Ten Favorite Photos of 2015

My New Year's resolution is to improve my photography in 2016.
Past favorites from 2015 top to bottom:
1.  My neighborhood, November
2.  Photographing blur, September
3.  The Golden Gate Bridge during my first photography workshop, August
4.  A composite of shots taken in my backyard during the eclipse of the moon, September
5.  Portrait of Wilson Taylor in Seattle, December
6.  Portrait of Cole Taylor in Seattle, December
7. Inverness at dusk, during my 2nd photography workshop, September
8.  A neighborhood tree, November
9.  A neighborhood oak tree with dry hills, November
10. South Beach, newly edited RAW file now that I have Photoshop CC, April

Multiple Exposure

With 1965 photo, cold wax painting and photographs of 2015 Christmas cactus apples and Pyracantha berries

Memories - Of The Way We Used To Be

Winter gives one plenty of time to reflect on the past.  I used to wish I could lay down in a field and have everyone I was ever friends with walk by and say hello.  Since that wasn't possible, in 2009 I made a "It's a Party" video to digitally gather folks together, including those already passed, to the extent I had photos of them.  The photos from that video make a great background collage!  This year I celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary, thanks to the fact Sam and I have been living separately for nearly half of the 40 years we've been married.  Going through my father's old negatives today, I came across this old 1976 photo of a much younger Sam and me.  It looked like it was just waiting for a background of memories.

I Think I Look A Lot Like My Mother

Based on this portrait of me (top) by 6-yr-old Wilson Taylor, painted this December, as compared to the portrait he did of my mother (bottom) done on Thanksgiving last year.

Holiday Snaps

Rather than put up a Christmas tree, I spent the day taking photos of some of my vintage ornaments.
Top to bottom:
1.  My replica Tucker car, given out in 1988, on release of the Lucas/Coppola movie "Tucker: The Man and His Dream."  Great movie, great Joe Jackson soundtrack album.  I shot this holiday vignette on top of my dusty piano.
2.  Antique, chipping off paint, ornaments, I probably bought at a garage sale.  The backdrop is an unfinished painting.
3.  Nearly every year of my career at Lucasfilm, I was gifted unique ornaments at Christmas.  This wooden angel is one of them.  For some reason, he is carrying a watering can.
4.  I've been a major Mad Magazine fan since I could first read and have always loved this Alfred E. Newman ornament.  It wasn't until after I took the photo, I remembered Alfred somehow lost one of his hands a few years ago.  If you look closely, the ornament looks strangely like ex President Reagan.
5.  More antique ornaments against a fabric backdrop.  The piles of fabric I have oozing out of every corner of the house are crying out to be made into something.

Star Wars - I Feel Lucky

Sadly, I'm going to miss my invitational screening tonight to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens due to a bad cold.  But I feel lucky I was around when the original Star Wars movie was released in May, 1977, and even luckier that I got to work on it.  In fact, I feel really lucky to have been born when I was in a period of time in history which experienced an explosion of heightened creativity in cinema, music, and the arts in general.  I'm glad the little movie I typed the script for has continued to impact generation after generation in a good way.  That impact has certainly been more profound than that of any of the scientific papers I typed for an old boss at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, a job I had before joining Lucasfilm in 1974.  I actually wish scientific papers did have some of the same importance as movies and social media personalities do today.  We would be a better nation for it. I admired George Lucas for being able to take serious topics and distill them in a way that made them understandable.  So, watching a George Lucas Star Wars movie meant you weren't just being entertained, you were actually learning something, even if you were unaware of it.  That made working in the Star Wars universe constantly interesting for me over the course of my 35 1/2 year career at Lucasfilm.  Knowing that I was doing something that wasn't just entertainment, or money making, but was actually educational was a plus.  I'm not too sad I'm missing the new movie, since I can't help but feel how really lucky I was to have been there at the beginning!

Funky Shoe Font Put to Good Use!

Recently, Zsuzsi Mcdonald, an elementary teacher in Livonia, Michigan who works at a Leader in Me school with students who do community service projects, contacted me to see if her students could use my Funky Shoe Font (posted on my blog last year http://autreyart.blogspot.com/2014/12/new-funky-shoes-font-alphabets.html#links)  for one of their projects.  Of course, I said yes.  I love it when my art is used for educational purposes. 

Here are the details of Zsuzsi's request:  "A group of 30 students collected gently used shoes during the months of October and November. The shoes were sent to Funds2Orgs, they ship the shoes to developing countries, where they repair and sell the shoes.  Monies from Funds2Orgs are donated to the local Kiwanis of Livonia, who will donate 50% of what they raise to Child Life Services at four Michigan children’s hospitals and 50% to the Eliminate Project, a joint project between Kiwanis International and UNICEF to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus worldwide."

