I Will Love You - Fisher - Music

I Will Love You, by Fisher (Married couple, Kathy Fisher and Ron Wasserman)
Beautiful song.
Another Dawson's Creek (DC note below) song, Episode 414, "A Winter's Tale" (DVD only).

I guess the song was extremely popular on the Net at one time, but I didn't know about it.
See Time article.
(Dated 27 Mar 00)

The main reason why I decided to blog about it is because a FREE download of the song and a pdf of the sheet music with guitar chords is at the artist's website, fishertheband.com.
There are more free songs to download at their website.
Now, that was a nice surprise.
Generous, giving from a place of abundance.

I also liked the free song, "You" (sheet music for that too).

Follow link to MySpace and listen to more songs. I liked "Too Late."
All sad slow songs.
Nice voice.

Photo from google images.

NOTE on DC Epi 414:
It's the song that played near the end when Joey and Pacey have sex on the senior ski trip.
The DVD version plays the song "I Will Love You" by Fisher.
When the episode originally aired on TV, the song played was "Takes My Breath Away" by Tuck & Patti.

Self-Portrait Art

Wow. This is the most fabulous self-portrait I've ever seen.
Watercolor.
Almost inspires me to try that medium again.
Almost. lol

via
A View In Your Mirror a self-portrait blog.

Artist's Blog
(Larger image and poem there.)

Pete Yorn - Just Another Girl - Music

I was digging around in Dawson's Creek music and found this really nice video of Pete Yorn singing Just Another Girl on KFOG Radio. Recorded 14 Apr 09.
Very nice/good version of the song.
Also entitled "Just Another" (no "Girl").

At YouTube
OR
Google It
Google2 (Different version of the song.)

My records show the song played on the following episodes of Dawson's Creek:
#405 "A Family Way"
#618 "Love Bites"
(NOTE: The song was replaced on the DVD versions of the show.)
epguide



Yorn (b. 27 Jul 74) and Scarlet Johansson (b. 24 Nov 84)
teamed up and made an album together.
Can find some nice big photos of the two googling images.



Yorn is good looking.
They make a nice looking couple.
Only Scarlet is married to someone else.
She married Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds (b. 23 Oct 76) on 27 Sep 08. Reynolds had been engaged to Alanis Morissette earlier.

Dates/info from wiki.

Scarlett was in a recent issue of Glamour Magazine.
Article Title: Scarlett Johansson’s in Love! (but not with this guy)

"Just Another Girl" LYRICS:
You and I,
were two of a kind,
I hate to say it but you'll never relate,
what makes you tick?
It makes me smile.
You said that I should get away from it all,
and bury my head in the sand if I want to,
I think you
should thank me now.
You were lying wide awake in the garden,
trying to get over your stardom,
and I could never see you depart us
and you're my baby,
You're just another girl...

Autumn Maples

We're having an odd autumn this year. First it got windy so the few leaves that had changed color blew away. Then in addition to the wind, it got overcast and rainy. And it's been pretty much like that for the last two or three weeks, which should have been peak autumn season here. I think it froze in spots as well, cuz the trees look a little sickly in some places. The leaves are shriveled and dark, like they are going to turn an ugly black brown instead of the usual pretty golds, reds, etc. Then, another weird thing is a lot of the trees haven't even turned color yet or still have green leaves. Today it's like 30 degrees, blustery, with a light dusting of snow on the ground. I think that might be a record cold temp set today.



About the only thing with pretty autumn colors around here are the maples. So I took some pics of those yesterday.

Over The Fence

Another Autumn pic from my 2007 photography archives.

Autumn Trees

I like this picture.
Don't know why I never posted it.
From my 2007 photography archives.
Just bumped up the colors with a Soft Light Layer.

Another Photo From The Archives

Here's another photo from my 2007 archives that I tweaked.

Before:


After:


HowTo:
Two Screen layers to lighten, clarify 6, and radial blur.
Done in Paint Shop Pro 9.

Color Masking A Photo

I'm digging around in my photography archives for possible photos to play around with.
Here's one I thought might be good for color masking.



I suppose there's a dozen different ways to do this.
I did it with masking and layering.

I greyscaled a copy, increased colors, copy/paste as layer on top of original color photo.
And then created a mask and used the airbrush to "paint" back in the color where I wanted it.
I like masking with an airbrush because it's easy to "undo" if I don't like it.
I didn't know where to stop with the coloring!
I have no idea what kind of plant this is.
There were these teensy "hearts" deep within this big mass of trees/bushes on a nature walk.
Zoomed in with my S3 Canon and got this shot (cropped).

I've blogged about the airbrush masking stuff before, here.

Consciousness as Force Field

I was googling "consciousness as force field" and found this article.
Good/interesting read.

Consciousness as an Active Force
Amy L. Lansky, PhD
Revised November 1997.

