2012 - Happy New Year

Happy New Year, 2012. This year I'm making the switch. when I talk about the year I'm not going to say two thousand twelve. I'm going to say twenty-twelve. I probably should have done that with twenty-ten but twenty-twelve really has a nice ring to it.

We stayed home on New Year's Eve. I admit that I was in bed and asleep by the time the new year rolled in but we had done our best for good luck in 2012. We ate black-eyed peas, a southern tradition,  for prosperity and twelve grapes with good wishes attached for the Mexico tradition.

We had a wonderful Christmas with the boys and their families and Ned's sister's entire family including our newest addition, Baby Finn. And one of her sons brought a girl friend. This is the first one he has brought around so we are all wondering if she will be joining us for good.  Ned's Aunt and cousin also joined us. 

I worry so about my oyster stew for Christmas Eve but it turned out just fine although we barely had enough. I felt really good when Jack, Betsy's Dad, said the oyster stew was one of the reasons he came to Texas for Christmas. This year I had a little more attention from Mike and Betsy while I cooked it. I think they realize that they better learn how to do it 'cause I ain't getting any younger.

And speaking of younger.....I had a birthday on the 30th. What a shock this one was. At 75 I finally have to admit I'm a "senior." All the times when I've bought a senior ticket or taken advantage of a senior discount, I've felt a little like a fraud. I really wasn't THAT old. Well, I still don't feel it but this birthday makes it feel legit. I no longer have to feel guilty about saying, "Senior ticket, please."

We are headed in to 2012 with high hopes. Ned is feeling good. We will be taking a break in treatment and be able to head SOB for a few weeks. We are looking forward to being in our home, seeing our friends, and catching up on all the happenings in San Miguel.

Another photo made on my walk along Buffalo Bayou shot with the iPhone Instagram app. Give me some slack while I explore the iPhone. I don't think it ever going to substitute for my DSLR but it is fun. I'm learning about using some of the apps besides Hipstamatic and Instagram. And it will be a camera that is always with me. I think of it as a Camera/Phone instead of a Phone/Camera. Now I have to get it unlocked so I can use the Phone part when we are in San Miguel. Gotta get that done this week before we head South.

An Early Christmas Present

I got an early Christmas present . . . An iPhone.  I've been talking about one for most of this year. Not because of the phone. I had a perfectly good cell phone. I wanted it for the camera and the photography apps. I know that is a ridiculous reason to get an iPhone so you don't have to tell me what I already know.

Here is the thing. I've been watching photography friends posting iPhone images on Facebook and looking at their websites where they are making marvelous art using the apps. I've listened to them talk about the iPhone always being with them so it was the camera they used most often. I've tried to avoid buying the phone by buying some of the small point and shoot cameras. Too much trouble to carry the cell phone AND the camera. But now I have it all in one tiny package and if I'm bored while I wait for something, I can always take a photograph into the apps and play.

I've had the iPhone for almost two weeks now and I'm addicted.  Thank you, Santa.

The Memories Are Still There

I know it has been a while since I've written but we have been busy. We managed to get in another trip to Port Aransas. Remember I started writing about my photography project in Port Aransas last March. I thought I'd get to go back sooner to work on it but other things interrupted. Nevertheless, it is still my project . . . and it still has a lot of work to be done. We tried to time our trip so that we would have good weather or at least weather good enough so I could shoot some of the things on my list.

Weather is a factor when you are working on a project that is outside but there are a lot of other factors as well. I was going to write something about them today but I read Howard Grill's blog entry from today, The Hardest Thing I Have Done Photographically. Howard listed all the things I was thinking about writing plus a few others. So now I don't need to write about all of them. Just go read Howard's entry.

This photograph was made on the walk to the beach from the place we went many times during the 70's and 80's with the kids. We would go down every summer for a week and rent a condo. The condos were a good walk to the beach over a plank walkway that was raised above a marshy area on the backside of the dunes. And then when you got to the dunes the path up the dunes was sand. I loved how the sparkling water appeared as you went up the dune and when you reached the crest you could look up and down the great expanse of beach. This is the first time we have gone to these condos since the 80's and walked this trail. It was such a strange feeling. The raised wooden planks have been replaced with a raised concrete walk that gradually gets buried in the shifting sand dunes. The condos are painted a different color. Some things have changed but the beach and the memories are still there.

