Photo of the Month – February

Hi Folks:

One of the things we love about Victoria is that there are always so many things to do (we have to choose from at least eight events that we know of for this Saturday). In February we like to participate in ‘Be A Tourist in Your Own Hometown‘, and as part of that we invested several hours at the world-famous Butchart Gardens. We even got shuttled there in CVS Tours‘ EV550 electric bus!

February was also bitterly cold (We had snow! In February!!) but being the brave pioneers that we are, we soldiered on. Because of the cold the flowers this year are severely retarded, but we had a wonderful time. There wasn’t as much colour, but still lots to see.

So, Marcia’s image first. In addition to the gardens, Butchart also has an inside floral display, which was packed full with orchids and so many different species of flowers of all shapes and sizes. There was our colour! Amidst the hustle and bustle of all of that beauty she found this quiet point of reflection:

Overflowing With Beauty

Overflowing With Beauty

NB: Mike suggested several other (and equally fascinating) titles, like ‘One Good Urn Deserves Another’, ‘Taking an Urn for the Better’ and ‘Urn, Baby, Urn… Disco Inferno’ but she rejected them all in favour of her own idea (heavy sigh).

Since Marcia’s image was all about stillness, Mike’s was all about movement. Within the gardens there’s a building that houses an old-fashioned carnival merry-go-round. The children (and adults) riding on it had a lot of fun. Unfortunately there’s no way to capture the squeals and giggles in a still image but they’re there nonetheless.

Trans-Dimensional Fun

Trans-Dimensional Fun

Okay. That’s it for today. Now go out and make some photographs!

Hugs,

M&M

Photo of the Month – January

Hi Folks:

January was somewhat of a month of recuperation for us, and as such we didn’t make a lot of images. We did get out some, however! As always, Marcia’s image is first. This is a close-up image of some frost (uncommon for Victoria) on the glass of a bus shelter. Marcia loves her flower photography and although we did have flowers blooming in January, today we’re presenting some ‘frost flowers’ instead.

Frost Flowers

Frost Flowers

This second image is Mike’s and shows the reflection of a Garry oak tree in a tidal pool in Victoria’s inner harbour. In more ways than one, the branching patterns are ‘returning to the sea’.

Returning to the Sea

Returning to the Sea

Both images were made with our phones, and both were pushed around a bit in Lightroom.

Okay, that’s it for today. Now go out and make some photographs!!

Hugs,
M&M

Using Dehaze with Lightroom 6.x

Hi Folks:

One of the features available in Lightroom CC 2015.x that’s not available with Lightroom 6.x is the Dehaze tool. I’m not sure what magical coding is going on behind the curtain, but if it’s possible to duplicate this effect using the other sliders, it’s neither inherently obvious (at least to me) nor easy to do so. If you have a Lr CC subscription, updating to the latest version should give you access to the Dehaze tool. If you’re using a standalone version of Lr 6, all is not lost – thanks to Stu over at Prolost.com – as he’s made a series of presets available for download. You can buy the Dehaze presets as part of a larger preset package here, or you can download only the Dehaze presets for free (or by donation) here.

If you have Lr CC2015.1 or later the Dehaze slider will be under the Effects panel in the Develop module (below Grain). It’s also available as a slider with the mask tools (Graduated Filter, Radial Filter, etc). If you’re using Lr 6.1 or later, using Dehaze will only be possible using the downloaded presets mentioned above. As such, one of the limitations is that the presets are in graduations of 10 – i.e. one can add 50 or 60, but not 53 the way one could set the slider in Lr CC.

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Happy Holidays!

Hi Folks:

Whether you celebrate Christmas or Festivus, Solstice or Saturnalia, the arrival of Sinterklaas or Grandfather Frost, Hanukkah, Mawlid Un Nabi, Kwanzaa or something entirely personal, we send you love. Create an amazing 2017!!
 
 

2017 Photo Calendars

Hi Folks:

This is the seventh year now that we’ve made our MS Word photo calendar templates available, and as with the past couple of years, we’ve also created a series of templates and calendar images you can use with Lightroom or other graphics software. As we did last year we’ve also added a full-page calendar option, below. 

I created a template in MS Word that allows people who don’t have Photoshop, Lightroom or the equivalent to make their own photo calendars, so we’ll cover that first; the Lightroom stuff is below that. I used MS Word 2007 to make the template, but saved it as both a Word 2007 file and a Word 97-2003 compatible file. Basically it’s a series of tables, one for each month, that look something like this:

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Photo of the Month – November

Hi Folks:

November was a busy, restless month for us, and so we’ve chosen images that highlight some of the quieter moments we had in order to provide some balance. Marcia’s is first – an image of Thetis Lake Regional Park in Langford – and a place and a space for quiet reflection. Marcia loves her arbutus trees! (After we left the park we stopped at The Nest Café for some lunch and a very good hot chocolate… 😉 )

Thetis Lake Regional Park

Quiet Reflection at Thetis Lake

Mike’s is next, and this image shows an area of John Dean Provincial Park known as ‘John Dean’s Pool’.

John Dean Provincial Park

John Dean’s Pool

Spending time in the woods has always provided much-needed solace for us.

Okay, that’s it. Now go out and make some photographs!!

Hugs,
M&M

Free Hugs on Black Friday

Hi Folks:

Free hugs on Black Friday – the ultimate irony? Perhaps not, but we had fun anyway. It’s true we had a certain resemblance to the Michelin Man with the layers we were wearing and Marcia had to trade in her signature sun hat for a set of ear muffins but she was still as beautiful as always.

Free Hugs on Black Friday
The cruise ship season is over and being a weekday afternoon it wasn’t as busy a day as some we’ve had, but every hug we share is unique and special to us. Our thanks to everyone who stopped by Friday afternoon, all of the people who offered hugs, honks, waves, bicycle horn beeps and greetings… and special thanks to the three people who pulled over just for hugs!

We’ve never before done a Free Hugs session in November. Depending on the weather we may do another one next month; it’s about time to get that red suit back from the cleaners anyway. Remember to hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!! 🙂

Hugs,
M&M