Golden Reflections

One year ago we were in the middle of a blizzard getting over 18 inches of snow and high wind drifting. Today it was over 50 degrees and most of the snow is melting. The weather this winter is far from ordinary, very Extraordinary. I do not mind at all this time of year being over freezing, not at all.

I took this image into Photoshop, ran some filters and the Photoshop HDR function to highlight some of the details. I also brought up the saturation some. Not much work, not much is needed for this image.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Ordinary Desk

This week’s 365 Projects theme is “Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary”. My desk is ordinary, but I added a little cordial glass for my Mini M&M’s last weekend. The M&M’s are the Extraordinary part of my ordinary image. They are exceptional and tasty. Defiantly Extraordinary!

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Sunset Takeoff

I captured this hawk in my tree on the way home as the sun was going down tonight. The sun was just setting so that golden light I like so much was just starting, but the hawk would not state in the tree any longer. I normally cannot get this close before he flies away. The sun was not correct, but I wanted a Picture-Of-The-Day image and this ended up being my only good shot of the day. The hawk does not live in this tree, but spends some time there looking for lunch or dinner. I am hoping he will get used to my car and keep letting me get closer so I can get a better shot. Or, I could start taking both my cameras daily, one with the telephoto lens and one with the normal lens.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

My Bonus: 1969 GTO!

Our store made the numbers for December 2011 and we received a bonus! Everyone received some extra in their last pay check. I thought I should spend mine on something special. So I went out and purchased a 1969 GTO, black with blue flames. I have a 1967 GTO, but I need to get that running. So I thought a 1969 GTO would be nice to spend my bonus on. I took this shot in front of our house on the road. Some of the snow from last night melted. I will not drive this GTO in the winter.

OK, so it is only 3.25 inches long and cost $3.49 at WalMart. But after taxes and because our hours were cut, there was not much extra to spend! This GTO was all I could afford paying cash. Times are tough here in Wisconsin. But a bonus is a bonus and it should be spent on something special!

I have to go to work early today and will be working late. I rushed to get my Picture-Of-The-Day done before work. I did not have much time, less than an hour to capture an image and post it. So I thought I would photograph my new GTO purchase and see if I could put myself in the picture and see how real I could make it. With the short time-frame, it did not turn out the way I had envisioned. The lighting was not right on me. I am missing a foot and I could have done better on the pavement. The GTO does have some nice detail, so with a little more work, I think I could muck up a better shot.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Golden Morning

We were up early this morning and on the road into Madison to get the Santa Fe repaired. The place that was going to repair instead of replace opened at 8 am and was first come, first served. We were heading in just after sunrise. It is the golden time of the morning when we have sun, instead of dreary and cloudy days like we have been seeing. I love this time of the day. The world has awaken up and things are starting to happen. The golden light is great for photography, again if there is no clouds or very few clouds.

This image is nothing special. I just liked the light, the trees and the shadows in the foreground that brought out more detail in the snow than in bright daylight. I did tweak this image some in Photoshop to highlight the foreground detail a little more. Not much more than that I guess. The original image the camera captured was a little dull in my eyes. A good shot with good color, but I wanted just a little more pop because that is what I saw when I stopped the car at the stop sign. I thought about HDR, but we were on a mission.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Quilt Barn

The day started out sunny, but by the time I could get out of the house, the dreary cloud cover had moved in. I had to run into Madison for a meeting that took a little longer than I thought it would. On my way home I was looking in the dreary landscape for something to photograph. The red of this barn with the blue barn quilt caught my eye on the way home. I drive by it occasionally and have always wanted to photograph the barn. I wanted to it on a nice bright sunny day to highlight the red and blue. But today was cloudy. This image was going to be it, because it was the only photograph I took so far today.

I took this image into Photoshop to tweak it some. I wanted red of the barn and the blue of the barn quilt to be brighter. I over saturated the barn and quilt. The rest of the image I brought out a little more detail, but mainly left it alone.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Jobs!

