Natural Sculpture

Posted by Laurie (New Jersey, United States) on 6 February 2007 in Plants & Nature and Portfolio.

I spotted this a few weeks ago on a walk through the woods near my home. I think nature is capable of creating some of the most interesting abstract sculptures.

These won't be around as long as those carved in marble or stone by either man or nature but deserve to be appreciated. Sometimes I think the things I find in winter are far more interesting, albeit perhaps a little harder to spot, than at other times of the year.

Several good things have happened this week. We found out that our contaminated soil has all been dug up and we need to dig no more. (We had an underground heating oil tank leak for those who may not know, and the testing and clean-up has gone on for over a year.) We are at 265 PPM from 100,000 PPM, which is excellent. Next week the last pile of contaminated dirt gets carted away and a well will be installed to monitor the ground water over the next few months or years, but we can deal with that. We can finally think about restoring our property which includes a new driveway, sidewalk, front walkway, and steps which sort of caved in when the dirt started to wash away from under them. So that's a huge deal and very good news.

In other happy news, I am now the proud owner of the Epson Stylus Pro-3800 Photo Printer...YAY!!! I've waited a long time for it and it finally became available. It was delivered yesterday. The paper was delivered on Friday, and I had to wait for the printer through the weekend which was near torture since I knew it was coming.

I am quickly finding out that printing photos is a whole other ballgame. I was warned that color management for printing is nowhere near the same as it is when publishing on the net. It is much trickier than one might think.

I am already seeing much better results than when I sent them out to a photo finisher. I have total control, but still have a lot to learn. I will probably waste a few $$ in the beginning while I get the technique figured out. I may take a course and save myself some aggravation. It is definitely not for the feint of heart. There are a lot of different settings to choose from within the Printer and Photoshop. You can let the printer control things or Photoshop control things and then there are all sorts of considerations once you decide which to do and they will all yield different results.

I did already manage to get some very good results with the black and white. Don't laugh, it's not as easy as it sounds. I did find that the printer controls were best for black and white. Not so for the color. The color printing is going to take a little more work to figure out. The color prints look fine, in fact they are beautiful, but they aren't exactly where I want them to be yet it terms of color accuracy and good is not good enough for me when it comes to color prints. I know I can get fantastic results because I've seen them. I just have to figure it out for myself now.

This is going to be fun, and I can now get more work done. I felt like I was spinning my wheels for a while there. Now that I can make gallery quality prints right here, I am hoping to start selling more, perhaps on line. I'm ready to go now!!!

Please visit my other photoblog Capturethisphotography.com

This photo of the Bucknell Quad is a 2 page feature photo in the Summer 2008 issue of Bucknell Magazine.

Your comments are very much appreciated. I know the time and effort it takes to visit and leave comments and although I don't get to reply to them nearly as often as I like, please know that I do really appreciate them. You are what keeps me going. I make every effort to reply to questions but I may miss one or two and I apologize for that. If you really need me to get an answer to you quickly, the best way is to use the contact form on Am3.

As of July 2008 I have decided to post the same photos here as on Capturethisphotography.com but check the archives for photos not posted here.

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