"Consciousness is an active force that we can exert upon the universe, not merely a passive perception or awareness of that universe."

"Consciousness is an active force or mechanism that can, among other things, control or cause change in the human energy field, as well as, potentially, the universal field."

"Perhaps homeopathy is actually a quantum or even a higher-dimensional form of medicine."

Note: Contrast with Wilber philosophy, link.

VR Panoramas

I was googling images and ended up at zmetro.com.
Jim Zellmer (Virtual Properties)

I liked his nature photos.
And
Wow! Those VR Panoramas are really nice!



Direct links below:

One
Jepson Center for the Arts Savannah, Georgia
April 26, 2009

Two
The Statue of Liberty on Lake Mendota, Madison, WI
March 2, 2009

Three
Sunrise Siesta Key, Florida
August 11, 2008
(My fav.)


Four
Prince of Wales Hotel, Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada
July 22, 2008

Five
Yellowstone's Old Faithful at Sunrise
July 22, 2008

Six
New River Gorge Bridge, Fayetteville, WV USA
August 21, 2005

Morgue File

I was visiting the morguefile.com free stock photography place.
There are some nice "naturey" pics there.

Links, examples, follow.

DSCN1214_g.JPG
I edited the bottom part of the photo using Clone Brush and Lighten/Darken Brush in Paint Shop Pro 9.


DSCN1210.JPG
I cloned out the stuff in the bottom right side of the photo.


DSC04076.JPG
I added a Hard Light Layer is all.


100_2128.JPG
No editing, just resized and added the text.


IMG_3376_m.JPG
No editing, just resized and added text.


John Muir Quotes
The mountains are calling and I must go.
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir at Wiki.

More
Nature Quotes

UPDATE:
Sources/References for quotes here.

Smudging Gradient Lines

I can view Word Perfect graphics (*.wpg) within Paint Shop Pro 9 Browser, and when I open one, PSP9 imports it as a Meta Picture Import with multiple polygon vector layers which can be turned on/off and edited.
Interesting to fiddle with sometimes.
(Photoshop, GIMP, IrfanView all failed at viewing and/or opening *.wpg format graphics.)

For example, here's the default import result, merged/resized for blog.


After my tweaks:


What I did:
1. I turned off the layer with that white blotch at the bottom right.
2. Applied Edge Preserving Smooth at 9. Just enough to smooth any jaggies, but not smooth the tree too much.
3. Finished smoothing the "gradient" lines with the smudge brush, starting with these settings and changing the Opacity and Brush Size as needed.



The smudge brush worked pretty good in this case.
In the past, when I wanted to smooth a gradient, I'd add a very small amount of noise and/or blur and that seemed to do the trick. But in this case, I needed something a little stronger. (The "gradients" were really merged polygon layers.) Gotta be careful and not smudge too much, but can easily undo.

4. Added Borders 10 and 2 wide.

Music

Some "new" songs I've discovered recently that I like.

Grief & Sorrow,
By Toshio Masuda
Naruto (Japanese manga) Original Sound Track 3, Song Track #14

Road Regrets,
By Dan Mangan
I gave a video search link, but a regular google search might give you a better quality version of the song.

And this last song is one I heard on the TV show, The Cleaner.
Season Finale
"Trick Candles" Episode (Part 5 video if it's still online.)

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin,
By Colin Hay
American Sunshine (2009) Album
Google it.

The voice is familiar because Colin, with that wonderful Australian accent, was lead vocalist of Men at Work in the 80's. Remember the song, Down Under.

Currently at YouTube:
Acoustic version of Down Under by Colin Hay with a funny little story before the song.

Lyrics:
Waiting For My Real Life To Begin
by Colin Hay

Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I'll keep checking the horizon
I'll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down, on me

And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in
Don't you understand
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin...

Removing Blue Color Cast on Blizzard Photo

I was backing up my photographs and found some older photos that I want to play with and see if I could improve them.
Here's a blizzard photo that I liked except for the harsh blue color cast.

Before:


After:


Steps:
Color Balance: Red 40, Green 50, Blue minus 70, Midtones and Preserve Luminance checked.


Highlight Midtone Shadow: Shadow minus 100, Midtone 100, Highlight 50, Relative Adjustment Method checked.


(NOTE: I started with a preset called "Bright White" Shadow minus 30, Midtone 100, Highlight 100. Then tweaked to keep a slight blue tone so my snow would show up better. You could skip Color Balance and try HMS Bright White alone, and then try Color Balance to get the blue tone you want. Probably end up at the same place.)

Clarify at 5 three times to make the trees stand out more from the background.
(Clarify is under the Adjust, Brightness and Contrast Menu area in version 9 of Paint Shop Pro.)

