The old branches shrouded the stump, looking like wings of snow. Almost angelic to the bunnies or birds that could have hidden beneath, protected from cold or predators.
Just a gathering of Christmas … cones and nuts and dried flower buds … in a crystal bowl setting on a polished wooden chest. Above is the original image.
I tried black and white, but it didn’t seem to have good lines and contrast. Instead, de-saturating colors other than green and then shifting the hue toward blue did offer pleasing lines and contrast. The next phase was increasing the mid-tone contrast to enhance the highlights of the cut crystal. The last edit was cropping tight to the bowl’s rim.
For the third version, I headed to the “Fun Edits” option to play. To the original, I applied the Pop Art/Poster tool until the image’s colors danced. I cropped to eliminate the wood trim along the right edge and recenter the bowl.
On the trail or on the rails? Which way? Last photo on the DSLR.
The first sign of Christmas shall be the last photo on my cell. As my daughter lives 3,000 miles away, we decorate together by sending cell pics to each other. My mother bought this Nativity set in 1963. Remembering setting it up and turning the key to play its music brings her back to me. This year, looking at the old box’s splitting seams, I noticed the sticker for the first time: Einneitspappkasten? Hachstgawidt? “Made in Germany.”
Wishing for snow … maybe if I envision it … snow will fall and I will enter its treasury … “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” I live just below the snowline, too low to ever shovel but high enough to reach snow in 30 minutes. Several years back, I captured this close-up of the Ponderosa Pine 20 feet from my deck after a rare snowfall at our home. Seeing it on my desktop always makes me winter happy.
Shutter’s on the World 