Mother Nature decided we needed WEATHER tonight.
We get our share of dust and wind, Sometimes we get storms with rain — occasionally lots of rain.
A few years ago we got the tail end of a hurricane that dumped more than six inches of rain onto the Phoenix metro area, over the span of maybe three or four hours. Y’all, if there was ever a place unequipped to handle that much rain, it’s the middle of the desert. One of my colleagues described trying to get to work when his full-size pickup floated – with him in it – down the middle of one of the main roads in town. The only reason I made it to work that day was a combination of leaving at ungodly o’clock in the morning and being too stupid to turn around. To be fair, it was also partly because bad as it was, I wasn’t sure I could get back home. (It was when we still lived in the bigger house and still worked for the tech company. I’m SO glad I my commute now is a walk from the bedroom or the living room into the office.)
Tonight is the first time in a while we’ve gotten enough wind to be more than a dust-laden nuisance. Next thing I knew, G was out in the weather, hammering down the roof over the carport, because it had started to lift
In rain, lightning, and wind speeds just shy of hurricane level.
On a ladder.
Did I mention he’s 69 years old and has all kinds of health issues?
Oy vey.
After scaring the bejesus out of me, he made it inside safely, changed into warm, dry clothes, and I made him a cup of hot jasmine tea. (We were out of the chamomile he prefers.) I told him I appreciate the desire to take care of the house, but if we lose roofing in a storm, we put in an insurance claim, vs. his suicidal fist-pump to the weather.
It never occurred to him we could file an insurance claim for storm damage.
Other than storms ripping through, things have somewhat quieted down this week.
I’ve been trying to add more artwork to the tee shirt shop. I added a variation of the photo heading up this entry – though I debated whether it should go or not. (Not as a tee design, but as an art print option.)
Dangerspouse has other things to deal with right now, otherwise he’d understand when I said the original is a super noisy photo. Photography noise is best explained by showing you.
Both versions above contain noise, but the version on the right has gone through some serious cleanup work. Photo noise happens when there’s not enough light getting to the camera sensor. Some of it can be camera and/or lens settings, some ambient conditions — in other words, when it’s too danged dark to take pictures but you take ’em anyway. As you do.
Kind of like the post-sunset-on-the-mountains picture up at the top of the page.
Because this summer has been so insanely brutal in terms of work, I hit a brick wall where creativity had to sit its butt down and wait for me to do more brainless stuff.
I went through some of my old photos – partly culling for anything suitable for printing, partly just I wanted to try out some new tools and techniques. Along the way I discovered a whole new set of tools Adobe just added. I’ve only nominally touched them so far, but that’s next.
Anywho… I went through old, marginal imagery and did some cleanup. I even got a few decent ones out of the batch, like this one of Pella, Iowa.
I can’t sell it as a print because there are people in it. Yeah, I could edit them out, but I also don’t know when the hotel was built. Anything built circa the 1990s and forward would mean a copyright/trademark infraction. So it’s a no to offering prints for sale. I still like the photo.
I think I posted this clock and sign before. However, it cleaned up much nicer than the original. With the company name on the sign, also a no to selling prints — but yes to liking the image.
Not sure I posted this exact photo before. The picture is from when we stopped at Red Rock Lake near Knoxville, Iowa. And it benefited from a Photoshop cleanup, too.
Since there are no people and no buildings in the photo, I could legally sell prints. I just don’t think it’s interesting enough.
Okay — it’s after 11PM and it’s pouring down rain, though thankfully none of the crazy winds we had earlier.
Though as you can see, it’s a huge storm. Mexico is over 100 miles due south of Phoenix. The weather pattern is moving from south to north — and as you can also see, radar shows another storm coming in right behind this behemoth. tt looks to be just as big and bad. (The red triangle is where G and I live.)
I’m glad you had some time to go through your photos. I expect that is relaxing when you can clean up the “noise”.