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I am not a one-hit wonder. I swear I can take pictures that are not of flowers. I promise tomorrow will be something else.

Light

Light is so important for photographers. I shot this image and yesterday's image together. They are both of the same tree at the same time, but this photo shows the part of the tree in the sun, and yesterday's flower was in the shade.

I like the composition of yesterday's better, but the light in this one works for me more. So, life is full of trade offs. What else is new?

So, On My Way Home Today . . .

I saw some more flowers. And the inevitable frenzy of picture taking happened. I think this frame is my favorite of the bunch.

Closer

There is a tree near my house that sheds these orange-yellow things, I am not sure what to call them as they are not flowers. Anyway, I spied them on the windshield wipers of a blue truck and I appreciated the complimentary color pair, plus the cool texture of whatever-these-things-are.

I shot this at 50mm, f/2.8, although in hindsight I think I could have stopped down a bit more and that would have improved the picture.

Oh, and also I'm the Featured Blogger over at 2010 Virtual Photowalk - if you haven't seen the interview, go check it out!

Photoshop's 20th Anniversary

My week was a little more exciting than usual, in that on Thursday I had the chance to attend Photoshop's 20th Anniversary Celebration. It was a lot of fun! There were presentations from all the Photoshop Guys: Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Dave Cross, Corey Barker, Terry White. Julianne Kost also did two kick-ass presentations, and the highlight of the evening (for me) was Russell Brown's amazing multimedia presentation (I don't even know how he did it). I mean, truly multimedia. Two of the media were mustard (or ketchup, not sure) and bread. It also involved some toy cars and gorilla hands. Awesome! Plus a quick but not too quick jab at Steve Jobs (the word 'megalomaniac' may or may not have flashed across the screen).

Plus, I learned a few new things about Photoshop, and had some free wine and crackers, and ended up with a t-shirt that I will probably never wear until I have to paint the house. I'm not really a branded t-shirt kind of girl.

As is to be expected, everyone was taking pictures. And I felt no compunctions in grabbing this shot, as the lady turned her camera around next and took several close-up pictures of me, with flash! To what purpose? I can only guess. I saw her LCD screen, I was literally the only one in the shot.
Cell phone cameras were also heavily utilized. (Sorry for the narrow depth of field on this one, it was pretty dark in there.)
In addition, Adobe handed out 40 flash drives with a Photoshop 1.0 app for the iPhone. I didn't get one, to my dismay. Adobe, if you're reading this, I'll still accept one, ok?

For more blog posts on Photoshop's 20th Anniversary Celebration, see:

Scott Kelby's Post over at Photoshop Insider

Jim Goldstein's thoughts at his blog

And finally, check out video of the entire event on the NAPP website, here.

Blades - And Some Thoughts on Criticism

In addition to my photo today, I just wanted to give thanks to all the people who come to the blog and leave comments. I try to respond as often as I can, but I'm sure you have no idea how much I value each and every comment that comes to this blog. Plus, I am pretty fortunate to have some insightful and critical commenters, who let me know when my photos are sub par.

Specific thanks go out to the 'mystery commenter'* known as Z who yesterday let me know that my photo wasn't quite sharp. Of course, Z was absolutely right, and I should have posted something else.

So thanks, guys, for keeping me honest. My favorite comments are the ones that make me stop, think, and re-evaluate. Don't be shy, tell me when I suck!

Back on topic: these grasses grow in Union Square (and other places, I'm sure), and I love their multicolored leaves.

*Mysterious to me, at least. As far as I know, Z and I are not yet acquainted. However, I enjoy having mystery comments. Gives a little spice to the blog.