Getting Ready to Move On

I can't believe that we have been in Houston for seven weeks but then I look at what we have accomplished and we have been busy. Lots of medical tests, lots of doctor visits, two eye surgeries (one for Ned and one for me), boy sitting with Jack and Will, seeing Dexter and Maxwell and getting to hear Maxwell's rock band, some shopping, and dinners with friends.

In addition I've completed the move to Adobe Lightroom, transferred 550 GB's of photo files to three external hard drives so now I have a working, a backup and an archive of the 550 GB's. This means that I can take all of my photo files with me on one external HD between SMA and Houston. None of this is quite as simple as it "reads." There were bumps along the way but I'm glad the job is done.

And the other big accomplishment while we were in Texas was spending some time in Port Aransas and figuring out that my idea for a project tying the Mercer Logs in with my photographs could work. It will just take time and a lot of work and a bit of help from some people in Port Aransas. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about the project.

Now it is time to get the apartment straightened, stuff that is going to San Miguel organized. Before long we will be back to living on Mexican Time.

Why Did You Photograph This?

I made this image when we went to Pozos for Kate McKenna's show at Galeria 6. The small blue vase was sitting on a sunny yellow bench with the light streaming in from a window to the back right. So why did I photograph it?

This week I had a friend look at a stack of photographys that I have printed large and I'll take back them to Texas when we go so I'll have some recent work to show friends. She asked questions like . . . . Why did you photograph this? Did you know that this was going to be in the photograph? What are thinking about when you are making photographs? I think some artist are really good at answering questions like this. I can give an answer that talks about the form, the light, the color or whatever, but that doesn't answer the question except in art speak for the observer.

Andy Ilachinsky in his blog Tao of Photography writes about these very questions in the entry, Experiential "Flow" in Photography.  He writes, "I am often asked, 'What do you think about when you do photography?' To which I typically respond with something like, 'the less the better'."

My answer to my friend was that actually I was just responding on an emotional level. Yes, sometimes I may make a number of images of the same thing but it is about an emotional conversation with the object. My rather feeble explanation included something about how you are not really thinking about every move you make when driving a car, it is just happening and you are responding. Ilachinsky's explanation about being the "Flow" is a much more thoughtful essay about the process.

100 Days

100 Days until Solo Foto Book Month 2011 (SoFoBoMo 2011). Seems like I just finished SoFoBoMo for 2010. For new readers who haven't struggled with me though making a PDF book in 31 days and you are wondering what SoFoBoMo is all about, click here. If you want to take a look back, I've written a lot blog entries about SoFoBoMo.  Here are the books I have completed for SoFoBoMo:
2009: Eastwood Today
2010: New Orleans, Two Nights and Three Days

Basically SoFoBoMo is making a book with at least 35 images in a 31 day contiguous period. This year the rolling time frame is July 1 to August 31. You do the photography, edit, design and finish your book in 31 days. Any one can commit to making a book. There is no competition, no prizes, no winners except from the standpoint that you feel like a winner when your finish you book.

I signed up to do SoFoBoMo this year about a month ago and then I started wondering what in the heck the book would be about this time. All of a sudden this week two ideas popped into my head. It is really funny how when you need something your brain is open to find the information. One of them really has me excited but I need to do some more research before I know if it will work for SoFoBoMo. But even if it will not fit in the time frame for SoFoBoMo it is a project that I want to do anyway. The second idea is one that I want to start photographing right now. I don't want to wait until July. So who knows what will happen in the next 100 days, some other ideas might show up as well. I'm energized and excited.

If you are a photographer and you could use a challenge or a Whack on the Side of the Head, think about signing up for SoFoBoMo 2011. I'm not going to tell you it is easy but you'll have a great time.

Night in Colonia San Antonio #2. The image above is another I shot from the terrace on the night of the full moon. You know you have the camera and the tripod set up and you have to do something while you are waiting for that moon to break the top of the mountains.

Threes

Last week I visited with someone here in San Miguel who told me about a photographer that he heard speak about composition and the rule of thirds.  I've also heard that when you have a "group" of things you should have an uneven number. Now these are good things to know about, but it isn't a good thing to let them rule your photographic life. And actually I never think about them when I'm photographing. I'm just working to make what I see through the view finder into a pleasing composition.

I photographed these children at a fund raiser for Feed The Hungry. I write about FTH often in my blog. It is such a wonderful organization that feeds over 4000 kids every school day. Kids that probably would go hungry otherwise. I hope that you will click on this link and go read some more about FTH and maybe even donate.

