Small Yellow Orchid

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The Oregon Woods in Winter - II

The Forests of Western Oregon are cool and damp in the winter. The sun is low, the shawdows long and exsposures tricky so a good shot in the winter is not easy. There is something spooky at times - like something from a fantasy novel.

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The Oregon Woods in Winter

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Memories By PhotoShop

My Mother, my sister and I went for a walk at the local wildlife refuge while my sister was visiting. Mom wanted a picture of the three of us but there was no one else there to take a the picture so my sister took a picture with her camera and I took one with mine.



I cut myself out of the picture my sister had taken and spliced it into the the picture I had taken.



Instant photo memories

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Just New Pictures

Things may look a little different; it's because Just Pictures has moved to the new Blogger. The only real change you will notice is the comments are now through Blogger not Haloscan.
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Winter Colors

Even in the gray winter if the Pacific NW there is vibrant color to be found.

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Great Blue Heron

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On the River

A double-crested comorant and a mallard on the Taulitin River.

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Yokohama at night

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Fall on the River

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Friends

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Cactus-3

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Photoshop plugins

You can add to the power of your Photoshop Elements with free plugins. For this exercise I used two free plugins, Red Prince and Virtual Photographer.

I have always enjoyed the romance of photographs taken in the late 1900s. The original scanned color transparency was taken in Southern Bavaria.
Early film emulsions were orthochromatic, they were sensitive only to blue light. To duplicate that sensitivity I used the Blue Switch in the Red Prince plugin.
In photoshop I removed the color and adjusted the brightness and contrast to produce a pleasant BW image. I next made use of the Virual Photographer plugin and after some experimentation I chose the "Romance Filter". The next step was to adjust the tint to obtain a sepia like tone. The result is below.

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Bavaria

This picture was taken in Southern Bavaria many years ago. The original was a color transparency. Scanned image inhanced with Photoshop plugin Virtual Photographer.

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Chicken of the woods

This is Laetiporus sulphureus, also known as Chicken of the Woods. Another example can be found here.
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New Orchid - II

This is another shot of the latest addition to my orchid collection.
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More Pelicans

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Brown Pelican

Brown Pelicans off the Oregon Coast
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Begonia

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Misty Morning

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Something Old

A picture I took in Austria about 35 years ago. A scanned slide with some photoshop.

New Orchid

Izumi

Weed

Since I wouldn't want it growing in my yard I guess it qualifies as a weed but it does have a beautiful yellow blossom.

Toad Lily

This is a recent addition to my yard, the toad lily, Tricyrtis latifolia. It has a beautiful flower. It is originally from the mountain region of the Himalayas, to Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

White Flower

Wetlands in late summer

After a long - hot - dry summer the wetlands that have had a constant source of water are rich with vegetation and the small creatures the plants support. This of course draws predators like the great blue heron.

Canna

Great Blue Heron

Shot of a great blue heron I got while walking in the wetlands this morning.

White Glad

Poppy

Oak Apples

This is another picture I took at The Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge yesterday. These are Oak Apples

Oak apple galls are sometimes mistaken for an actual crop of the tree, such as apples on on apple tree, but are actually deformed leaves. The gall is about 1 1/4- 2 inches or larger in diameter, globular, and smooth. The outside is green and darkens with age. The inside has a juicy, white, spongy substance with a small, hard center where the parasite is located. When the parasite leaves the gall, the gall dries and the insides become a mass of fibers.

Several species of gall wasps cause oak apples. Biorhiza pallida is one such insect and is a good example of the alternation of generations in insects that cause different gall stages. Alternation of generations is the alternation of different forms of an organism during a species life cycle. One generation often behaves and physically appears different from the second generation. The third generation may then behave like the first generation, the fourth like the second, and so on.

• In May, a wingless Biorhiza pallida female(P1) inserts her eggs into the base of a vegetative bud. This activates the oak into the process of forming a protective structure, the gall, around the eggs.


• The unilocular, multilarval oak apple gall matures in June and July.


• By late July, full winged male and female wasps (F1), that have developed in separate galls, exit the structures through exit holes.


• The emerging wasps mate, while the deserted gall shrinks and blackens.


• The fertile females burrow into the soil and insert their eggs into the oak tree's roots.


• Root galls form which are spherical, brown, unilocular, and unilarval.
  These root galls mature in approximately 16 months.


• Wingless females(F2) emerge, climb up the oak tree's trunk, and lay eggs in the leaf buds.


• The cycle continues to show alternation of generations.

Herons and Egrets

I took a walk in The Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge today and saw a number of great blue herons and these two great egrets.

Swallowtail

I was lucky enough to be in the right place with the right lens to get these pictures of a swallowtail butterfly in a planter today.

Another Cactus

Cactus

Poppy

Tiger Lily

tiger lily
Lilium columbianum
It was a long wait but here is the year's first tiger lily

Old Barn

Old Barn Near Bend, Oregon
Picture taken in 1970.

Orchid

An Outdoor Orchid in my front yard.

Killdeer

I made my second trip over to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge today. It was once again a wonderful break. Ran across this Killdeer who was willing to pose in an effort to keep me away from the nest.

The Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge.

The Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge poster.

Pink Iris

Cala Lily

Yellow Iris

Another Iris

This is about my favorite Iris.

Winter Scene

The temperatures are heading for the 90's here in the Pacific Northwest so it seemed to be a good time for a cool winter scene.