Love my iPad Pro!

Sarah asked how I liked my new iPad Pro, the large one. So I thought I'd write a bit about it.

I actually love ‘working’ on my new Pro. Seeing is much better especially if you’re scrutinizing your work for print. 

I LOVE, LOVE LOVE the Pencil. Totally.

Now the only thing I’m not thrilled about is the cumbersome size for toting around. Which I don’t do often, but the old one went everywhere with me. (Which is for sale.)

I’m trying to get the courage up to go buy a ‘tiny’ purse. Yeah, like I think I can survive with that. I know what will end up happening… I’ll get a tote bag of sorts that the iPad will fit in along with my extra personal belongings and end up sticking the tiny purse inside. I seriously need to get a smaller purse though. My back is bothering too much.

I inherited my hubby’s iPad mini that has a crack in the corner but I leave it at work for appointment scheduling and swiping credit cards. It has no cellular data plan so it doesn’t do much good to tote around. Perhaps I should switch my data plan from my Pro to the mini. Then I’d be tempted to edit on the mini more (on the run) and that would be going backwards. Besides, it already drives me crazy having stuff on a desktop and laptop and now I’ll spread it around on 2 iPads? 

Do you see my hair getting thinner? And grayer?

By the way, here is a great case my friend Kathy turned me on to. Mostly because of the pencil holder, and the price is quite right.  Which brings up another thing about that pencil. No-one told me you had to charge it which could be a problem sometimes. It comes with an adapter that you plug into your iPad charger. My question is where am I supposed to keep it and not loose the darn thing? It is very small. So far it's staying at the house but I may need to invent something that attaches to that case. Here's another thing you need to know.... How do you tell how much charge the battery has in that pencil? Swipe down from the top to reveal the notifications and it will show there. I hope on the next update they will add it to the menu bar like the other battery. No reason they can't. (Well I guess I don't really know that do I?)

And while you're at it this is nice to have too. A nifty little jump drive that can plug into your iPad or computer.

And don't forget the pencil!

Hope your summer is going well. It hit 100º yesterday and I'm already picking giant squash.

On Being Still

Stillness can be a hard thing for me. I struggle with the conflict in my mind of it being mistaken as laziness. Performance has apparently been an issue in my childhood and I'm sure many of you have had that monkey placed on your back also. Hubby deals with it too so it's been hard to rid that animal from my life. 

So in all fairness I'll just say I flunked that part of the course.... well maybe I'll give myself a C-. I have gotten better and sure don't feel guilty about taking time for myself these days. I just don't let anyone catch me at it.

I'm referring to Kim's Be Still 52 year long course on finding stillness in life and photography and still life shots. It's been a great and amazing ride. We were asked to review our photos and choose a favorite. I've been quite drawn to my darker, moodier images.

This one is actually on canvas and hanging at work. (Actually the previous one is too, I just forgot!)

But I'll have to say that this is my favorite from last year. Sunflower could be my middle name and right now I'm thinking of going back and using some of Kim's new presets on last year's sunflower photos. (My brain is spinning...)

Mobile Art Monday No. 10

Lubbock is home to The Buddy Holly Museum which has juried art shows and occasional invitational shows. I had the pleasure of getting into one in 2013 and actually getting first place. But then you know how are judges are. If it had been a male judge there is no way he would have picked mine. But I must admit it was a huge boost to my confidence level at the time.

But confidence never lasts long it seems. This month an invitational show (anyone could participate) with the theme The Semi-Arid Landscape would be on exhibit. The day before the email deadline I finally checked to see if they were full and promptly emailed in a photo with dimensions and price attached.

By the time I got around to printing and framing self-doubt had crept in. Whenever I talked about it to others I was fighting hard not to make excuses for it. I had done a black and white version edited in Stackables because I only had my iPhone with me when I had taken this photo. My print was 'ok' but I was wishing I had done it in color. Oh well, too late.

Friday night we went to the opening…. My photo was first one on the right as you walked through the door. Meaning it would also be the last one you see as you leave. I thought that was nice. It was grouped with three other black and white photos that complimented each other nicely. The show was good. It included all media, from painting, drawing, to mixed media collage. 

The day after the show I had a message from a fellow photographer, David Pike, whose work I believe is fabulous. He said mine was in his top five favorites and wanted to buy a print for his friend that loved it. David said he is an aspiring photographer and is trying to encourage him to enter some shows. 

Well, how do I feel about my photo now? Better than I did before. It always helps to know someone else likes your work. The self critic really needs to take a back seat more often.

"Tangled Boundries" (Stackables, birds are real, added in Superimpose)

One of my creative friends, Michelle at Knee Deep in Dandelions has written some great words of wisdom on sharing your art with the world. So I (and she) encourage you to put yourself out there.

