Playing with Textures

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I make to-do lists. Since it is almost the end of January, I pulled out my list to see how I'm doing. Oh my, I'm afraid my list for 2019 is rather ambitious. But the good thing was that I have started on one of the items, learn how to use textures in Photoshop. By that, I meant more than just learn how to add a texture layer to an image. That is the easy part. What I want to do is learn how to manipulate an added texture or textures to enhance an image. And I want to find out if the use of textures "feels" like it belongs in my tool kit. The feeling part is something I'm really not sure about.

Only Time Will Tell

It is Palm Sunday and usually I'm in the Centro to photograph the processions. I love seeing Jesus come down San Francisco on a donkey and sometimes it isn't a very cooperative donkey. I love the way the procession is back lit. But I've been there a lot of times to photograph the event and that is not to say that I wouldn't find a special image or two. But not today.

I am still processing the images I shot in Port Aransas and I need to get it done while the way I felt when I was making the image is still fresh. Just because I clicked the shutter and have a digital file of what I saw doesn't mean the camera has a soul. After all, it is a computer that captures an image. The camera doesn't look out across the wetlands with a low lying fog and think, Oh, my God. Isn't that beautiful the way the flats disappear into the horizon. But I think that and hit the shutter button.

Some of the images made in the fog give me trouble. The light was low and I'm looking for subtle and delicate tonalities. There is a fine line between a subtle and delicate image and a flat image. For images I really like, I don't consider the process complete until I have a print. So, I'll make a work print and prop it up on my display ledge for a while to evaluate whether I need to make more adjustments before I make a final print.

Is that what I felt the morning I made the image? Is it subtle and delicate or is it flat? Only time will tell.

Passing Ferry Boats

After a breakfast of eggs, sausage, biscuits and grits at the Island Cafe with my friend Frank, he headed out towards Corpus Christi. Actually he was not going to Corpus Christi, he was looking for the blue lines on a map that would take him to small communities north and east of Corpus, the places where he can find his images.

I picked up my camera bag and headed out too, into a heavy, wet fog. First to the beach and the life guard stations. I've already photographed them in sun and in overcast light from clouds but that wasn't quite what I wanted. Maybe the fog would be it. It was so quiet on the beach. Very few people and the fog seemed to muffle the sound of the waves as well as the sight of them until you were close to the water. The horizon was lost.

After I photographed the horizon and the life guard stations, I headed over to the ferry docks. The ferry boats would look good in the fog and perhaps a tanker would glide past as well. I was close to a couple who were fishing and while I waited for a tanker we struck up a conversation. Guess what? They were about my oldest son's age and she went to the same high school that he did. She didn't remember him because she was a couple of years older. And then we discovered that her family had lived in the same subdivision that we did.

Once again, I'm reminded, it is a small world.

The Other Side of the Island

I came to Port Aransas hoping for some weather, fog and or rain. I've gotten it. Plus the first few days I also got a lot of wind in the 20-25 mile per hour category. But today was wonderful. In the 50's, fog and a misty rain. Also, today, instead of the Gulf of Mexico side of the island I was on the bay side where there are wetlands. Such a different landscape from what most of us think of when we think of Mustang Island. Sometimes the horizon line disappeared into the fog. At times most beautiful and mysterious. I'm working on my small laptop and I need to get on my big monitor to work on this particular image because the tones are soft and light.