back home I'd stop and get a photo.  Well I got a few and even some of the bridge.  But I think the best one was this one.  Those small white patches in the background are snow.  A little different from the last few huh?  I hope it's not over yet.  It seems strange to say that since every year previous I've anxiously waited for Ground Hog day to see how much winter is left hoping he didn't see his shadow. 

Did you notice?  Yup you can see the whole photo up there.  That's thanks to Els at Focusmeus.  She saw my dilemma yesterday and emailed me to tell me how to fix it.  Isn't that AWESOME!!!  THANK YOU ELS!  My blog is now 34 pixels wider so I still have to fix the banner at the top - As soon as I can get a round tuit.  (If you don't know what a "round tuit" is let me know.)

Enjoy.

Because 2009 was the year of my total renewal of my love for photography, beyond trying to get good photos of my grandkids at play, it is the first year that I can remember that I have enjoyed Winter so much.  When the frost came and stayed for several days I absolutely relished in it instead of being down and complaining I was excited.  You have seen many of the photos I was able to capture as a result of that.  I find myself hoping for another spell like that, but doubt if we'll get it this year.  This is one of my personal favorites.  I even have it as my desktop background photo now.  You may also notice that I've added a new treatment or effect to the photo.  I was visiting one of my followers' blog yesterday and I noticed he had kind of a frame around it.  As I looked closer I could see that it was the same photo a little larger and slightly blurred.  I searched the internet for a tutorial on how to do it, but since I didn't know exactly what search terms to use I never found one.  I finally ended up just figuring it out in my Photoshop and it was pretty simple.  I think its a great effect.

One last note on this.  I've noticed that something about this particular blog template causes the photos to show slightly cropped on the right side.  So, as I'm writing this I don't know how it's going to look when I publish.  If it doesn't look just perfect, click on the photo itself to see it in full size.

This photo was taken a few days before Christmas, or about 6 weeks ago. It may have been the coldest I have ever been in my life even though I was dressed for the weather. The ambient temperature was probably aabout 7 or 8 degrees Fahrenheit (-14 Celsius), but the wind coming down that canyon at about 30 or more MPH brought the wind chill to well below 0 f. I got out and managed to get off three photos before I gave up and had to get back in my truck. I was afraid for the camera as much as myself. I went back to the same spot a few days ago and was kind of saddened to see that 90% of that ice is gone.