Alternate Reality in Mendocino, California

I recently took a week-long trip to visit friends and shoot photos in and around Mendocino.  I was trying to relearn how to shoot video with my Nikon camera.  Even with a tripod, the footage is shaky.  Once home, I combined the Nikon footage with Google Pixel cell phone footage and added other elements using Adobe Premiere Pro.  Then I added a soundtrack with some of my late mother's recorded music, syncing it up to the footage in Cubase 11.  It's frustrating.  A million files are opened and saved all over the computer taking hours to figure out what has gone where and why.  And all I ended up with is this short tidbit.  But, I kind of like it!

New Video! Falling Into Winter

The older I get, the more I appreciate autumn.  This video is a 2+ minute photo montage, with an original soundtrack featuring Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata theme (played and recorded by me using my Yamaha MX88), and some novel effects.  With over 80 images, the video is a celebration of a beautiful time of year, as photographed in and around Marin County over several seasons.   

This Beautiful World

View from Marin County of San Francisco Bay, including Angel Island, and in the distance, Mt. Diablo.  Shot walking the Dipsea trail from Muir Woods in Mill Valley to Stinson Beach.  Nice workout, lovely views.  More landscape pics taken during this hike at  Lucy Autrey Wilson (@lucyautreywilson) • Instagram photos and videos and some with people below

Marin County Drought - We're In for it Now!

 Top two photos taken April 2021; Bottom two taken August 2016.  Different angles, different lenses and a significantly different amount of water!  

Ode to California in 1963

Will California ever again be

The state I remember fond ely

From 1963?

Photo taken by E.A. Autrey in Santa Barbara, 1963.  Poem inspired by another day inside with my air filter running full blast because of the Red Flag warning, and the EPA PM2.5 (particulate matter) >150 (safe is under 50.)  But I'm one of the lucky ones; Santa Rosa PM2.5 is >250 and Cloverdale is >400.  If Covid doesn't destroy ones lungs, the bad air will.  

Some good links on air quality below:

https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/extremely-high-levels-of-pm25/

https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/mAQI/a10/cC0#8.2/38.785/-122.977

An Interview with the Author of Little Cloud

The children's book Little Cloud is now available in print and as an e-book on Amazon.com  First published as an e-book in 2014, and a print edition on Blurb, it has now been made available as a print edition on Amazon.  Here's more information about the book, in the form of an interview:

Interviewer:  What is the story behind the story of Little Cloud?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I wrote and illustrated Little Cloud in 2014, at the peak of California’s driest period since record-keeping began, between late 2011 and 2014.  I was wishing for more rain so thought a story about a rain cloud might be nice.

Interviewer:  Is there a reason your other main character is a blue jay named Jack?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Since I made the cloud feminine, I thought it would be good to make the bird male.  I have twin grandsons who were four years old at the time, the age target of my story, and by making one of the characters male I hoped to appeal to them.  Neither of the twins is named Jack, but that name seemed to fit. I was also inspired by my backyard blue jays.

Interviewer:  Can you tell the reader a little bit about your illustration process.  It looks like your illustrations were drawn using vector software, is that correct?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Yes.  I wanted to make both a digital and a print book.  The requirements for an e-book meant getting the file size as small as possible.  I needed to create the art using vector software, instead of raster images.   A raster image is artwork created in a non digital medium, then scanned in to the computer becoming a digital file made up of pixels.  When these raster images are enlarged, the image quality diminishes significantly and the file sizes are much bigger.  Vector artwork, on the other hand, is composed of mathematical lines and curves.  Not only does vector art take up a lot less digital space, it can be scaled to any size without losing quality. 

Interviewer:  How did you come up with your book title?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  The title Little Cloud just fit the story.  After I first published the e-book in 2014, I realized it was the same title as a book by Eric Carle, one of my favorite children’s book author/illustrators.  That was certainly not intentional.

Interviewer:  What source material did you use for your illustrations?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I am a photographer and am always looking for new ways to use the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years.  At the time I wrote Little Cloud, I was also travelling up to Seattle a couple times a year to visit my daughter’s family, including the aforementioned twins.  So the photo reference in the beginning of Little Cloud was shot in Washington State.  Where Little Cloud travels south to, is Marin County, California, where I live.

The tall mountains in my story are based on the Olympic mountains, as seen from the top of Mount Walker, in Washington State.  The tallest of the Olympic mountains is Mount Olympus at 7,965 ft.

The body of water Little Cloud and Jack fly over is Puget Sound, as seen from Seattle.

Small Mountain is based on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.  Although the biggest mountain around where I live, its peak is 2,572 ft.  much shorter than the Olympic mountains.

The various flower drawings are based on photographs taken at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg, California in 2013.

Interviewer:  What do you hope your readers take away from the book?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  First and foremost, I hope the reader is entertained.  Secondly, I hope the message of friendship, and the benefits of helping others, resonates.  And finally, I hope there is a little more awareness of the beautiful world we live in and a desire to help combat climate change to keep it that way.

California Sunshine Quilt

Finally finished my mega quilt!  80 individual photographs printed on fabric and woven into the quilt using an original plaid design.  Photos of my artist wooden models were used as templates for the four characters, which were then appliqued onto silk swatches using some cool Martha Negley designed fabric.  They looked a bit naked, even after adding the birds, so I later added bathing suits with a fabric I designed and printed.  The quilt is so big (74 1/4" h x 66 3/4" w) I had to do it in three sections then sew the sections together at the end.  What's going on in this quilt, you ask?  Well, I love California, I love the sun, I love taking photos in my neighborhood on sunny days, and I love birds. 

When Birds Insist on Getting in the Picture

Usually I Photoshop out extraneous birds that are blurred or only partially in the picture frame.  But sometimes I like the effect.  The reality is, these beautiful birds were out there flying around the beautiful rolling hills of Brazil Ranch, and over a ridge line of happy Angus cattle, this past weekend and deserve to be included.

The Magic of Digital Photo Editing

Lucky to have visited the Brazil Ranch in Tomales, while volunteering for MALT.  But I couldn't resist adding car exhaust, using GrutBrushes, and a jeep photographed in Salem, Oregon, to make an alternate version of the original photo.  The original says "calm, beauty of nature" while the modified version indicates "health hazards of too many vehicles on the road."

Beautiful Mt. Diablo in Vibrant Color

And a lot more photos from a recent outing now up @Shutterstock
photos https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Lucy+Autrey+Wilson

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

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!

Cymbidium in the Sun

Cymbidium in the sun, the day after Thanksgiving.  It's wonderful to live in California!

California Blue Jay Map Art

I've become very fond of the blue jays in my backyard.  The other day I set up my camera and took a series of photos of them at the bird feeder.  When I heard about a new contest at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts on "The Map as Art," I used one of my bird photos as a pattern and digitally repainted it with the bay area section of the map of California.  I wanted to try some map art since buying the book by Katharine Harmon on contemporary artists who explore cartography.  One of my favorite pieces in the book is a map collage titled "Swimming" by Brazilian artist Joao Machado.