Eulogy

Independent Film Channel is airing the movie, Eulogy, a dark comedy.
I liked it.
Good to see Debra Winger (b. 16 May 55) again.
I liked Zooey Deschanel (b. 17 Jan 80) in this movie. The Kate Collins character fit her well this time. I did not care for her much as DG in Tin Man.

The imdb summary of Eulogy (link above) says, "Son Daniel is a secret porn actor."
I think that's incorrect. I sure never caught that in the movie. His wife, however, is another story (the video).

For anybody out there who wants to see Eulogy, TVGuide says the movie will air again on IFC:
Wed, Sep 17, 5:10 AM
Mon, Sep 22, 7:00 PM
Tue, Sep 23, 4:35 AM
(The movie is rated R, not PG13.)

A few quotes I got from imdb (link above):

Kate Collins: Could one of you *please* tell me one nice thing I can say about your dead father.
Lucy Collins: [after a long pause] He often called me Andrea for no reason.
Daniel Collins: I was Barry.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Kate Collins: [reading a letter from Ryan out loud] Did you really leave me again? After all the seasons I spent waiting, watching out the window, listening at the door, waiting for the news of your return? For the news that you realized that someone important was waiting for you. A whole lifetime I've been waiting. I can't believe you're not coming back. I can't believe I'm supposed to stop waiting. I can't believe you left me again...
[ends letter]
Kate Collins: Grandpa didn't leave because of you, it was because of you he kept coming back. I hope you all realize that.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I didn't check to see if that was an exact quote or not, but it's close. She just kinda pulled out this letter she had from Ryan and read it, I think, more out of desperation to find something to say for her grandfather's eulogy. So it was this odd mix of funny yet kinda sad/true.

LINKS:
Trailer (YouTube)

Soundtrack List

Search YouTube For Songs:
Doctor My Eyes
Papa Was a Rolling Stone

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
UPDATE posted 16 Sep 08:
I just discovered a song that goes well with the movie, Eulogy.
It's Willow Tree, by Chad VanGaalen.
It's currently a top track at elbo.
Or you can Google it.

"Willow Tree
Take my body
Put it in a boat
Light it on fire
Send it out to sea"

Eluvium

Wow, I LOVE this song.
Beautiful piano music.
Another one of those songs I can listen to over and over again.

LINKS:
Radio Ballet (YouTube) by Eluvium (Matthew Cooper)
(Piano pic from YouTube video.)

Via:
colourlovers
Color of Music: Interview With Eluvium
(The song DOES end abruptly, however, the video at this site does cut off the song at the end too.)

Yellow Warbler

enature
cornell

Goofy Photos

I'm going thru my pics and decided to post some goofy looking ones that, strangely enough, I like, cuz they are so odd.

Panning The Pigeon:


I think the pigeon pic is very pretty for some reason even though, technically, the pic didn't turn out.

Panning The Squirrel:


The Squirrel result is a combo of slow shutter speed squirrel twirls and panning rainlike background (following a moving object while taking pics of it.) I bet I couldn't do that again if I tried.

This one is called "The View from the Chain Link Fence:"


Goofy little sparrow sitting squished in the chain link fence. Now why would he want to do that? It sure didn't look very comfortable.

Flower Art

So I've been trying to get some good shots of these certain flowers and just cannot do it no matter what setting I use on my camera. Could be just bad time of day (not enough light, light too harsh).

But...
I love this cropped area of one picture.
I call it: "Meeting of the Leaves"



I also have been playing around with different artistic effects and liked the results on these cropped areas of the photos.




I used Smart Blur, Unsharp Mask, and Texture.
The artistic effect looks best at full scale, but I had to resize these above ones to fit my blog.

The idea of using Smart Blur and Unsharp Mask came from an online Photoshop tutorial.

I liked a little texture added to it so it looked more like it was painted on canvas or textured paper.

NOTE: That's how my current blog header was made. A different flower setting, though. Same place as the bees and butterfly pics I posted earlier.

Sunflower Season Again

The wild sunflowers are pretty much everywhere now. I took lots of pictures of those last year, so haven't done much with those this year. Then we have the blankets of yellow sunflower fields. They are such a cheerful yummy colorful feast to my eyes. Pictures never adequately portray the experience, though. I think the planted crop sunflowers are maturing a little late this year.

