Beauty in the desert
Beauty in the desert
Today is that double Friday that happens once a month. It’s my usual After Before Friday post, plus it’s the See Beautiful blog hop.
My photo for After Before Friday, is this brittlebush. These are in bloom everywhere here right now. I came across this one on my walk the other day, and liked the background.
This is after editing.
And before.
I liked the photo right out of the camera, but felt it could use a small amount of help to pop out the colors, and sky.
I used the adjustment brush in LR to enhance the sky, and bring out those great clouds more. I then lightened the photo a tiny bit, upped the vibrance and clarity, and bumped up the yellow a little. That’s really all it needed, I thought anyway. To see more posts for ABFriday, go to this link at Visual venturing.
And since I was on a flower theme, I felt some more beautiful flower shots would be perfect to round out the post for See Beautiful. This is another shot of the same brittlebush, with a nice filter on the photo.
I’m not sure what this bush is called, but these flowers are so small and delicate.
And another ocotillo. I thought for sure this one was blooming it was so bright. But when I walked up to it, it was not to be. Soon, very soon.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!!!
WOW.OK Mary, the third photo of the brittlebrush where you say you used a filter; did you use a lens with a filter (sorry for my ignorance!) or did you use a filter on your editing program? This is the look I am after for many of my photos and I don’t know how to get it!
GORGEOUS COLORS and such serenity my friend! Anita
In Lightroom, which is my primary photo editing tool, there are “presets”. These are filters that give photos all different kinds of looks. From vintage, HDR, B/W, pretty much anything. They can be found for free, or purchased. That photo is edited with one of those preset filters. If you get Lightroom, I can help you find some presets that will help you do what you want. Or, you can email me some photos, I can edit them, and send them back.
Lovely and a big warm welcome to Spring. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
Nice shots Mary. Are there a lot of plants in bloom right now? How long do you think it will be until that ocotillo cactus is in full bloom and how long will the blooms stay once they are open? We plan on being out there a week from Saturday. Spring break you see.
I used to contribute BBQ shots on a BBQ blog a couple of years ago and the most frequent comment the guys would make on each other’s shots was “yummmm . . . I’d eat that!” I gues here on you post the appropriate comment should be, “whooooo, I’d sniff that!”
There are quite a few in bloom right now. The brittlebush and creosote especially. The only cactus so far that are even close are the ocotillo. And they should be fully bloomed when you get here. (They better bloom before I leave, LOL) All the other cactus are just kinda thinking about it.
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it’s amazing how much beautiful things you can find while wandering through a desert…beautiful!
There is a lot of beauty here, you just have to look.
These are so beautiful and Spring-like!…:)JP
Mike wants to know if your shooting raw or jpg?
Tell Mike I shoot in RAW, but you have to be able to look at, or edit those files with a program like photoshop, or lightroom.
Nice to see so many flowers blooming! You certainly improved the sky of the bottlebrush sky original!
It is nice to see all the flowers. And thanks.
These shots are a nice reminder that spring is coming for those of us that still have a little bit of snow on the ground. Beautiful flowers!
Is there anything more uplifting than flowers? I love it when the Ocotillos are in bloom and the prickly pear… oh and let’s not forget about the uniqueness of the blooms on a saguaro. I’m hoping we’re in AZ long enough to see the saguaro in bloom. We were a few years ago and I couldn’t stop admiring them.
I always miss the big cactus blooming. Even the cholla aren’t even close here. I would love to see them some year.
Wonderful and not overdone pop to the image, love the yellow against the blue sky. I find the background growth on the right a bit distracting. If you could push it back a bit then it would really work for me.
so nice to see blooms! love the ocotillo!
wow wow wow
so many gorgeous flowers! love them all.
That is just so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Blessings,
Goose
Beautiful flowers love the distortion background. I know there is a technical term for it but can just never remember it! Love Dolly
You did a great job with both blog hops! But there is no surprise to me, you have the most beautiful phots (IMO). :-)
Love those flower photos! Those delicate white flowers practically look like they’re made of porcelain, I just love them. And I can’t wait to see a fully bloomed ocotillo, the build-up you’ve created is novel-worthy! :)
I hope the ocotillo blooms soon, and everyone loves them. LOL…I didn’t think I was creating a build up.
You have even more talent than you think! :) I feel like there’s a drumroll building to The Big Bloom (and that’s a good thing!).
Love looking at the bright colored flowers.
Beautiful pictures! We would love to start seeing some flowers around our area!
hugs
Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel
Oh, I do love yellow flowers, Mary! And your post-processing choices are spot on as far as I am concerned. Small changes that make a huge difference :) As for the rest of your flowers, that ocotillo is beautiful (I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before) and your processing and cropping on the second brittle bush is just lovely!
You see beautiful every single day Mary! Love these flower pictures!! Happy Friday!!
Hi Mary, I love the beautiful yellow images, your post also show the power of RAW for processing image, for adding just that bit of extra that images need out of the camera!
So pretty! I can’t wait until more of our flowers start blooming!
Thank you for sharing FLOWERS! I love the octillo. I’ve never seen one before but its colors are amazing. I hope that you can show us it when it is fully blooming!
I also loved the narrow DOF on your third flower shot. It totally drew my attention to a few blooms. Enjoy that gorgeous desert for all of us! (one week until we get to go but the part where we’re going won’t be blooming yet, probably!!!!).
Those are all beautiful images. And I agree with you, the bit of processing of the first photo did bring out the colours and the atmosphere in a much stronger way.
All the photos, edited or not, are so pretty. Thanks for sharing the beauty of the desert today!
Dearest Mary! HELLO! Happy Sunday; I hope you get this comment…I see you visited me! AND YES, I think I know that certain somebody who keeps suggesting you put your photos into a book! I am going to use Create Space via Amazon. There are many out there, but this one suits my goals. I will keep everyone informed about my progress! More later, Anita
You really took what was a very nice photo and made it spectacular….you really made the yellow pop. All beautiful flower photos. Darn, I forgot the See Beautiful hop this month and I had some good sunset photos too!
Great. It’s now that time of year that we’re going to be getting macro flower shots every day! I hate flower shots. Almost as much as I hate photos of people’s pets and kids. I can’t wait till I’m old enough to be a real curmudgeon and scowl at dogs and kids. And flowers. OK, I do like your flowers. Much more so after your post processing. But don’t expect me to be this nice if you post flowers every day! A man can take just so much!
Beautiful, beautiful images. I must say I really enjoy your desert wanderings and especially enjoy the images of your beautiful dogs. My Facebook wall is much prettier once I started following you.