Creative Use of the Lightroom Radial Filter

Posted on September 10, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 4 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

It’s been a while since we did a Lightroom tutorial, so it must be time for another one. The Radial Filter is our focus this time; it’s the third and most recent of the three tools in Lightroom (the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter being the other two) that allow you to target specific parts of the image by masking out certain areas and making adjustments to the rest. As such the Radial Filter uses the same layout and the same presets as the other two tools. Let’s get started. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – August

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

One of the benefits of living where we do is that we’re frequent visitors to Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park. In addition to the many trees from all over the world, shrubs, perennials, ferns, etc. the park staff plant several thousand flowers every year. And we haven’t mentioned the wildlife, from dragonflies to black-tailed deer. It’s a wonderful place to visit, and the changes through the seasons are something to behold.

As usual we have two images for our photo of the month post, one from Marcia and one from Mike. Both were made with our cell phone cameras, and both were pushed around a bit in Lightroom. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – July

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 4 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

July holds the birthdays for both of Marcia’s parents, and while her Dad turned 93 this year, her Mom passed away several years ago. To honour her Mother’s memory, every year Marcia buys a rose and gives it away to a passing stranger – usually an older woman with whom she feels an affinity. Below is an image of this year’s gift:

Mom’s Birthday Rose

One day while Marcia was away celebrating her Dad’s birthday, Mike went for a walk in John Dean Provincial Park, just north of Victoria. There are many levels of beauty in this park, from the old Douglas fir trees to the salal berries, to an insect superhighway cut through a leaf. One only needs eyes to see.

Insect Highway

Okay, that’s it for now. Go out and make some photographs!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. For Marcia’s Dad’s birthday we put together a 40-page book containing 68 of Marcia’s photographs. If you’re interested you can see a preview of the first 15 pages (and purchase the book) here: My Photographs

Photo of the Month – June

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

Choosing our photos of the month for June was, well, a Mammoth undertaking!! This was mostly because the mammoth exhibit from the Field Museum in Chicago is currently on loan to the Royal BC Museum here in Victoria. As museum members, we were among the first to get to see the exhibit when it opened. Continue Reading →

International Free Hugs Day, 2016

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

As last Saturday (the first Saturday in July) was International Free Hugs Day, we were out at our usual location (Victoria’s Homecoming Memorial, by Ship Point) offering hugs to locals and visitors alike. This was our 9th hugging session this year, but because it was International Free Hugs Day we extended an invitation to friends and members of our local photography group to come and join us… and join us they did! Continue Reading →

The Why of Hugging

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

In our last ‘Free Hugs’ post we detailed the process of making our new ‘Free Hugs’ posters. Below we have the lovely Marcia modeling one of them for us.

New Posters in Action!

We’ve been offering free hugs to locals and visitors (and other species) for seven years now, and (without question 🙂 ) the one question we get asked more than any other is, “Why are you doing this?” Continue Reading →

Eating Our Way Through Victoria – Breakfast Out

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

In Marcia’s family the favourite meal to eat-out has always been breakfast. On the road? Get up early, take on a few miles (or kilometres), then pull over and have a hearty meal.

Victoria is blessed with many fine restaurants that are open for breakfast, and today we thought we’d profile two of them. We only write about restaurants we like because if we’d had a bad experience somewhere it may have been the chef’s day off, the server was having a bad day or something else, but a good meal, shared, is something to treasure.

Without further ado… 🙂

Continue Reading →

New Posters: For the Love of Hugs

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

Well, this being our 7th year of hugging Victorians (and anyone else who’s interested), we decided to update our FREE HUGS posters. The old ones have served us well, but they’re definitely showing their age. At the risk of overstating the obvious, all you need to make a poster is a pen or a marker and something flat enough to write on… but as the saying goes, “The Walk is Part of the Gift“. To that end, we wanted to put some effort into our new posters.

Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – May

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

One of the (many) wonderful things about living here on the ‘wet’ coast is that we have flowers every month of the year. Victoria is know as the ‘city of flowers’ after all. To that end, both of us selected flower images from the ones we made in May. Both images were made with our cell phones, and both were pushed around a bit in Lr. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – April

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 4 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

Continuing a recent trend, since both of us are photographers our ‘Photo of the Month‘ post contains two images, one from each of us.

First up is Marcia’s image, and before we go any further it should be mentioned that both of us are affected by apophenia – specifically pareidolia. Don’t worry, it’s not inherently contagious. Besides, we prefer to think that it’s not so much seeing order in chaos as being able to see what’s really there… 🙂 This image was made in Mill Hill Regional Park: