In the spirit (pun intended) of Halloween, this was just too good to pass up and not post!

This week’s challenge couldn’t have come at a better time!  When I looked to see what the next challenge was last Sunday, I couldn’t been happier to see it was Halloween because I was going to a Rascal Flatts concert Friday night and I was pretty sure the backup band would dress up like they did every year during a show.  I wasn’t disappointed!

This year they dressed up as Chewbaccas.

Scared, Jay?  That’s just….Jonathan? I think.  A great way to end the tour!

One of the most gorgeous sunrises this fall….  And a nice lenticular cloud over Mt. Hood.

More clouds…

An hour later.

The compound.

Della loves to soak up the sun after being up in the field all day, grazing.

Critters.  This three are the Three Stooges, they go practically everywhere together.

This reminds me of one of those clouds you would see somewhere really open, like a prairie.

This week’s assignment was fun and interesting one.  It’s amazing all the things you change and do to a picture!  I used a photo editing program called Photo Pos Pro, it’s free and pretty easy to use; I love it.

Super Sepia!  I did a custom sepia, which allows you to choose how much sepia is used, and changed the saturation a little bit.

Duotone.

Changed the saturation to heavy on the red.

Metalized.  This feature is really cool!

Embossed.

Metalized.  Again.

RGB -> BGR.  I like this effect!

Since I never did get around to answering my comments on the last Macro post, I’ll just answer the question on this one. 

“What the heck is that thing?” Well, it’s a Chinese Chestnut.  Very prickly, but the nut is very sweet, and well worth scraping the bitter skin off.  The sweetness of the nuts seems to vary tree to tree.  The cows and Nick love to munch on the leaves when they can reach them.

My new shoes!  The 2″ heel took a little getting used to…

I didn’t really have much time to take any pictures this week because I was buried a mountain of school work, but I did find some time to go through the archives.

I love country music with a passion.  While some may argue that the new country isn’t country anymore, I love my Johnny, Hank, and Waylon along with the newer artists.

(L to R:  Joe Don, Gary, and Jay)  My favorite band, Rascal Flatts.  This was back before we figured out how to take the date stamp off….  When you’re in the 300 level, the 12x zoom really makes a difference.

My all-time favorite singer, Keith Urban.  He puts on a truly amazing show!  Never seen anything like it.

Brad, Jerry, Keith, Chris, and Brian

Keith and his opening act, Little Big Town. (Jimi, Kimberly, Karen, and Phillip)

Absolutely no zoom at all!  We were in the 100 level, just off the floor and 11 rows back.  I though it was kind of cool that the shutter went off the same as the other camera and caught the flash.

I’m going to take a minute to brag about the camera…  I must say I was very impressed with the camera.  I only used the complete manual setting, where it lets you set the ISO, shutter speed and the aperature, and didn’t use the flash even once.  I was a little worried that all my pictures would be blurry because Keith moves around so much.  Even though I had semi good results with the automatic settings at the Rascal Flatts concert, I didn’t want to take a chance and have grainy photos.  I had the camera set on Landscape, the aperature set on 2.8, and the shutter speed ranged anywhere from 1/8 to 1/30 when there was more light.  Sure, there’s motion-blurred ones, but that’s to be expected.  This camera is a amazing!!  I must have gotten a really good battery because I took nine hundred plus pictures at the concert, and Mom and I had taken like thirty or so pictures earlier in day of canning or whatever and I was too lazy to load them before we left, and it never showed low battery once.  I kept waiting for it to come up and have to put a new battery in.  It even lasted the twenty some minutes it took to load the pictures on the computer and still go the rest of the day.  I wish all the batteries were like that!

Mom said on the way home that I would be too advanced for my digital photography class!  Which is probably true, it will still be fun.

A beautiful sunset will make almost anyone happy.

A sign of Fall is not always something you can take a photograph of, such as how suddenly your fingers are freezing in the morning when it was just 70F the day before, or the equal amounts of daylight and darkness.   You can take a picture of being able to see your breath, but it’s not exactly easy to time it just right.

Fall officially started last Tuesday, but this tree was already starting to turn for the last few weeks!

Gold!  The Chantrelle mushroom usually comes out in September and October, after some of the fall rains have come.  This year they’re a bit early, but not a moment too soon in our opinion!  They’re delicious!

Dogs posing for a quick picture.  They love getting to explore when we go mushroom picking.

Some of the Chantrelles all sauteed in butter.  Mmmm!

Brr! It’s freezing!  Some people I know would consider forty something to be summer…

This last picture is more about the color than the actual bird and that one actually landed twenty feet from me.  As you can see from the color of the cones on the fir trees in the background, the sun has a beautiful reddish tint that only seems to come when there’s smoke from a forest fire, or in fall sunrises.  It’s simply beautiful.  The bird is a Pileated Woodpecker (known to some as a Shaggy-headed Woodpecker.

This week’s challenge is anything that runs on fuel and seats at least two people, aka mechanical transportation.  Every vehicle that we have other than the new Chevy Colorado, is an Int, so it’s kind of going to be an Internation fest…

1974 International Harvester ¾ ton pickup.

The main truck, a 1975 ¾ ton pickup.  Random fact of the day #845:  ‘75 was the last year that International made pickups.

1948 International tandem axle flatbed.

Picking up a load of hay.

One of the semis loaded with stage equipment for Keith’s show in Portland on Friday night.  The concert was great!!!  I didn’t see the front of the truck, so I don’t know what it is.  Probably a Kenworth.