Charolais Against The Great Sky

I thought this scene looked so funny with the white cows (Charolais pronounced sharlay) dotting the field under the great mushroom cloud sky.

Wind Turbines on the Prairie

They look small in a landscape shot like that. And yeah, it was hilly, so just the tops are showing on the ones in the background.

Here's a close-up shot. They are big.


I had to get really close to them to hear them when they are spinning in the breeze. The noise didn't bother me. But I'm not so sure I'd like them dotting my landscape view at home, though.

This next one was backlit so I turned it into a sunset composite.
Just messin' around in Paint Shop Pro 9.
I added a sunset gradient layer (Color Blend Mode), a cloud pic layer (Soft Light), a moon pic layer (Luminance), and then added a few stars on a layer (Screen) with Ulead Particle Plugin.



Okay, so it was probably overkill and it doesn't look very realistic. Maybe I should have stopped at just adding the sunset gradient.
The creativity is always fun, though.

My Best Hawk Picture So Far This Year

Just driving around in the country, I always see hawks. They seldom stick around long enough for me to pull over and get a good picture of them. This guy let me take two shots and then even zoom in for another one before he flew away. I was surprised he tolerated my presence that long. Maybe he was on the hunt for something in the field and very hungry, so did not want to leave? I have some in-flight pics of him too, but they are blurry poor quality.



Not sure what kind of hawk he is. A Northern Harrier maybe?

It wasn't quite as exciting as my best hawk picture last year.
I don't think anything can beat that experience.

LINK:
Hawks of North Dakota

Clouds

John Mayer Free Fallin'

Wow. I L♥VE Mayer's version of Free Fallin'.

I've been listening to it over and over again.
I can't get enough of it.

Google it.

YouTube Direct Link
(UPDATE: Link was dead, so I changed it.)

Image Notes:
My clouds pic, duplicate Screen Layer Blend Mode to lighten/brighten, Soft Focus Effect to soften, MuRa's Filter Meister Copies for text effect.

Pigeon

Rock Pigeon Columba livia
Family: Columbidae, Pigeons and Doves

enature
cornell

Cool Facts about Pigeons
There may be as many as 28 pigeon color types, called "morphs," but Project PigeonWatch groups them into just seven morphs.

Checker: If a pigeon has a checker pattern on its wings it is called a checker. Checkers can range from very light gray with only a few black checks, to very dark with only a little light-gray still showing. Some checkers have wing-bars; some do not.

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird:



enature
cornell

Pics provided at sites above don't really look like my pic, but my ND bird book pic does look like what I have.

google images

Also a WESTERN kingbird.
See
Kingbird photo shoot
Return

UPDATE:
Here

North Dakota State Flower - Prairie Wild Rose

The prairie wild rose is a very common sight along the rural roadside, and that is where I found this one, which happened to be in very good shape.

Prairie Wild Rose info from Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center.

Also the state flower of Iowa, evidently.

UPDATE:
See another pic here.

Morning Photo Walk

Where I went for a morning photo walk today.



It was a fabulous summer morning out there. Cool 50's and not muggy. Yay.

Yeah, I know those early morning shots of trees and sky are too high contrast to expose adequately, but I just love them anyways. The lighting is so dramatic and capture a mood.

Yellow Cone Flowers

I have wonderful yellow cone flowers in my back yard, so we can't mow the lawn now. HA

Purple Flowers

I sure like these purple flowers, but don't know what they are. In a burst of inspiration I tried a new angle and I liked the composition. It's difficult to take because of the direction of the sun. But one day I happened to catch the scene right before the sun came up over the hill behind them.

Purple flowers, like rocks, look best with a cool tone (white balance) instead of warm. Also I think purple flowers, like white flowers, might be best shot on a cloudy day. Better color rendering. Purple can be a difficult color to get correct in-camera. I often get blue instead of purple in-camera. The color fuchsia or hot deep pink is difficult too (just pink is ok). So is a wine color. A hot deep pink and a maroon wine are often rendered red in-camera,no matter what white balance I use.

UPDATE 25 Oct 08:
The flowers are purple liatris.

