October 1, 2008

Fall in SoCal

Though many joke that SoCal has no seasons, I beg to differ. Fall here has a very distinct flavor.

Fall here is hot. It's dry. It's often windy (fire season starts here when the Santa Ana winds blow in from across the Mohave desert and the sickos come out to play with their matches). The nights are a bit cooler. And the land everywhere is brown. A tropical oasis Southern California is not. But it has a beauty of its own, nonetheless.

Fall 20081

And because I'm a dork who sometimes can't make a decision, here's another collage of the exact same pictures.

Fall 20081


addendum: I make these collages using Fotofusion which can be downloaded from Lumapix.com. The company generously lets you use/demo the entirety of their software (they even provide tutorial videos). Anything you create while demo-ing the product will contain Lumapix's watermark.

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15 comments:

Heather said...

Susan, I just love your collages (and, of course, the photos you put in them!)... how do you do that??

Happy WW!

Skeller said...

Heather -
I just added that info to the post. I use Fotofusion to create collages. SO MUCH EASIER than Photoshop.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!!!

fxmixer said...

Preach it sister! We got any color you want around here, as long as it's brown. There is still beauty to be found, though, as you have shown.

Meliss said...

I like the second one best. Beautiful pictures, especially the firefly!

I Love Purple More Than You said...

You are right about SoCal having a flavor all its own. I love that collage!

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Is that a dragon fly? How very cool. We started to actually get some semblance of fall today. Highs were only in the upper 70's. Which is a huge change from our 90s.

Teri said...

Ooooh, love the pix! How do you get the collages to be so big for your blog? Mine don't appear so large. Okay, I'm sure I'm not doing something right. That is usually the issue. :-)

Skeller said...

Thanks, All!

Kat - yes. I'd never seen a red one before. And this one was quite large.

Teri -
I export all my pics from Lightroom to Flickr and then grab & paste the code into my blog. In LR I set the exact dimensions to export (so, in this case, I think, 750 pixels by 750 pixels).

Anonymous said...

Very cool, Susan! I'll have to go check out that site.
And oh... that red insect is pretty frightening! A bit nightmarish, I'd say. Are they very common where you live? Ikes!

Aunt Tea said...

ahh. i was in co cal last october even a bit in laguna. (biggest wind ever) thought we might come this year too, but so far...no. *sniff*

the again, the color should be bursting out around here any moment.

Beth@Pages of Our Life said...

Thanks for the scoop on the collages...I was just about to ask. Hee Hee

BTW, I took some cool pictures today of a momma spider covered with her babies...your boys may enjoy the peek!

http://pagesofourlife.blogspot.com/2008/10/warning-dont-read-if-your-scared-of.html

Rhea said...

Your gorgeous pictures could convince me of anything. Want to run for president? I'll vote for you if you show me your beautiful photos. It's that simple.

tearese said...

I like the second one best. Love the dragonfly!

Piggy said...

I don't call it being a dork. I call it perfectionism and can totally relate. I love the font and how the text is laid on the photo in the first collage, but you probably had to use the dragonfly photo twice to balance the layout. In the second collage, you have one of each photo, but the font is plain. Still doesn't take away from the beauty of your photgraphy and the presentation. :)