Linking up with Kim for Texture Tuesday. It's about texture…

Friday Finds -Grandma's Spoons

I had a wrestling match with Lightroom yesterday and am pleased to announce that I won. It just took awhile. (I believe I have a limp.) I had started a new catalog the first of 2013 but since my granddaughter was born in 2012 I decided I would export that year as a catalog from the old Lightroom and import it into the new one. I also moved everything to an external drive so I could take it to work and play in my spare time.
Everything has rocked along just fine until I decided to start deleting old Collections because the list was quite long. I was at work and noticed I had missing photos in some collections. Of course all were from 2012. This was aggravating because if I asked it to show me where it was in the library it took me to the photo. So how was it missing?
To make a long story short, I have an extra INternal drive that replaced the dvd drive so it's like an external built in. Lightroom was pointing me to folders on that drive that I had backed up there. I go home to find the same thing. It's pointing me to a folder on my hard drive. It's hard to explain but I ended up throwing all those files in the trash and redirecting Lightroom to the correct folder on the external. whew!!!! Now the kicker is that those 'older' collections aren't linked to those photos anymore.  Oh well, I probably needed to get rid of them anyway.
On to a happier note… It's time for Friday Finds at Kim's blog.
A prior lesson in Be Still class was to photograph spoons from different angles of light. My memory told me I had some of my Great grand-mother's spoons tucked away somewhere. (actually they were right under my nose neatly wrapped with a piece of 50 year old scotch tape) A perfect set of 4 and 2 other strange ones. I decided to use the odd one first, possibly a sugar spoon or perhaps it was used for jam.

I decided the others photographed better.

Another thing I found this week was this cool coffee bean sack. You'll see it used for a lot more backdrops in the future. Thanks you Viv for this idea. I've had the old bottle for a long time. It deserves to be in more photos too. I used a 2 Lil Owls texture. You can see my layers panel below.

Texture Tuesday July 22

When I'm shooting with my big girl camera I always try to remember to fire off a few shots with my iPhone. I have been more in love with editing on my iPad than playing with Photoshop. I love to learn. I love a challenge. Some of those apps can most certainly be a challenge. And the more I accumulate it's a challenge to even remember what each one has to offer. This also bring me to that quandary of renewing my CC subscription. At least the full blown package. just not using it enough to justify the $$. I would like to know Illustrator a little better. I would also like to know Premiere Pro (video editing) If I just didn't have to work…….
So... if you caught my post for App Happy Wednesday you saw this same shot (from my phone) edited in Snapseed, Stackables, and Superimpose. You can check out the grungier version here.
This is the Canon shot plus a few more perspectives. Textures used are kk_Pinitonly6 at Overly 64%. I merged the layers then set this layer to screen over a texture by Lil Owls that I added more contrast too.

A little black and white love!

I used my Cool Faded Peonies preset on this one.

I think I'm loving my cosmos as much as my poppies.

Joining Kim today for Texture Tuesday!

Friday Finds May 30

Come on over to Kim's blog and see what kind of great goodies everyone has found/discovered this week.
I found the black and white peony photo that I'd meant to texture for Texture Tuesday last week. Oh well, here it is in all it's glory. I thought it was more moody in black and white than color. Edited in Lightroom.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Texture Tuesday May 20

Time is getting away from me…. again. My birthday is sneaking up fast but we won't talk about that.
Come over and check out the textured photos at Kim's Texture Tuesday today. The theme is Black and White. Should be interesting…..
No flowers today. I've been wanting to do a B&W version of the steeple-less church in Lightroom. Not as dramatic as I was hoping but I liked the texture. I did more tweaking(clarity, vignette, burning) in Lightroom after the texturing. And added Kim's warmyhaze preset for a more vintage look.

Details of the Santa Fe trip coming later this week.

App Happy 5-14

It's App Happy Wednesday over at Barb's. Come over and check out what everyone's doing on their mobile edits.
A little tour of my Instagram feed the past few days.
I made 2 versions of this in DistressedFx then used a soft light blend mode in Image Blender to achieve this.

If memory serves me right, this was done using Vintique. Although I may have used PicGrunger too.

You'll just have to get used to the all the peony photos this week. Two Snapseed edits of this close up.

Speaking of Snapseed….I couldn't resist this old church done in black and white. My friend just got a best of show with a shot of this church that she HDR-ed. I haven't seen it yet… It's at the Garden and Art Center in the West Texas Photographic Society Show. My track record has been great this past year but I didn't place at all in this one. I got a few oohs and aahs as I turned in my photos and that's enough to spur me on.

And more Snapseed….. There is a 'gasoline' museum halfway between Taos and Santa Fe but it was closed on Sunday when we made the trek. That didn't keep me from getting out and snapping a few.

And what would Mother's Day be without a card with a watercolored peony on it? Waterlogue and Rhonna Designs.

Texture Tuesday May13

Since the Texture Tuesday theme is yellow this week I had to take the pink out of my photo. (most of it) I had fun editing this. In fact I've had too much fun editing this past weekend.

Original edited in Lightroom before texture.

And the real original shot with the Lensbaby Double Optic with 2.8 and Macro Filter.

Now that the flowers are out I am getting some Lensbaby practice in. Stay tuned for poppies and larkspur!

Hallie in Black and White

Shades of black and white. I like to through a little brown in with it at times. It worked well with this photo.

Those are little poppy stamens on her sleeve.

I would really like to do black and white more often. It's very hard for me to see in black and white while I'm photographing. Maybe I should set me camera to black and white and use the preview window for shooting. Sounds like a challenge to me. Anyone up for that?

Friday Finds August 9

I've discovered a 'new to me' little antique shop. Every time we go visit hubby's folks I drive his mom to the antique stores. She knows everybody there, but that doesn't seem to help me get a discount. Here is the place snapped on my phone and the loot.

This is what I did with my little teal vase and sewing machine drawer. I'm sure his mom was thinking I was an idiot for paying $18 for that drawer, but I had to have it. There were 2 old bed springs, and I mean old, that had a price tag of $9. I couldn't remember how I had seen them used but I really wanted one. However, not enough to pay that much. I'm talking one individual spring here folks. I can always get it later, I'm sure. I had already spent enough at the first place we had gone.

Linking up with Kim at Friday Finds.