Blue Planet Special

Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge

In spite of constant badgering from friends, I continue to leave my tripod at home. At first it was because I was forgetful or perhaps just lazy. The reminders were there whenever I downloaded my photo cards onto my laptop: Blurry images that looked as if I had taken the shot from a passing car at 60 mph.

At first I deleted each dismal-looking shot before anyone else could see it. But with one particular image, I stopped and took a less critical look. There was something there in that blurry image that moved me. It was another dimension, a mood. There were patterns of color that had no clarity but seemed to have purpose. I gave the image a slight bit of saturation in Corel Paint Shop Pro 9, then a dash of "Colored Edges" to give it a "water color" texture.

Now, I look forward to leaving my tripod at home. There are photographers with far better lenses who can capture a hummingbird's wing at 1/4000 of a second. Let them have the "still" shots depicting absolute realism. While you will find occasional such images on my web site, they are sharp because the lighting was just right or I was still nursing my first cup of coffee. I love the notion that I can move my camera quickly to the ground or sky or somewhere between without a bulky tripod or monopod. And I like the idea that I may have recorded something that I was totally unaware of until I got back home and downloaded the image.

This makes my photo experience an even greater adventure than it was before.

You'll see the water color effect a few images down the page. Before that, I played with the "Soft Plastic" setting for the "Where give meets take" image and "Brush Strokes" for the "Stained glass estuary" image. "Timeless traveler" was done with the "Enamel" or "Topography" setting.

fossilx@earthlink.net