A few glimpses from the hike I took yesterday with Stephanie to Jack London SHP in nearby Glen Ellen.
Painterly view of grape vine leaves turning yellow and red on a mountainside in the distance
Lake reflection in the early evening
Two 40 foot silos, built between 1912 and 1915
Hello. I would like copies of the photos of rollerskating. I see that you’ve been uploading photos in the past few days, and I am hoping that those ones are included. How should I proceed? Thank you.
Leona, send me your email address (you can find mine here) and I’ll forward them to you straightaway.
Matt, yeah, the live comment preview will render some tags that Wordpress actually strips out, <sup> for example. I’ll look into syncing the two.
The silos were right next to the Pig Palace (marked #10):
I think I have one other shot of them in the distance I can dig up for you at home.
Wow, you have time for hiking? I’m so jealous. And it’s so beautiful there. I know it’s beautiful up here in Seattle too, but I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been stuck indoors working every Goddamn day for the last two months. (sigh)
Great photos, Justin :) Thanks for sharing! Although.. if I may be so bold as to say that my perverse self looked at the last photo and thought.. hmm.. that looks like an oddly familiar angle…
Indoors because of the rain? You might just have to don a coat and galoshes and go out and get wet. My peeps tell me it’s beautiful up there.
Regarding the silos, ahem, interesting observation.
No, not because of the rain, silly! I love the rain. It’s why I don’t mind living here in the slightest. And you’re right, it IS beautiful here… I just wish I had more time to go outdoors and enjoy it. But the nature of my job is such that my bosses are sadistic freaks and I therefore am an involuntary recluse so I can finish projects. Ugh.
Marcia, I moved your comment re: The New Monogamy to the appropriate thread.
Is it okay if I show a larger version of the fall grapevines (the first picture) to my Mom? That’s the kind of thing she likes to paint. (http://djlanzendorfer.com/)
Joy, definitely. I just sent you a copy. You may be disappointed, as the original is uncropped and un-color-corrected. Might provide an interesting insight into what I do to a photo before posting it.
I’d be happy to color-correct the larger version if your mom so desires.
I use Fireworks for image editing—I think because it’s what I first learned at SILS back in undergrad.
First I see what Filters > Adjust Colors > Auto Levels does, which sometimes does just what I want (if the photo is already pretty balanced), but all too often it completely washes out the photo (by reducing a dominant color and upping the contract too much). When it works well, the effect is that of a layer of gray muddiness being washed off the photo.
Usually I’ll run a filter and then alternate Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Y to undo and redo the filter in order to evaluate the change.
So I tweak contrast and brightness (5-10 brightness, 10-15 contrast), because I usually take pictures with the exposure turned down to prevent overexposure. I’ve also been playing with increasing the saturation 5 or 10 (Filters > Adjust Color > Hue/Saturation) which really makes the colors pop.
Finally if I’m feeling brave, I go into Filters > Adjust Color > Curves and try to reduce a red glare or blue tint.
Sometimes I’ll sharpen the photo before I resize it for my blog, but usually sharpening a photo is a good indication that it’s a bad photo (too blurry). I have to admit sharpening can be really useful for a scanned-in 35mm film photo.
This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Please see my Attribution Policy for more information.
My obsession with anything architectural from the early 20th century until post-Streamline happens to include these silos. Got any other photos? And where are they? I don’t think I remember seeing them the last time I was there. Of course, the last time I was there was 1992.
Also, you apparently allow the <sup> tags as well. Dunno if that’s intentional or not.