Photo Painting

I really enjoy learning from my fellow bloggers. Here's a great example. Barb over at My Magical Adventures With My Camera mentioned a photo contest sponsored by Save Our Deserts. The challenge is to photograph the beauty of Black Lava Butte in Pipes Canyon where they are threatening to build wind turbines. So my wife and I drove out there last weekend, and that's when we stumbled upon the geoglyphs (see post below... thanks, Barb!). A comment left on my post by Victoria from A Photography Addict's Showcase made me curious to check out her blog. She had just posted the steps used to process a great photo, including use of an iPhone app called "AutoPainter" (thanks, Victoria!). So, a long-winded explanation about how other bloggers inspired me to go to new places and try new things... and hoping to pass it along!


Step 1:  Download the AutoPanter app, and chose the photo you want to turn into a painting. My photo choices are two great homestead cabins we ran across last weekend in Pipes Canyon (if you follow my blog, you know I have a "thing" for desert homestead cabins). These two are classics... one pink and one green.

Step 2: Run the app on the photo, and see what you get! You have 4 treatments to chose from, and the app's fun to watch. It shows some of the individual paint strokes!

Bonus shot:  I Used AutoPainter on a B&W image I shot. 

Step 3 (optional): Import the "painted" image into your processing software of choice to adjust clarity, color, etc. For example, on the B&W image above, I used PS to add just a touch of pink to the cabin and a touch of green to the joshua tree.


Pretty amazing for a 99 cent app, don't you think?? Check out A Photography Addict's Showcase for a more detailed description and some great photography!




Linking to Weekly Top Shot. Click on the link to check out some great shots!

Huge Geoglyphs in Yucca Valley, CA!

My wife and I were driving the Jeep along Old Woman Springs Road (aka Hwy 247) just north of Yucca Valley last weekend and a dirt road heading up the side of the hill caught our eye. We did a u-turn and went back to explore. I did not see any street markers or signs noting anything of significance in the area, but when we got off the road, there was a placard reading "Rhythm of Life and Atlatl at Black Mesa". Very mysterious, so without reading the sign carefully, off we went in the Jeep up what turned out to be a very steep, difficult road (more on that later). Turns out there are two huge stone designs called "geoglyphs" at the top of the hill. The largest of the two is called "Rhythm of Life". It's 200 feet long and made of 460 tons of stone!! It was made by Australian artist Andrew Rogers, and these are the only two geoglyphs in the US by this artist. There are similar geoglyphs in 11 other countries (Israel, Chile, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Iceland, China, India, Turkey, Slovakia and Nepal). So it turns out we literally stumbled across something quiet monumental, and perhaps famous. It's really facinating... to read more, please check out http://andrewrogers.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Rogers_(artist). Here are some late afternoon photos... the clouds moved in just in time for some very dramatic desert skies!

Stones making up the "Rhythm of Life" geoglyph in foreground.

My wife standing near the top of the "Atlatl" geoglyph. 

Lone Joshua Tree at the bottom of the hill, near placard.

What an incredible location, and how lucky were we to stumble across this place? It's difficult to see the entire geoglyph from ground level. Here's what the Rhythm of Life geoglyph in Yucca Valley looks like from the air:

Photo credit:  http://andrewrogers.org/land-art/usa/

The second geoglyph is called "Atlatl", and the design is derived from an ancient petroglyph in a granite boulder at Coyote Hole near the village of Joshua Tree. Here's what it looks like from the air:

Photo credit:  http://andrewrogers.org/

Oh, I almost forgot... back to the white knuckle Jeep ride up the side of the hill. We got back down to the placard and read it more carefully: "Do Not Go Beyond The Parking Area With A Car!"... "Wear a hat and rugged footwear, carry plenty of water, and use sunscreen before hiking up the rough path to the site. The path is steep and should be hiked with care, watching out for loose rocks". So, two lessons learned here...

[1] Read the signs FIRST, then proceed!

[2] Jeep trails are always steeper than they appear!

What an awesome adventure!  Linking to Skywatch Friday. Please click the link to visit great skies from all over the world!

Three Little Finches...

These little guys were outside of my office window yesterday.  I shot this through both glass and screen, so it gives it a soft-focus look.

Mural Moday: SOCO District Fullerton

Downtown Fullerton in S. CA has been redone, refurbished, and updated to the point where it's somewhat of a destination in it's own right... including some great restaurants and bars. Fortunately, the city has managed to keep much of the "old" Fullerton feel. The "SOCO" district refers to SOuth of COmmonwealth, and there's a wonderful mural along one of the back alleys.

 

The mural is quite long, so something of a photographic challenge. I took a series of three photos and stitched them together in Photoshop, and I'm happy with the result. I like the fact that the center portion of the mural includes an orange grove and kids seated around a basket of oranges. After all, Fullerton is in Orange County, and this entire area used to be covered with orange groves before the real estate boom that started in the late '50s.

Linking to Mural Monday at Oakland Daily Photo.  Check it out to see some great murals from around the world!