These children are from a very poor rancho, Los Ricos de Abajo. Very few of them are able to continue school after the sixth grade and they are not required to by law. The reason they don't go on to school is because the families can not afford the $200+ that continuing school will cost. Most of these darling boys will go to work with their Fathers when they are about 12 as bricklayers or whatever it is that Dad does. And the girls....well before too long they will marry and start families. But in this rancho, FTH volunteers provide some basic English classes for about 3 months every year and sponsor scholarships for the kids who want to continue on to Secundaria or middle school. This video on U-Tube  will give you an overview of what is happening at Los Ricos.

Last year and this year, the children danced as part of the entertainment during the annual FTH fund raiser. This year it was waltzs in white. You may be wondering where these children came up with all the white clothes....confirmation outfits borrowed and passed down in families. Not all of them fit perfectly but every child looked adorable. And you may be wondering about the girl's beautifully styled hair. I do not know how it is done but Mexican women can style hair and they love to get dressed in their best for events....even in the ranchos.

If you would like to help feed children, you will find how to make a donation on the FTH website and if you would like to help with the Los Ricos Scholarship Fund, please make that note with your donation. Personally, I feel so blessed that I am able to photograph these children from time to time and to help out at the school with the Library.

Sometime the best photographs follow the rules about threes and thirds and sometimes they don't. The only really important thing . . . Is it a good image?

Decision About Lightroom 3

After quite a bit of study I'm going to include LightRoom 3 in my workflow. I was looking at the software primarily as a way to manage my digital image files but I found a wonderful resource that helped me understand a lot more about Lightroom. George Jardine has put together two on-line video series, one set of 16 videos on the Library Module and the other set of 15 on the  Develop Module. The cost is $24.95 for each series. George is an amazing instructor who can keep the details moving along and make it interesting. And the best part of it is, I can go back as many times as I want so that I can review any one of the videos in the series as many times as I want to.

There is also a Print Module in Lightroom that blows me away. I don't know anyway to describe it except to say that it is comprehensive and it is elegant.

At this point I still need Photoshop to do some image processing chores but it is easy to take an image over to Photoshop, do my thing, and then bring it back to Lightroom to manage the image file and to print through the Print Module. There are still a lot of things I need to work out for my own personal workflow but I am going to include Lightroom.

The image above was made in Pozos. We went over one Saturday with a friend. Right after we got out of the car, I stopped to make this image. My friend said he was interested in what I might shoot since I was a serious photographer....or something to that effect. Actually, I think he was wondering why I stopped to photograph these leaves of the agave plant.

An Adventure in Queretaro - The Rest of the Story

Way back on January 21st. I wrote about taking my printer to Queretaro to be repaired. I said that I had confidence in Ingeniero Carlos Velasco who told us that he would have the problem with the printer diagnosed in a few days and then would have it repaired a week after that. Nancy commented on the blog.....
I love your story, Billie, and you're right, we all have those kind of experiences... but I will never stop shaking my head and laughing, as it is just the way things are here! I really hope that it is repaired on the timeline you gave, most of my situations like this involve the dreaded "fifteen days.....!"

I knew deep down, Nancy was right. While I did have confidence in Ingeniero, I didn't really have confidence in the time line. The printer was gone for almost six weeks. So here is the rest of the story.

After one week we called to check on the printer. Ingeniero said that he had put in a new motor for paper feed but the printer still wasn't working and he was still checking it out.  Another week went by and Ned called again. Ingeniero said he was waiting on some "diagnostics" to be sent from DF. The next week Ingeniero said he had taken the printer to DF to be repaired. Another week and Ingeniero told us that the problem was in the "works." We don't know what that means but we know what it costs. Ingeniero said that it had been delayed so much that we were going to get a discount on the repair. We said okay get it repaired. He first said that he would have the printer back in Queretaro the next Friday. When we called to be sure the printer was there, he said that Epson in DF would send the printer back to our house in San Miguel. Okay. At least that is some good news. We will not have to drive over to Queretaro to pick it up.

We waited Monday and Tuesday and on Wednesday finally got a tracking number. The printer had been sent from DF to San Luis Potosi and the tracking number indicated that the printer was scheduled for delivery on the next Tuesday. Saturday we were not home but when we checked the tracking number we saw that they tried to deliver it on Saturday. Now the website said we had to come pick up the package. Ned talked to Ingeniero and he said he would get it straightened out. On Monday the printer finally came home.

