Not sure of the botanical identification of this lovely seed head I found in North Central Oregon. Probably a member of the sunflower family. Regardless, I was struck by its ability to maintain its shape while the wind was blowing pretty hard. It must not have been quite ready to spread itself yet.
I struggled with this image, trying it in black and white and then back to color. What do you think?
I was up hiking in one of the easy to access alpine areas in the Olympic National Park and saw this Townsend’s Chipmunk hanging from a Canadian thistle top. I love the way the back toes are splayed out.
After a couple of weeks of weeding the garden and lawn, this little fella came up anyway. I decided to memorialize it, so dropped in on my scanner.
Scan: Epson V600 Photo using Silverfast 8 software, then Lightroom
This image didn’t do anything for me and just sat in the folder for months. I was playing around with Lightroom and happened to hit on this image as an example of an image with lots of detail. Then I reduced the exposure on the background shadows … where usually I want to bring out details. What a difference. A good example of not getting yourself locked into your routine so much that you don’t listen to what the image is telling you.