Tuesday, May 8, 2012

One more day --

This will be a quick post, but guess what?  Tomorrow evening is the last class I'll teach for nine months!  And my retirement date is July 18th, but between now and then, I don't have a lot to do other than sort through 23 years of accumulated debris in my office and figure out what the heck to do with it.

But, in the meantime, I gave myself an early retirement present -- a Canon 7D, which I'm thrilled with.  I haven't had a lot of time to use it yet, but I did take a couple of snaps last evening, and this is the only one I've processed so far:

 Linked to Texture Tuesday

I'm also continuing to take art classes -- the latest community college class is on collage.  I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying it, but there's a kind of freedom that then allows the process feel a little like play, and if you make a goof, well, you can usually figure something out to make it right.  Here's the first one I've been really happy with (we were supposed to make an abstract landscape):


If you can look closely, you'll see that some of the layers are kind of fun -- the top one is a magazine picture of a giant fingerprint, and the next one down is chocolate muffins with sugar crystals on top.  I used Color Efex Pro to process the picture, and it looks dark, but 1) it was supposed to be nighttime, and 2) it was the only way I could get close to the actual colors, which are pretty vivid.  Here's the photo that was my inspiration:


I love this picture, but unfortunately it's not a good one -- it was night and I didn't have my tripod, so it's really fuzzy.  (And of course I should have gotten rid of the telephone pole.)  It really was a beautiful scene, and I guess it will have to live on as one of the "ones that got away."

Anyway, got to run for today -- I'm seeing my son for dinner in Berkeley.  Yay!  

8 comments:

georgia b. said...

congrats on the new camera! lucky you!

love the photo and texture.

but i'm really smitten with that collage. what beautiful artistry! the colors are wonderful.

Elise Ann Wormuth said...

Thank you so much! I'm so new at it I'm unused to compliments. :)

Unknown said...

Wonderful photos. I love those roses. Your editing looks great!

Joyfull said...

Congratulations on the new camera and your upcoming retirement! Love the picture, it is gorgeous!

Kim Peterson said...

beautiful! and i just purchased a 7D used through the clickin moms forum and am so excited to get it in a week or so!

Elise Ann Wormuth said...

Thanks, everyone -- I think you'll love the 7D. The size of the pictures it takes are so much bigger than the last camera I bought -- better for cropping. It's as far as I can go without ditching all my lenses, and I have some pretty good ones. But I don't think I'm going to complain!

LeAnne said...

I adore those roses! Such a lovely vintage feel. I could definitely see hanging this on my wall. Visting from Texture Tuesday and would love to have you share with my Flower Art Friday linkup @ http://www.photosbyleanne.net/2012/05/flower-art-friday-3-may-11-2012.html.

Miriam said...

the roses are so pretty and yes, I thought 'vintage' too.
I really love your landscape collage and would love to learn how to do that!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blacksticksblue/