I was a little concerned about the printer traveling around Mexico. I kept the box it came in and when we took it to Ingeniero it was very carefully repacked in the box. He said we should take the box home with us so I'm wondering how the printer is taking all these road trips in a secure manner. When the printer finally came home, I was going to take a picture of the packaging the printer came in but while I was making lunch Ned started unpacking it. It was NOT in a box. At least not a box as you would normally think of a box. It was wrapped in pieces of corrugated boxes and secured with metal strapping. The package kind of looked like a huge corrugated log....no markings "This Side Up" or "Fragile." There was at least three huge garbage bags of shredded paper all around the printer which thankfully was wrapped in shrinkwrap so all the dust and bits of paper could not get into the "works" of the printer.

The printer is working but it was another Mexican adventure.

The Keepers

One of the hardest things about photography is editing. I might have shot 50 or 60 or even more images on a day or subject but not of all of them will be keepers. Actually most of the time none of them are keepers. The first edit is pretty easy. The ones that don't work are obvious but then the going gets a little harder. Does this angle or exposure work better than this one or this one? Okay now I might be down to 10 of the 60 but if I'm honest with myself I'm still judging the images on what I want them to be or how I felt when I pressed the shutter button not what they actually are. Now comes the hard part.

I found how much editing images can be one of the best learning experiences for a photographer the first time I had to edit a large project that I had worked on for several years for a show at a gallery. It was painful at times to admit that although I could remember every detail of the environment and making the image that it really didn't work or it didn't add anything to the show.

So far this year, I've made three images that I will take the time and make a large print of each one. Somehow until I decide to commit to making a large print, I haven't made the final edit. But sometimes even that isn't the final edit. What seems good when I make the print may end up weaker over time.

I know you have seen a couple of these images in a earlier blog but I thought I'd post the three all together. I can't wait to get my printer  back and see if these hold up printed on 17x22 paper. And if you are wondering, I am going to tell you the rest of the story about the printer being repaired but so far that story doesn't have an ending.

Evaluation of Adobe Lightroom

I sometimes have people ask me what image editing program they should buy. I often recommend that they look first at Adobe's Lightroom and if that doesn't suit their needs then I'd recommend Adobe Photoshop. Lightroom is about 1/3 the cost of Photoshop. I have a lot of photography friends who tell me that they are using Lightroom almost exclusively for their image editing. I'm told that Lightroom is superior to Photoshop in managing a image library. I've got lots of photos and I surely could use help in managing these files, edits, and backups.

So from time to time I look at the latest version of Lightroom. I've downloaded a trial copy and this afternoon when we came in from Parque Juarez where the plant and flower show for Candelaria has just opened I downloaded the files I had shot via Lightroom. I have Scott Kelby's book, Lightroom 3 book for digital photographers and so I have referred to it to do the tasks I wanted to do. I'm trying to keep an open mind until I decide if Lightroom really offers me advantages over the workflow I've developed in Photoshop. The jury is still out.

This was the first image I shot when we walked into Parque Juarez. I like patterns. I converted it to black and white to better show the patterns. I think with a little work it could make a good large print but wouldn't it make a mind-blowing jig-saw puzzle?

Back to Photography

One of things this blog is about is photography but sometimes I have several posts without a photograph. It is time for a photograph.

This week I was playing with some older image files and changed them from color to black and white in Photoshop. It is really quite amazing how much control you have in making this transition. I feel fortunate that I have many years in a traditional darkroom making black and white prints. I think it really helps to make the transition from the color file to black and white.

Why Photographs Work

The full title of this book by George Barr is Why Photographs Work: 52 Great Images: Who Made Them, What Makes Them Special and Why. And one of my images is in the book! In the book Barr writes about what makes the photograph work and then the photographer writes about the making of the image. This is followed by a biography of the photographer.

While the book is about photography as art, it isn't written in art-speak. "This book is for any photographer who wants to make beautiful photographs. And it is for anyone--photographer or viewer--who wants to understand why some photographs stand out from all the others."

I am very fortunate to be in this book with some photographers who I have admired over the years, or bought their books or been in one of their workshops. Some of the photographers I didn't know until now. Barr wasn't just looking for well-known photographers. He was looking for great images. But from looking at the biographies of the photographers, all of them are serious image makers who have something to say.

