A DIGITAL WORLD!

One of the things that has amazed me in recent years is how digital photography has revolutionized the world of picture-making. I know there are purists out there who believe that anything done digitally is not truly artistic, but I enjoy working with picture post-production. Plus, I can have the light on in my "darkroom."

I took a picture from my niece's recent wedding, and did several things with it. Some time was involved - these are not quick tricks that can automatically be done in Photoshop. However, the results are, if I do say so myself, pretty neat!

First, here is the original picture.



Now, one of the effects that I like is to make the background grayscale, so the subjects in the picture have less distraction from other elements. Here's the result, quite a while later!



Now, you can also do the complete opposite, for an interesting effect. (I don't like this as well for this particular picture, although in some circumstances it's quite nice.)



Or, you can do something completely crazy, like change it from a picture to a silhouette, add some other elements, and make it a keepsake of the special day!



So, what do you think? Should I open my own business to produce wedding mementos?

I HAVE A FRIEND!

Though many believe otherwise, I DO have a friend! His name is Art, and he lives in Norwood. He recently had a significant amount of work done to his house - new thermalpane windows, new doors, and new siding. Today was my first chance to see it, and the results are great! I walked around to look at it closely, and it really seems to be good workmanship as well.

Last year, he had the roof replaced, and so he's planning for this to be his major home renovation prior to retirement.

Here are a few pictures of the house. I don't have any "before" shots for comparison, but it's a dramatic difference.









And here he is - my friend Art! (Art is actually an experienced English teacher with whom I worked at Brasher Falls during 1988-1998. He has now become "one of the family" and is often seen enjoying a meal or a picnic with us!) This picture was taken when Art, Wendy, and I were enjoying lunch at Ducci's in Brasher Falls, which is a great restaurant, by the way!

MY EARTHLY FATHER...

Yesterday in church, I read a poem I had written as a tribute to my father. I now share this tribute with those who care to read it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post this week, Tuesday, June 10 would have been my father's 78th birthday. Unfortunately, (from our perspective) he was taken from us at only 65. It's hard to believe he's been gone for almost 13 years, but I'm so glad for the almost 29 years that I had with him.

My Mom also passed away in 1998, at only 67. We miss her too, and I've got some ideas floating around in my head to honor her as well. Perhaps something will find its way here from those efforts before too long.

"Honour thy father and thy mother..." (Exodus 20:12)

SOME CUTE PICTURES!

My past year of busy-ness has prevented me from enjoying one of my favorite hobbies - photography! I have recently been considering a new camera purchase, but to this point I'm just trying to begin using my old one more.

We had Sunday dinner at my sister's house today, and their grandson Jordan visited with his parents. I love shooting close up pictures of kids - their faces can be SO expressive! I thought some of these were cute - keep in mind, we had already eaten dinner, he's a kid, and he was still wearing a little bit of his. I chose not to include the couple of pictures where we could see up his nose!













You've GOT to admit it - he's a cute kid!

TANDY AND ANDREW...

Since uploading the video tribute to Mom and Dad (which occurred without difficulty), it has been challenging trying to do the same for my video from Tandy and Andrew's reception. I did successfully upload a significantly compressed version of the video, but not for the 'blog directly. You can view it (or download it to your own computer) by visiting this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2248472279538643658

Congratulations again, Tandy and Andrew! I hope that your first few weeks of married life have been great, and that you have many happy years together!

On an unrelated note, haven't I been a posting MADMAN lately? It's a shame that only two people read my 'blog - all of this wasted effort!

THE FINAL RESULTS!

After another couple of hours out in the sun today, I think I'm finished with the lawn for now. It's amazing how a little bit of concerted effort can really make a HUGE difference - I'm glad I had time (and two days of cooperative weather) to get this done.

Let's take the tour together, shall we?

Here's the approach to our house from the road (County Route 38). Because there was so much plowing to be done this past winter, the lawn on the side of the road still shows some damage. There's more raking to do, but that will be over time. You can see our mailbox, #2327, but the house is not visible from the road when there are leaves on the trees.