More Cloud Shapes

Clouds are fun. We get the most interesting clouds in the late afternoon or early evening.

Can't ID This bird

Here's a bird I caught with my XSi and tele, different area, but same day as the hawk and eagles. I'm sure getting lots of bird photos this year. It's what shows up for the photo shoots.

Can't ID for sure, but I think it's some kind of thrush maybe?



20 Jul 09:
Could be a juvenile robin.
Google Images
And:
"The Juvenile American Robin’s underparts are tinged with cinnamon and heavily spotted with brown."

Kingbird Returns

That kingbird returned for an evening visit once again. I had the bracket removed from the outdoor temperature gauge, so I got better pictures of him now. Ones without that ugly bracket behind his head.

Here's a funny pose.



Looks like he's checking things out down below, hey hey. He had an itch that needed scratching or something.

NOTE: Another Kingbird pic here.

Mourning Dove at Sunrise

A mourning dove has gotten in the habit of sitting on our power line pole and singing every morning at sunrise. Terrible backlit and low light situation but I try anyway. Him and I played this little get closer game for a few mornings. I was trying to see if he'd acclimate to my presence, so I can get closer. Not. He had a clear boundary and stuck to it every time.

It is interesting to watch him when he coos. His chest puffs out and his tails bobs up and down when he's perched on the wire instead of the pole. It looks like he wags his tail. It made me laugh.

So anyway, crappy pictures, really. But I thought maybe I could turn it into a silhouette and add a different background. Something minimalistic with a sunrise tone to it to capture the same mood. I found a gradient that seemed to do it.

The nest? Abandoned. No sign of eggs or babies. Don't know what happened. Maybe the morning cooing is a mourning song.

More mourning dove pics here.

Chipping Sparrow

LINKS:
at enature
at cornell

Songbirds of North Dakota
Sparrows
Chipping Sparrow

UPDATE:
Here

Barn Swallow

Juvenile?
Cornell says:
"Juvenile looks similar to adult, but tail shorter and less forked. Underparts paler."

It sure doesn't look like the pic at Cornell. This little fellow looked pretty rough. Maybe it was the damp weather (See note below).

See also enature.

He was standing guard by the nest up above him.



Barn Swallows
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Coneflowers on the Prairie

From the field:













LINKS:

Native Wildflowers of the North Dakota Grasslands

Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera)

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia)

Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpureum)
(This was that little purple flower in the vase photo.)

Flew In For A Photo Shoot

Look who flew in for a photo shoot. I mentioned before that birds like to perch and poop on our outdoor temperature gauge. Usually they fly off before I have time to grab my camera. Tonight, this one just stayed and stayed. I got 24 good shots of him. Very unusual.






What kind of bird is he? Some kind of Warbler? or Flycatcher? Kingbird? I'm not sure, but I think maybe it's a Western Kingbird.
I've definitely heard that sound around here.

On the Net - Western Kingbird:
at enature
at cornell

NOTE:
See also Kingbird Returns
and
Picturesque

21 Jul 09:
Junior flew in a year later - here.

Mourning Dove Close Up

This is as close up to a mourning dove I'll ever get. (Original size, crop, no sharpen.) Incubating those eggs in one of our evergreen trees. I didn't realize it at the time, but it looks like there were two on the nest instead of just one? There's a tail on the right side.



I did use the zoom, so I wouldn't have to stand too close, and cause them even more stress by my presence.

At Cornell it says:
"A Mourning Dove pair rarely leaves its eggs unattended. The male usually incubates from midmorning until late afternoon, and the female sits the rest of the day and night."

The pic was taken early morning with my S3 IS 12x zoom Canon.

More mourning dove pics
here
and
here

Coleslaw Recipe

And here we have a crappy tripod picture of coleslaw.

Actually, I'm posting this because I always use the coleslaw recipe on the package of shredded cabbage I buy at the store and today no recipe on the package!

So now the recipe will be on my blog where I can always find it.

Coleslaw recipe
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use light)
2 T milk
1 T white vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1 package (16 oz.) shredded cabbage

NOTE: I put extra sugar in it because I like it sweeter. I also don't mix the dressing in with the cabbage. I use it as a salad dressing on the side. Why? Because if we have leftovers, after a day, it gets watery and soggy.