So how did this happen? I found Barr's blog a number of years ago. We exchanged comments. He looked at some images that I have on line and when he was ready to do this book, he remembered the work. So, while some scary things can happen on the Internet, some pretty amazingly good things can happen as well.

Hey, you still have time to buy  Why Photographs Work and get it before Christmas. Buy two, one for someone and one for yourself.

Night Lights #2

I'm changing the title of this series from "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" to "Night Lights." Photographing houses decorated for Christmas certainly isn't a new idea but it is a convenient idea for me just now. So you will be seeing Christmas lights in Houston for the next month.

Tonight I drove over to an area of Houston called The Heights. It is an old neighborhood that has for the most part been taken care of over the years. There was one street where a number of houses had lights strung way up into gigantic oak trees with tails of lights hanging down. The neighbors must have hired equipment to hang the lights or maybe one of the neighbors owns the company. At any rate it was very striking to see the lights soaring into the sky and looping down again.

 I went to a meeting of some photography friends who gather once a month to talk about what they are working on, photography books, essays, exhibits or videos they have seen. They always inspire me.

Breaking The Fast

Yes, I'm breaking my fast. Today was the first time I have made any photographs since August 13.  I can't remember any time since the 1980s that I have gone three months without doing some kind of photography. But I just haven't felt like picking up the camera. To take the camera on some of the trips we have made back and forth to Houston would have felt like I was carrying a rock....a heavy rock.

Today the weather was beautiful, we needed some fresh air and Carly needed a walk so we headed to one of my favorite places in Houston, the open spaces along Buffalo Bayou. It has been a while since I had been there and Houston has been gentrifying this long green space. I liked it wild and tangled but I may have been a minority of one. At first I was shocked. Lots of the big trees along the bayou's edge had been cut down. Then I saw that a lot more trees had been planted just a little further from the edge of the bayou, cypress, sycamores, oaks. Maybe they are replacing the old trees and some of them were trash trees with varieties that grew along the bayou back at the time the Allen brothers were "selling" Houston to new settlers.

Using the camera today felt good but was I was just practicing. I guess it is like someone who is a pianist or an athelete who has laid off for three months. They aren't going to start where they left off. I know I'm not starting where I left off. But at least I'm picking it up again and it felt good to break that long fast.

Use Your Imagination

Around 6:00 PM it started raining. We haven't had any rain for more than a week so we needed some rain. After all this is the rainy season. It settles the dust and cools things off and of course the plants always appreciate a good drenching of rain instead of city water.

I hadn't really planned to cook dinner, either we would eat the left over chicken-vegetable-pasta salad I made for Thursday or we'd go out to one of the neighborhood restaurants. By the way, the salad was really good and chuck full of veggies.....corn, english peas, spinach, zucchini, carrots, celery, red pepper, red onion and maybe some other veggies that I can't remember now. I used tri-colored pasta. It was quite colorful and delicious.

Back to the story. About 7:45 there was a let up in the rain. We needed to make a decision about eating....in or go out. We decided to take advantage of the rain break and headed up the street to the pizza place on the corner of 20 de Enero and Orizaba. We were the only people in the restaurant and we sat where I could see out the door. It was the time of night when the sky is this wonderful deep blue...not yet night.

Then it hit me. I had not brought the camera with me. Too wet outside. But there was a picture that was calling out to me. The cobblestones in the street were yellow from the light reflected from the street light and the puddles of water surrounding each of them was the deep blue reflected from the sky. Maybe this doesn't seem like much of a picture to some of you but to me it was a missed opportunity to capture a light, a moment that was so beautiful, a moment that would be gone very quickly and I might never have the priviledge of seeing again. I can use my imagination and see it again but, damn, I'd really like to have that image in a digital file.

What The Camera Sees

Are you wondering what this is? It is the top of the fountain pot where the bouganvilla blossom was floating in the image from yesterday. In the image yesterday the water seems so smooth but here there seems to be a hundred ripples. I have to tell you that when I took the picture I was not expecting to see this. My eye was seeing almost smooth water but the camera is not the human eye.

I think water may be one of the best examples of why you need to understand how the camera "sees" and to know how to use the controls on your camera. Do you want to see every drop of water  or do you want the water to look as smooth as glass or somewhere in between?