It almost looks like someone lives here now!


It's evident when you turn into the driveway that I still have work to do! The bushes grow so fast, and it becomes impossible to go down the driveway without scraping on both sides.


This is the curve that makes plowing the driveway so difficult in the winter time. When turning with a plow, the snow builds up on the inside of the curve, and the back tire of the truck drives over that, packing it into ice quickly. If we have a thaw, it makes it tough to move at all!


Now we're down to the house, so let's look around. First, looking back up the driveway, the lawn to our left looks decent. (This grass doesn't get as thick anyway.)


Then, we gaze to the right of the driveway... (I need to put that gas container away.)


The front yard...


A robin with her lunch, happy that she can now maneuver in our yard...


Now I'm over where the robin was (I scared her off), and I'm looking at the yard from that corner.


Now from the far corner...


And the back yard...


Aren't you glad you got to witness all of this? There's still a bit more hay lying around the yard than I like (I mowed the front again today, so that's three times in two days), but it's fine and evenly spread out. With some breezes and rain, it will rot and turn into fertilizer soon enough anyway.

Now, when we get the INSIDE of the house cleaned up, you can come to visit us!

THE ROUGH CUT...

Originally, I started mowing in low gear and overlapping. Then, I realized it would take forever, so I just put it in third and started hacking the grass. Now, I'll let the sun dry stuff out and hopefully mow again this afternoon.

Here's a closer perspective of the first pass...

The twenty horses are taking a well-deserved rest in the shade!

Playing "musical cars" makes the task of mowing the lawn even more fun. Since Wendy's at work, there's a spot in the garage where I'll pull one of these vehicles while I mow the back yard.

As I was coming in from the hour of mowing, I saw an ant. I'm posting this closeup of your struggling cousin in his waning moments of existence so all of you (ants) who check my 'blog regularly will realize that we're serious and STAY AWAY!

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!

The title for this post comes from my suspicion about what the UPS driver will say the next time he delivers something to our house. This is somewhat embarrassing, and I don't have a great excuse. The past year was so busy that, even though my semester at Clarkson ended on May 2, I had so many things that were put off that I am still catching up! Now that my grades are submitted for the summer course at SUNY Potsdam (the final exam was Tuesday, June 10, which would have been my father's 78th birthday), I am desperately trying to get some things done, in a prioritized way.

So today, I begin the lawn. It is June 12, and I've only mowed my lawn ONCE this season, so it's pretty bad! Here we go...

This picture shows the front lawn (or shall I say
"hay field") before I began the project!

This would be a rabbit's view of the house - pretty nice, eh?
No wonder they are taking the yard over!

This is a strategic picture of the grass in front of the porch.
If you look closely, you can see the handle of my weed eater! :)

Here's what remains of the tree that came down in January (see earlier post).
I need to continue working at cutting this up and burning it.

Here's one of the tallest weeds in the front.
I actually already cut one down in the back that was quite a bit bigger.

In spite of the lack of maintenance, some of the wildflowers
from last year still blossomed!

Here's the entire "flower bed." (Weed bed?) :)

Step one - to make a path around the house with the weed eater...

More of my path progress - note the cool
orange fungus growing on some of the wood.

I saw this neat bug on a miniature daisy in the back yard.
It didn't seem to mind me getting very close for a macro shot.

I'll let you know when I finish the lawn, and share some pictures of the results.

A QUICK UPDATE

I don't have time for a full post, but I wanted to share a couple of my productions that I've done lately. The video below is a tribute to my parents that I made for my niece's wedding, and I was quite pleased with the result. Several people have said they wanted a copy, so I thought I'd post it for everyone to view, if you'd care to. I also have a video of pictures of Tandy and Andrew that I made, but it exceeds the size limit imposed here. I'll render it with different quality settings to comply, and post it when I can.

My short MST class ends soon, and I hope to post news more often over the summer!