Add some snow:
1. New layer filled with Black, Layer Blend Mode Lighten
2. Add some Noise (Gaussian, Monochrome, 100%)
3. Skip step 3 for very fine snow specks, for bigger chunks/specks of snow add Gaussian Blur 1 at this point.
4. Now play with high Brightness and Contrast numbers until you get the amount of snow specks you want.
OR
Try Threshold which does something similar.

I used two layers of snow; one fine snow and one chunky snow.

Clarify Clouds

I discovered Paint Shop Pro 9 Clarify can add a nice depth and definition effect to my cloud photos that I can't get by sharpening or adding Contrast.

Before:


After Clarify at max twice:


Before:


After Clarify at max twice:


Setting:

McKenzie Slough Wildlife Management Area

Another place marked as a wetland birding area in North Dakota is McKenzie Slough.
This is another excursion off Interstate 94 near the same exit as the Long Lake trip I blogged about earlier. (Compare maps.)



This area was significantly more difficult to access. Long Lake is way easier to access and had more birding opportunities. As we drove along the gravel road in McKenzie Slough area the rushes were so high we couldn't see much. And most birds were so far away my tele at max 300mm could barely capture them. We found one entry for walking only access, but we couldn't tell where it went and it looked so isolated that we didn't feel comfortable walking it.

These are pelicans, great egret, ducks, gulls, etc.:



Definitely great egrets and great blue herons available for possible camera capture (photos taken Sun 20 Sep 09). If we would have had more time, I might have walked the road and could have possibly gotten better captures of those flying up and out of the tall rushes.

Great Blue Heron:


Great Egret:


YellowLegs (I'm guessing):


Tern of some kind maybe:


And just for fun, I made a collage of great egrets out of my photos. All were very small captures of a single egret in flight. I added some cloud texture to the background.

Dew

I thought this pic needed a quote or poem.
Googled on the subject of dew and found one I liked by Rabindranath Tagore.

Another Fav From The Trip

And this is another fav, taken along the way to Long Lake.
Always, always, watch for hawks in the bale fields.
I have lots of these types of photos cuz it's so common, but I just love the hawk's in-flight pose.

I think it's a Ferruginous hawk.
enature
cornell

Favorite Pic From Long Lake

And this is my favorite photo from our Long Lake trip.


That's the way it was straight out of the camera. Shocker. lol
I think the duck is a blue-winged teal cuz of that blue patch on the wing and female because of the face.

Drake head pic here.

Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge

Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge

This would be a nice easy short excursion if traveling thru North Dakota on boring Interstate 94.
(We took the more "scenic" back roads.)
Long Lake is only 12 miles South of Interstate at Sterling which is about 25 miles East of Bismarck. (There's no gas, food, etc., in the tiny town of Moffit close to the lake.)
Just do the short loop at the SW end of Long Lake, which is the place to go for bird watching and photography.



Headquarters is at this end of the lake, also.



I was thinking about the best visit time for photography lighting. We were there late morning early afternoon and I had to shoot into the sun (South, SouthEast) sometimes so backlit. Plus it was an ugly overcast day for a lot of the trip, which is not good for photography. I just don't know if any later or earlier than that would give any real advantage because you'd be shooting into the South sun anyway. (On the website it says refuge hours are 8am to 4pm.)

Bird List for Long Lake Refuge area.

Here are some of the birds I was able to capture with camera.

Western grebe:
enature
cornell


Western grebe is very similar to the Clark's grebe. The main distinguishing mark is the black around the eyes.

American bittern:
enature
cornell


Great blue heron:
enature
cornell


Great egret:
enature
cornell


Great egret has a yellow bill and black or dark legs.
The Snowy egret has a black or dark bill.
The Cattle egret had yellow legs.

Herons, Bitterns, Egrets - Same Family - Ardeidae.
The herons and egrets would suddenly fly up and out as you went by before you even knew they were there. We saw several. I was out walking the road with camera ready.



The two bitterns flew, very slowly and quietly, right over my head! I could have gotten some really good pics of them if the weather would have been nicer. My pics were backlit pretty bad, so the bitterns were almost black against a grey blah sky. I had to lighten dramatically, greyscale, add in the brown sepia, blah, blah.

This is not a duck.


It's an American coot.
enature
cornell

Yeah, I thought this was some kind of black duck.
But the "pointy" bill (instead of flat) was the first clue it was something else.
The coot's toes are lobed, not webbed, although I did not have a photo of the feet.
So bill and feet are more like a chicken than a duck.
I also noticed slight reddish spots on bill and forehead, which are really there, not from camera or post processing. My photos were pretty poor, so I wasn't sure.

Watching them patter over the water is quite entertaining.


We did see ducks also, and avocets, and pelicans. There were lots of seagulls and other shorebirds, terns, maybe.



We saw a few bird swarms. One was of blackbirds. I think the attraction was the nearby sunflower field. Another swarm was overhead but too far away for me to identify.


By the time we were leaving Long Lake area the overcast sky was breaking up into nice puffy clouds. Too late.