Warnings & Hazards [Orange You Glad It’s Friday]

   We have all witnessed signs along streets/roads that warn us of various hazards.  Truth be told, we usually react negatively to the sight of such signs in the distance, for we know that some danger/inconvenience awaits us. The choice of orange for these signs follows from the fact that it is so ‘eye-catching’ [really no need to explain that to OYGIF folks].

Korben [Orange You Glad It’s Friday]

   Last week, my wife and I were away outside Baltimore ‘baby-sitting’ our two youngest grandsons. Our daughter went to Las Vegas to participate in a 5k walk/run to fund-raiser for the Candlelighters [in fact all three of our daughters were participating]. Well, during our stay, Rosemarie and I also served as soccer [grand]mom/dad, taxiing the boys to their matches. It was a blast to watching them play. Korben, the younger one [6 yr. old] was so into it, he ran non-stop and was all over the field, playing both offense and defense. It was a nice coincidence that his team uniform included an orange shirt! While I do not have any action shots from a match, I have several images taken before and during warm-up.

Florals [Orange You Glad It’s Friday]

     This posting is sort of a transitional state between the abstract images [‘orbs’] I’ve been displaying and real life florals. The two Japanese anemone pics were originally posted on my blog sometime in 2011, when I was heavily into floral macro-photography and printing/selling the images as art notecards. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to post them in OYGIF along with the new orb creation and, thereby, close out two chapters in my journey. The two original photos were taken with a Canon A720 ‘point and shoot’, which is perfect for macro shots. I noticed the lone flower in the garden fronting our living room as I passed by pushing a lawn mower. It stopped me in my tracks and I ran inside to get the camera. It was one of my wiser decisions, as the cards that were subsequently generated have been among my best sellers. I find it interesting that people have a strong preference for either the offset image or the centered one, but are not keen on both.

Post Processing Abstracts 5

    As Fall approaches, it's time to do a bit of cleaning up; i.e. of my computer desk top. I have the last of my 'orbs' to share  today, and, one is actually originated from something other than a floral image. Can you tell that the bottom one was from a series of beer taps? I confess that I don't do this process much these days; too much else on my plate. Anyway, I had described the procedure in a previous posting, but as a response to a query in the Comments section. I will repeat it below so that anyone who reads this can have a try at it.
    First, choose your image and load it into Photoshop Elements. Then, go to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinates. Select polar to rectangle and click OK. Then, go to Image. Select Image Rotation, then flip the canvas vertical. Go back to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinates. Select rectangle to polar and click OK. Save. That's all there is to it.