We got a little snow. About six inches worth.
I love it when the snow falls softly through the trees like it did last night. It was absolutely beautiful.
We have a row of enormous White Pine trees and they look so nice with the snow on them. Tomorrow I need to dig out the cars. I have a project going on in my garage and all the cars were out in the snow.
Some of us liked the snow more than others. I suppose if I could run that fast in a fur coat I would like it more too.
Linda and I hosted a little wine tasting party Friday night and had great fun. I had my wine guy pick four Cabernets at differing price points and then we placed them in brown paper bags and marked them A,B,C,D. I then prepared a quiz for everyone asking them to rate the wines they tasted, and try to match the description of each wine to the bottle.
I had purchased bottles at 11.99, 19.99, 42.99 and 96.99. After we had all tasted the wines and made our notes on the quiz we talked about the wines and realized that we all liked the same wine the best. As we unwrapped the bottles we found out that we had all liked the 19.99 wine the best. I thought for sure we had all liked the most expensive one. So, you have a wine tasting and you learn a little.
We really enjoyed the conversation and may have other wine tastings. But the lesson learned is that we do not need to buy the expensive wines to have a good tasting. (though I don't feel that at 19.99 a bottle our favorite was cheap)
Thanks to the participants:
Amanda
Nate
Troy
Carol
Dave
Linda
Matt
Jen
And, of course my wife Linda for making the wonderful food for us!
Life is good!
On my old blog I posted photos of these two sisters. I thought I would try doing photo-paintings of them and see how it worked. I find my photo-paintings moving towards having more and more impressionistic backgrounds. I think it works well on these images.
Last Saturday Linda and I had the privilege to shoot some family photos for Linda's friend Andrea. Andrea invited her brothers and their families to come and have a large family group photo taken. We all met at Andrea's brother's house on the river. Everyone was up for braving the cold for some outdoor shots by the river and then we did some photos in the house. Andrea's brother's house is amazing. He auctions antiques and his house is decorated with some very fine pieces of furniture.
Three months ago I purchased the book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters by artist David Hockney. It is a fascinating read. In the book Hockney details how he studied many paintings by Old Masters and how he discovered that many of the paintings by them were created using the help of optical devices such as the camera obscura and the camera lucida. He makes a very compelling case that their use was fairly common.
As I read through the book I became convinced that Hockney was right.
I have always loved paintings, and as I read the book I thought about the possibility of combining the painterly effect with my photography. Since I had always loved Impressionist painters such as Renoir, Degas, and Monet, I felt that my Photo Paintings should reflect an impressionistic style. With this in mind I purchased Corel Painter and starting practicing my technique.
As I started working my way through the process of creating a Photo Painting I discovered that to get the effect I wanted I needed to paint with the digital equivalents of the painters tools. Dry brushes. palette knives, fine detailing brushes and coarse bristled brushes became my new tools on the computer.
It took some practice, but I am very happy with the results I am getting and I have decided to offer them to my wedding and portrait clients. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming year. If you visit my website and blog frequently and I will keep you posted on how it goes.