Once I sent my font to her, Zsuzsi sent me the above photo showing a picture of the students with one load of shoes ready to go.  She said their leaders will be using my font for their title for their Youth Making A Difference board.  I'm thrilled!

Fireplace Selfie

Added Photoshop CC to my laptop, so now I can play with it nearly everywhere.  This might not be a good thing if I want to get anything else done.

So Many Photo Options. Which Would You Choose?

Photography used to be a lot simpler.  You had to worry about what ASA film to buy, whether B&W or color, slide or print, and a few other things when shooting the picture.  Usually a lab took it from there.  Now there are an explosion of options from what you select on your DSL camera, when taking the picture, to a thousand things you can do in post production.  Above is one picture as shot (top), slightly manipulated in Lightroom (middle photo) and more manipulated in Photoshop (bottom).   But which one is best?

Mt. Tamalpais Ridge Top at Dusk

What a beautiful spot we live in!

Lucy With Lantana Flowers

Throw back Monday with flowers!  New photo composite of fallen lantana flowers in my backyard with a high school photo taken of me by my father, the late, great, E.A. Autrey, around 1966.

Relative Sightings

Top to Bottom, Elsa, Gregory, Jean L. Autrey (age 96), Rachel

Lucy's Photos Now Available on Shutterstock

One of seven photos now available on Shutterstock.com.  My portfolio address there is http://shutterstock.com/g/Lucy+Autrey+Wilson

Photo was taken at the gardens of the Jardines de San Juan restaurant in beautiful San Juan Bautista, California.

Nicasio, CA Panoramics October, 2015

Top two:  Town of Nicasio, church and view of town in front of the church
Bottom two:  Skywalker Ranch Main House short and long views

Lucy in 1977 Meets Abbott's Lagoon in 2015

Trying to improve my photograph person-extracting capabilities in Photoshop CS5, meant  I spent way more time playing on the computer, when I intended to do something altogether different today.  Fun, though.

India Polka Dot Batik Quilt

Latest quilt, my largest yet!  Queen size, with DreamWool brand merino wool batting, and hand tied with red cotton embroidery thread (also from India). I fell in love with the polka dot material on a fiber arts tour of India in January, 2015.  Visiting batik artist Shakil Ahmed Q. Khatri, near the area of Mundra-Kutch, in the state of Gujarat, was a surprise treat. He had so many beautiful batiks, I wanted to buy them all.  One pink/red batik fabric, quilted with pink silk/satin, has already gotten away, sold to jeweler/friend Gemma Rose at cost, without my photographing it first.  This polka dot design was unusual. It was hanging outside the artist's house, drying, when I spotted it.  It took awhile to find another batik (the turtle fabric backing) to match sufficiently.  The polka dot fabric was so beautiful on its own, I didn't want to cut it up to much, so merely cut what I had in half, sewed that together and (after months of work) voila.

More info on the artist can be found here:  http://www.kala-raksha-vidhyalaya.org/2009/men/eportfolios_shakil_ahmed_kasambhai_khatri.php

Suburban Blood Moon

Painting Gift Bags for Owsley Benefit

A sampling of some of the gift bags I painted yesterday with friend Marcia Meyers.  Photographed with my mobile phone so pictures are not that sharp.  Marcia is coordinating a big bag painting project for the Owsley Stanley Foundation benefit this coming November 7th at the Great American Music Hall in SF.  More info here:  http://www.owsleystanleyfoundation.org/

Playing Around with Textures

Twins Cole and Wilson Taylor, shot with my Canon Powershot G14 in Seattle, in July of this year, below. The end result, above, was modified using various photo texture layers in both Photoshop CS5 and alien skin exposure 7 software.  An enjoyable way to spend hours I was supposed to be spending doing something else!

Addicted to Panoramic Photos

My backyard, with a sculpture of E.A. Autrey's head, which is in the perfect spot to watch the full moon eclipse this coming Sunday night.  First test use of my new Acratech nodal rail.  So much fun!

The Five Autrey Daughters in Santa Barbara - Best in Blue or Yellow?

Cleaning Up Old 1974 scanned B&W 4x5 Negatives shot by E.A. Autrey in the park across from our house on Merida drive.  These oversized negatives are pretty degraded so there wasn't much that could be done with them.
Top photo adjustments:  Photoshop CS5 levels, Alien Skin AGRA APX 25 and Copper Blue Finish filters with some masking.  After and before adjustments.
Bottom photo:  Photoshop CS5 levels, Alien Skin B&W split toning and FSA Red Bleach with some masking