3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

Lincoln

Photo Friday: Lilly Pads in Lightroom

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Lightroom 4  is my new friend and I’m pulling out old photos that needed some more work. I used to have a feature Photoshop Friday, but it’s now named Photo Friday. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of photos to “fix” or improve. I have thousands on my hard drive.

Pond Lilies in Summer
Pond Lilies in Summer

I love how the result and am even further excited about being able to decrease the jpg noise from my old Fuji Fine Pix S1500 camera. My old camera took good pictures, and I pushed the limit with it, but now I’m using a Canon Rebel shooting  RAW and I can see a huge difference.  This is one setting I’m putting into my presets.

Below is the straight out the camera photo. Look for yourself the difference.

Pond Lilies in Summer SOOC
Pond Lilies in Summer SOOC

Click on the image below to see the larger tutorial Lightroom4 screen.

Decreasing noise in Lightroom 4
Decreasing noise in Lightroom 4 (click on image for larger view)
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Save On Gas, Use Horsepower

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I think gas prices are a little high when the department of roads starts using horsepower the sides of the road. This is a sight you don’t see very often, a team of horses mowing the grader ditches. I know the Nebraska state budget isn’t in that dire of straits, but I wonder if gas prices have just gone up a little too much?

Draft Horses (SOOC)
Draft Horses (SOOC)

My husband and I spotted these Belgian mares north of Lincoln Nebraska mowing the grass and also saw them four days later, raking the same ditch to turn the hay. They do not belong to the state of Nebraska, nor are they doing the county’s job of maintenance. Of course I had my camera with me, you never know when you will find a photo opportunity, and talked to the farmer. They had just mowed over two miles of grass and would go back in a few days to bale the hay. He believes that horses need to be exercised on a regular basis, especially draft horses, and what better way to do this than put them to work. 

 I don’t remember their names, but they are full sisters, one a seven year old and the other other eleven.

Team of Belgians Mowing
Team of Belgians Mowing

Edits were done in Lightroom 4 with a decrease in exposure, increase in clarity and opening up shadows on the horses to bring out detail. The sky was still washed out so I used the adjustment brush and decreased the exposure in the sky to get a better balanced image. Voilia! Clouds appeared.

 

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Day 106/365: First Encounter With a Marine Drill Instructor

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USMC Recruit Family Night

In just a little under four months I will have two sons in the United States Marines. My youngest, a high school senior, is in the delayed entry program and got a little taste of Marine boot camp during last week during Family night for the Lincoln Nebraska recruiting station. A visiting drill instructor from San Diego put them through their paces and had them sounding off like grunts in no time.

My youngest son  leaves for boot camp in July. He’s the one on the far right with red tape on his arm (gave blood at school earlier in the day, his 7th pint) For a better understanding of what they went through in ten minutes here is a short video below, might want to turn your volume down for this.