Rustic Americana

I ordered this print on a canvas and it just came. It is beautiful. I redecorated my bedroom using found wood and upcycled objects for the shelves, bedboard, bed frame, bookcase, and decorations. This print will hang with one of an old rusty lock.

This picture was taken in my favorite ghost town, Bosler WY. My dad and I spent a day in August taking photographs of all things forgotten in this little abandoned town. This turned out to be my favorite one. It's funny some pictures I love instantly and some grow on me. This one grew on me. It started out somewhere in the mediocre range, but as I kept reviewing the group I fell a little more in love with each pass.

This is a straight out of camera print. The watermark was added in Adobe Lightroom 3.

For information on this and other prints please visit my Etsy website, here.

Truffula Seeds

This was taken at the Botanical Gardens in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It reminds me of the truffula trees in the Lorax by Dr. Seuss. It also kind of reminds me of the speck that Horton finds in Horton Finds A Who. Maybe I have Dr. Seuss on the brain because school starts tomorrow.

In Lightroom I darkened the greens and cropped it to be a square instead of rectangle. For more photos from Pepper Tree Prints click here.

Grape Soda

This is a Grape Soda Lupine that I found last spring in the deserts of Imperial county. I went camping and alongside the road were clumps of these lupine. I stopped alongside the road, which is a common occurrence, and took a few pictures. It was an extremely windy day and so most of the pictures that I took that day looked like a was a sloppy drunkard because the flowers were haphazardly out of frame. The wind was blowing so very hard that most of the flowers looked to be at a 45 degree angle. This was the best one and I even had to straighten it out a little. In Lightroom, I deepened the black fill, saturated the purple/magenta a little more and straightened it about 10 degrees or so.

For more pictures visit my Etsy site, Pepper Tree Prints.

In Flander's Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

by John McCrae.

This poem was written about World War I by a Lt. Colonel in the army after he watched his friend die. A very tragic about war and death. Apparently poppies grew with abundance in this field because the soil was so disturbed by the killings and the burying of the dead. An awful thought indeed.

I was in Anderson Nursery and Garden the other day and saw a packet of poppy seeds and the color was "Flander's Field". I just thought it was interesting that a poem documenting a young man's death has influences the vernacular of horticulture. Also, the red poppy is the icon of Remembrance Day (according to Wikipedia), I'm not sure if this is attributed to the poem or not but none the less an interesting tidbit. I ended up buying the Flander's Field poppies but mostly out of nostalgia, when I was very young my dad would recite this poem in his deep unwavering voice. It was haunting then thinking about all the people who gave up their lives for a cause...it's even more haunting now with the understanding that most military men and women are younger than me and so many young lives are lost for causes that are hazy at best and unnecessary at worst. Wow, this took an unexpected political bend...anyway, I haven't planted the seeds yet but they are the exact color of this poppy...maybe it is also a Flander's Field poppy.

In Ligthroom, I cropped out some of the fence background, darkened the background, and saturated the red and green hues a little to help them 'pop'. For a link to this picture on my Etsy page go here.


As a side note, every time I typed 'poppy' in this post I first typed 'poopy' and then had to go back and fix it. I thought it was funny every single time.

Dew on Leaves

This picture was taken at Bodega Bay. If you have never heard of Bodega Bay, it's claim to fame is being where Alfred Hitchcock filmed "The Birds"...well at least that is what the sign said. It also is very good place to go whale spotting...again we didn't experience the whales but we did see a lot of whale watchers. My favorite part of the day was the drive to Bodega Bay. You have to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and then through the most adorable farm country. The bay is surrounded by little art galleries, coffee shops, and cute little weathered houses. A nice day trip from San Fran. Anyway, along the coast it is so windy and cold but also revitalizing. We walked up to the point and along the way there were so many precious little plants covered in salt water dew. This is one of those pictures.

There was no modifications made in Lightroom. For more information on this picture go to my Etsy page. Pepper Tree Prints

A Costa Rican Tree Frog

This cute little frog lived in the Ranario in Santa Elana, Costa Rica. Catherine and I visited the Ranario after a very long taxi, water taxi, taxi ride from La Fortuna. We had seen the most amazing landscape from Lake Arenal over the patchwork fields and by tiny little farm houses. The rural areas of Costa Rica are indeed my favorite. I love everything about it; the living fences, the lone trees watching over fields of brown and white cows, the winding roads, the hills of coffee trees with bright red coffee beans clinging to the branches, the huge hydrangea bushes that seem like something out of Alice and Wonderland, and the slow moving tractor trailers with loads of sugar cane, mangoes, or something else just as wonderful.

Once in Santa Elana we found a place to stay and then ventured out for food and excitement. We walked to the Ranario on the other side of the valley. We took a tour with a wonderful guide. I found him to be both knowledgeable and hilarious. He bordered on highly inappropriate with most of his jokes but the language barrier was just strong enough to make it endearing and not creepy. Once the tour was over we went back armed with flashlight. Since the frogs are sensitive to the light flashes are not allowed. Luckily, Catherine is a good sport and has quite a steady hand with a flashlight so she gamely held the flashlight for several hours as I happily clicked away. She also took some stunning pictures that night when my hands got to shaky to be useful.

I used Lightroom 3 to lighten the shadow under his eye and add a watermark.
The etsy listing is here.

Eureka!

This little guy was found at the Rotary Youth Camp. He was wandering across the sidewalk so someone picked him up and was returning him to the wild. Before he made it back to his tree I was able to snap a few pictures. I love his wild hair! I realize it's a defense strategy so that when birds try to eat him they will be intimidated by his size or just get a beak-ful of fluff. However, I think he is utterly adorable! He makes me laugh every time I see him.

This photo was taken on a Canon DSLR with a macro lens. The background was darkened using Adobe Lightroom 3.

If you are interested in this or any other print. Here is the link to my etsy store. Pepper Tree Prints