photography: spotted - animals

Hanna has a great idea (one of many good ideas! - sorry I forgot to link to you earlier!) - periodically she trolls back through her photos and "spots", notices themes or similarities in style in her photos.  Over the next few months she's encouraging us to do the same - follow her monthly theme and see what's lurking in your photo stacks.  I keep, sort, and tag my photos in PSE so here are a few of my favorite animal photos.  Thanks for the encouragement excuse to share some of my pics!

Taken in St. Augustine, FL, this peacock is going all out to impress the lady - wonder if it worked?

Hiking along a river in Oregon we managed pictures of a number of critters and birds......

 Dan feeding deer that came right up to our condo deck while vacationing in Oregon.

Our cat, Tigger.

And to wrap up my animal round up, here's one I took of my mother-in-law with her horse a few years ago.

Take a minute and scour through your images......what are some of your favorite animal pics?

Oh, had to share just one more; it is summertime after all!

texture tuesday: soft

I missed a couple of Kim's challenges (Kim Klassen Cafe), but am making the time to jump in again.  This week's prompt is "soft".  My thoughts turned immediately to our cat, Tigger.  She's about 14 years old, fluffy and long haired (what a mess!) and definitely soft.

Original picture:

Here's adding Kim's texture Fall In Grunge at linear burn 40%.

You can see it mostly added some distressing on the corners and edges....  Then I added another layer, her texture Little Things at soft light 80% to soften and brighten the image a bit.

Be sure to visit Kim Klassen's blog for more great images and manipulations as well as the occasional free texture so you can play along.

texture tuesday: and then some

Kim's challenge this week is to use her texture 'and then some'.....thought I'd try it on something other than a flowery thing this time -

I love this shot of my cat - so, first I copied the background and changed it to soft light (65%) to enhance the contrast, then I added the texture AndThenSome and changed the blending to soft light (100%) for the soft look and erased it at the center of the flower and around Tigger's eyes/nose.

Be sure to check out all the other great texture ideas going on for Texture Tuesday over at Kim Klassen's site.  I'll also be linking to Texture Thursday.