Texture Tuesday: Free and Easy

Summer cone flowers. Textured with a couple of layers of Kim's texture '401' and one layer of 'steelish'.

Texture Tuesday: Free and Easy for the Summer

It has been a while since I have posted anything on my blog or done any of Kim's challenges. I have been completely ignoring Beyond Beyond lately; I have not done any Texture Tuesday link up in weeks. I do not know why. I feel sort of unmotivated and, to be honest, that is eating me up because I have no right to not be motivated right now. I have had some completely amazing and inspiring experiences lately. Last year, I got to go to a Shutter Sisters event (Oasis) and this year, I was so lucky to be chosen (randomly) by the company I work for to go on a 2 week international volunteer trip. I went to Costa Rica just a few weeks ago. I volunteered in a nursing home and I met and connected with some amazing people. Both were wonderful experiences--all around--perfect, shall I say "magical". So now why am I feeling so uninspired? Why am I feeling so stuck? Why am I so unmotivated? Why am I NOT ready to take on the world?

Also, I am not depressed or anything like that. I'm perfectly content and I generally feel good about myself . . . I just lack a certain umpf lately, ya know?  Maybe I am just bored, but why should I be bored?  Or perhaps I am feeling guilty that I cannot hold onto the magic, to the passion after supposedly life altering experiences (which in the moment, they were) . . . life always just comes back to the mundane. Am I expecting too much?  . . . perhaps so.

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I did not take a lot of great pictures in Costa Rica. I wish I had taken more and I wish I had not been so disappointed in the ones I did take, but still, that was not why I was there. Above are two (very similar, I know) images from the beach in a place called Manual Antonio. I textured them with a few of Kim's textures--different blend modes, different opacities--just for fun. I have been adding textures to fewer of my photos these days, but I still love the process of adding textures to photos.

i knew it was you from the thumbnail

I do hear it, sometimes, from my contacts on Flickr--that oh-so-nice and flattering phrase, "I knew it was you from the thumbnail." I do not know that if I can really say that is because I developed a style uniquely my own. I think, perhaps not. I think it might instead be because I shoot the same subject matter over and over again, often in the same manner and with similar editing techniques applied.

There are leaves . . .sometimes with frost.

There is oatgrass--almost always with a texture or two added.

There are flowers -- done the same way many times over and over, with simple backgrounds, texure and posed stems.

There are dandelions, of course.

 . . . and lone dandelions seeds.

 

There are water drops after the rains.

And there is morning dew.

These are my subjects--over and over again.

Texture Tuesday: Wise Words Edition

Imagine.

Beyond Beyond: Day 14

I finally did a new (well newish) exercise for Kim's Beyond Beyond class--even now, though, it is only one part of many. I need to start getting back on track to doing more. I learn so much. I did the layout portion of the lesson. This one was fun and pretty straightforward and easy. This is my result . . . for what it's worth :)


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Texture Tuesday--Free and Easy Edition

I got picked these persistent little flowers from an area in the woods that was completely under several feet of water just a few days ago.

The image is fairly heavily textured with five layers of three of Kim's  textures at different blend modes.

Texture Tuesday--Two Texture Edition

It's been awhile since I have done any of Kim's challenges--neither her Texture Tuesdays nor the assignments from Beyond Beyond. I would like to get back on track.

I took this one at Grayton Beach in Florida. That's where we have gone on Spring Break for the past four years. I have never considered myself a Florida or a beach person in the past, tending toward the North and the mountains, but this particular place in the panhandle of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico has won me over. The town is a little bit hippie and a little bit ritzy.

It is the one vacation we take with only our immediate family (just the four of us) and the one vacation where we indulge ourselves with lots of dinners out and lots of hanging out--there is very little work at all going on. A little bit of laundry, very little cooking (and certainly no real cooking) and a very few short walks here and there. This is in contrast to our other vacations that are all about activity . . . hiking, kayaking, cooking and sharing food with the extended family, etc.

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This photo has two of Kim's textures. I saved it as a jpeg and do not remember which textures I used, but I assure you, it did have two.