Canton Hot Air Balloon Classic Evening Ascension

Traffic around the Classic was a mess, so we parked near Rockne's at The Strip to watch the evening ascension. Not close enough for great photos, but we had a good time anyway. And because traffic was a mess when we left, we stopped at the bookstore, had a frozen mocha and browsed. Nothing went as planned, but we had a wonderful time anyway.

Camp Chuck, complete with video. Isn't technology great?

I think they were launching around 30 balloons. We didn't see them all, but what the heck, this is more balloons than I've ever seen in the air at one time.

The flamingo balloon was one of my favorites.

Love the colors on this one - it's for a winery.

Next year, we're getting to the field much earlier - hope we have as much fun!!

Brecksville Prairie, Part 2

The photos I submitted for the Photo Society critique:

Milkweed - love that the color of the leaf mid-rib echoes the color of the buds.

The place was buzzing with bees - this one is just waking up.

No idea what this bug is. Jim suggested arranging the bug so he followed the curve of the flower. Yup, touch the bug. Mmmm hmmm. I'll be doing that, with a twig or a piece of grass. Silly phobia, isn't it?

This swamp mallow and its companion bug did not make the cut for my critique submissions. The flower is a little battered and there was too much depth of field. Used Lightroom's masking brush to unsharpen the background, so the depth of field looks shallower.

Brecksville Prairie Shoot, 7/14/12

It's been a fairly awful week - so this is a therapeutic blog post, some pretty stuff to temporarily soften the bad stuff.
The Brecksville Prairie is about 4 acres of reclaimed grassland in the Brecksville Reservation. It looks like one of those spots you'd want to come back to frequently to see what's changed. Milkweed was just about done, but mallow and blackberries are coming in. The Park had planted a bed full of black-eyed Susan, bee balm, cardinal flower and purple coneflower. It was literally abuzz: bumble bees, honey bees, syrphid flies, all stuffed with bright packs of pollen.

A couple of shots, and more to come after Tuesday's CVPS critique.

Milkweed flower. Funny, I knew what it was, but to me, milkweeds are pods and potential natural Christmas tree ornaments.

So nice to see honey bees back.

Mystery flower. Note to self, shoot the plant tags.

Birdhouse just off the Prairie, surround by Ohio's State Pest, poison ivy.

Next week will bring some solace to one friend, progress to another, and another, well, she won't know peace for awhile, if ever.

Zoar Vignettes, the Video Version

Here's a link to the Zoar Village Vignettes video hosted on Vimeo. It's definitely an improvement over the embedded version in the previous post.

https://vimeo.com/45373788

My favorites:

Pretty place, definitely worth a visit.

Zoar Village Vignettes

A short slide show on Zoar Village - it'd be great to go back when it's cooler and in better light. Zoar is loaded with rustic vignettes and really old, beautiful buildings. Even with the temperature in the low 90's there were a few sturdy souls out taking the tour.

This is the second slide show I've made in Lightroom. The title and end slides were done in Photoshop Elements. I'm not quite sure what resolution to work with yet. Tried 300x 400-ish, and 1080P. The first pixilated and the second was too big to load. Blogger doesn't seem to having any guidelines for file size or format, at least that I could find after a cursory look.

The resolution on this looks pretty awful, even though it was saved at 720P. Any thoughts you might have on making it looking better would be appreciated. In the meantime, view small!