Memorial Weekend 2017

We had a wonderful night camping at Myre Big Island State Park.  Freeborn CountyMN.  This trip lead us to several one room schools.

Henry comes alive in the water.  Even with a sore leg...we carried him in a dog stroller, borrowed to us by Lily.  The water was calm and glass-like.  I noticed there were no motor boats on the lake which made it peaceful.

Yes, that's Henry...spent all his time in the stroller.   Being hurt is NOT as fun.

Blooming Prairie....notice the solar windmills

43°59'10.6"N 93°06'13.1"W

ASDFGHJKL;

Look what I left out all winter-long!  Curled up elm leaves rested the whole winter in the key cradle of this old Underwood typewriter.  I bought the old thing on a whim.  A bit rusty and as heavy as an anchor -we threw it in the back seat for $12 bucks.

Underwood sits back by the shed under the sweet smelling spring lilac bushes...

and a few yards away from  "Bleeding Hearts of love and hope and the beating of spring".

I am happy Spring is here again. 

*Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I found my inspiration!

An Apple - 27" iMac® with Retina 5K display - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive!
No more sore eyes for me staring at an old monitor that was slowly fading in from the corners.  Even though I consider myself a PC gal - I had no problem buying my first Mac.  Now for some awesomely edited images.

Elena

Recently I re-organized my photography equipment.  I have lost touch with much of it...and this makes me sad, although inspired to pick up my camera soon.  Thinking of this I felt the need to find some inspiration to get my motor running.  Elena Shumilova is a Russian Photographer who has such a unique niche...  Fine Art photography for sure. I have followed her on Flickr for several years and LOVE everything she posts.  

Example of style

Soft washed out color with spectacular backlighting and ring lighting.  Her subjects are perfectly posed in such an unposed way.  She usually has an animal in the picture with her subject.

She named this one Lapland

Wind on Surrey Hill

So I decided to see how close I could get to her style...using photoshop.

Now I don't have any animals to throw into this image but for a first try not to bad.

Ruby in Snow

Damn it where is a cute bunny when you need one!

Gorgeous One Room School

Tim and I found this one-room school in Pepin County, Wisconsin.  It was a random drive by.  With all of my internet searching I have never ran across this one.  It gives me great hope that there are still 100's out there for us to discover.  

This school highlighted sch under Porcupine.  This is a Plat map from 1913.