Going With The Flow

My friend, Ellie, picks up her camera when she is bored and finds the most wonderful things to photograph wherever she is. I wasn't exactly bored this morning while I was setting out on the patio finishing up my coffee but I saw a shadow on the wall that I liked. I ran up stairs and picked up my camera and ended up spending about 45 minutes just shooting closeups of things on the patio. There is so much to see when we just take the time to look.

We have had a nice rain today. I'm not complaining. I'm grateful. The farmers need the rain for their crops and it keeps us cool. We had some rain last night as well and I slept with the cotton blanket pulled up around me. Mmmm....that is one of the things I love about San Miguel. The comfortable summers.

Before the rain, I walked over to the mercado with my little point and shoot camera. Along the way I stopped in the San Juan de Dios church. They were changing the robes on the saints. I sat for a while just watching and feeling the reverance of the place. After leaving the church I took pictures of doorways, fruit in the mercado, some houses on my street. Just being in the moment. Going with the flow.

If I lived in the States, most workers would be off work today since July 4th fell on a Sunday. That is my excuse for having such a laid back day....and I'm sticking to it.

What You See Is What You Get.

Coffee and beignets from Cafe DuMonde would be nice for breakfast this morning but we are not in New Orleans. Maybe I could try to make some beignets one of these days. Since we have been without television since we returned to San Miguel, it would seem that I should have the time but I don't have time to make beignets or even miss the television.

When we first came  back from Texas, I started to process the images from New Orleans and after a day or two of that I decided what the heck, why not do the SoFoBoMo book with them. Then I had my fingers on the keyboard and eyes on Photoshop for the next 10 days making the book.

With the book done I finally had time to really start to explore something else that was new at our house. I brought back a new printer. Ellie and Frank have been telling me for a year......"Get a new printer." They told me how much they had been improved and certainly everytime I went to Texas and saw what Ellie was printing I knew what they said was probably true. But the two of them are wonderful photographers and probably the best printers I know whether it is in the darkroom or digital. How much was their ability and how much was the printer? Finally, I bought the printer.

I don't even know how to describe to you the difference. In five years, the printer technology has improved, the inks have improved, the printing profiles and the papers have improved and work best with the latest inks. When a print rolls out of the new printer and I look at it, I almost get the same feeling of elation that I had when a black and white print started coming up in the developer. With my profiled monitor, finally, what I see on the monitor, I see on the paper. This is so exciting. With my last printer it was close but not exactly a match.

The black and white prints really take my breath away. Yesterday I opened a black and white film scan, added an contrast curve, a color layer to tone the photo to look more like a selenium print, sharpened the file and printed it. It looked good. Then I realized that I had the same image in a silver print on the wall above the computer. I compared the two and went...WOW! I realized that if I had used my printing notes from the silver print and applied a few "burned" places on the digital print, no one would have been able to tell which one was done digitally.

This printer is definitely going to get some action. Now I just need to figure out how to get more paper and inks.

I'll save the missing television story for another day.

The New Photoshop, CS5

I'm digging in again after the book blitz. I have so much to do. I am learning CS5, the latest version of Photoshop. Doing the book gave me the opportunity to use some of the new features but there are others to explore. So far one of the best new features is the improved noise reduction in Camera Raw. I was using a third party plug-in that did a good job but I like to keep all my workflow in Photoshop. Makes my life simplier.

Selection and layer improvements are appreciated. In general Adobe fixed a lot of little things that just make the workflow smoother. Then there are a couple of things that have changed which aggravate me and I'm sure that there is some way to go back to the old way but I haven't had time to figure that out yet.

There are two new things that might be helpful for commercial photographers and they get a lot of play on videos touting the new Photoshop version but I doubt I'll use them much. One of them is the content aware fill. I've tried it. Sometimes it doesn't work very well but other times it can fix something that you would have sat at the computer for a long time gradually filling the area. It worked for me when I wanted to take an ADT sign out of one of the images in the book. Zap! It was gone. The other is puppet warp. The tutorial videos are amazing but I don't think it is a feature that I will use.

So, okay. I've paid my Adobe Photoshop tax. I'm probably good to go for another 18 months.

I made the image above last February. We went to Mass at the Chorro Church. Some Mexican friends say that prayers made in that church have been answered. It is a tiny church and the service was beautiful. I said my prayers. I also made a few photos with my little point & shoot camera the Canon S90 at 800 ISO. The camera starts to get a bit noisy at higher ISO's so I used the noise reduction in CS5 and the Post Crop Vignette. They worked very well.