This political cartoon got me thinking this morning. Our Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker went out East and come back with 33 million in campaign funds for his Wisconsin Governor recall election bid. 33 million dollars in one day! From outside of Wisconsin! From just a few people! If he would donate that 33 Million dollars to Wisconsin citizens instead of spending on mud-slinging TV ads, Wisconsin citizens would definitely benefit more. After a quick calculation, I figure his 33 million dollars would buy about 1,320,000 library books for Wisconsin citizens. Or, fund the K-12 education of over 3,000 Wisconsin children. How long would 33 million dollars feed the Wisconsin homeless? Years for sure. What about the state’s veterans? That 33 million dollars would impact their health care and their jobless situation. How many miles of Wisconsin roads could be fixed with 33 million dollars? Or how many Wisconsin bridges could be repaired with just one day’s fund raising from Walker’s rich friends!

Now if all state politicians would donate their campaign funds to their state’s education system, homeless, veterans, road building, etc., the US citizens would be far better off. Then if you take the current Republican presidential primary monies spent so far, billions for sure, and use that to fix the US infrastructure. Just think of the Jobs that would create! Real jobs for real families! Not political jobs for friends, but real jobs for US citizens!

If all politicians would do this at the local level, state level and national level, every state deficit would be gone! The national debt would be fixed. Millions would be back to work, the economy would be better and people would not have to be tortured by all the political TV and radio advertisements! Just think, no more mud-raking ads!

How would politicians be elected you ask? Easy, they would have to do it the old fashion way. They would have to go door to door, educating the people on what they were going to do once elected. They would have to hold town meetings and debates. Mud slinging could be banded. Politicians would have to inform us on what they would do, instead of what a bad character their opponent is. Since most of the politicians are wealthy, they would not have to worry about living expenses. They could easily fund their own transportation between debates and town meetings.

I know I am dreaming, but would it not be nice to try it for a year or two? Just for no other reason but to get rid of the mind numbing political ads and the political mud slinging. Politicians and political consultants would be against this idea, but I would bet a majority of the US citizens would be for it!

River Reflections

Another foggy and dreary day in Southern Wisconsin. Not a dense fog, just foggy. We did not see the sun all day. When I left work to look for today’s Picture-Of-The-Day image, it was almost dark out due to the cloud cover. I took the long way home looking for a sound image, but could not find anything. I did find some nice images that I will use for other shots. I also found this image along a dead end back road with a closed bridge. The river has not yet frozen over due to the fast moving water. Most of the time there are plenty of ducks and geese on this section of the river. But maybe because of the foggy day, they could not fly in from the surrounding fields. It was very nice with very little sound other than the sound of the river water washing over the rocks along the shoreline. The fog and snow deaden most of the surrounding country sounds. It was a very nice place to reflect and to photograph river reflections.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

Meow!

Today’s Picture-Of-The-Day is another theme photograph. The 365 Projects weekly theme for this week is sound. An photograph of sound. Since photographs have no sound, the image must be of sound. This image is of Chester. He is one of the three feral cats that we feed. Chester, Mrs. White Paws and Uncle Bully are usually all there. Chester and Mrs. White Paws are our Newbie’s Mom and Dad. The first one home gets a welcome home reception by one to three cats, meowing their greeting and their request for dinner. Lots of sound, lots of meows until the food is set down for them to dive into. Sometimes there is a meow thank you. More sounds. Other times you just hear the crunching of dinner. Other sounds.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com

$1,400 Unwanted Sound

Today’s Picture-Of-The-Day is a documentary photograph. The 365 Projects weekly theme for this week is sound. An photograph of sound. Since photographs have no sound, the image must be of sound. Yesterday I said we had a car issue. This is it. The Santa Fe that my wife Ann drives started sounding like a teenager’s car. The loud sound comes from a break in the exhaust system. Our first estimate was for $1,400 to replace a large chunk of the exhaust system. The exhaust system is made up of only two parts. The main part has the catalytic converter and muffler and that is what causes the large price, I guess. Other than this break, the rest of the main part of the exhaust system is good. So if we cannot find a cheaper solution, we have to replace a lot of good parts.

The first 10 years of my life was on a farm. I learned we had to fix things on the fly, not replace a bunch of parts. I will look for a place that can weld in a new piece of pipe instead of replacing a bunch of good parts at a high cost. So far, we have not found a place to fix, instead of replacing a lot of parts. Sorry for the rant. This is not a fun time.

See my entire Project 365 Album at: http://365project.org/markbuehl/365

See my Art Website at: http://www.markbuehl.com