I love Sunday nights. That’s when I come home from a long day, kick off my YakTrax and boots, and open up an email from Babs Young. Tonight she wrote: This was not taken today, but was taken this winter. It was rather warm today and we lost a lot of snow, but more is promised soon. I like white.
Makes you want to stand up and sing America the Beautiful, doesn’t it? I love that combination of colors. I once confided in a friend that I wanted just that combination, plus a dash of green, as the color scheme for my dream house. She looked thoughtful and said, “That’s too many colors, Gerry.” In retrospect, I’m pretty sure she was wrong. Imagine, if you will, a green polar bear sauntering through that scene. Perfect. Well, maybe you have to be me.
(Babs says this is her submission in Scott Thomas’s White challenge. So many blogly duties.)
Every week photographer Babs Young captures moments in northern Michigan, and every week she sends one to Torch Lake Views just for you. You can find more of her photos at the Babs Young Photo Archives and on her Blue Heaven Flickr photostream.
Torch Lake Views 
Cindy Lou
January 25, 2010
Absolutely my favorite from Babs so far….does she sell them on her website? I love the colors and can just see that cute little green bear poking his head above the snow! 🙂
Gerry
January 25, 2010
Funny you should ask that. I’ve been exploring ways to be able to sell prints of photos, reprints of posts, books by local authors and artwork by local artists. It’s a work in progress, but if you are interested in a reprint of this Babs Young Photo, let me know what you would like via the “Contact” and we’ll figure it all out. One day soon I hope to have a nice system in place with a little badge over on the right leading you to what Terry Wooten at Stone Circle calls The Gauntlet of Shameless Commercialism. If I get really ambitious I might have to start selling coffee mugs with pictures of Miss Sadie and the Cowboy on them. Or wait, wait — I could patent the linked leashes arrangement and sell that!
morningjoy
January 25, 2010
Bab’s photo is stunning, but I enjoyed your sunrise photos, too. Torch Lake has to be one of the loveliest places in Michigan. I grew up near Lansing and we always enjoyed trips to your part of the state. Surveying your site makes me miss them all the more.
Gerry
January 25, 2010
Thank you Karen. It is, truly, quite beautiful up here. One of the pleasures of the internet is seeing how beautiful the rest of the world is, too. Your posts from Florida show us why our snowbirds travel there every winter. Well, that and the snowpiles outside our windows, but we won’t discuss those just now.
Kathy
January 26, 2010
What a neat combination of colors! Do you think they were au natural? Like was the sky really that purple in that moment? And the greens…I don’t mean to sound suspicious…I am just wondering technically if that’s how the photo came out of the camera or if Babs used some Picassa wizardry. Because if she did, I really want to learn!
Gerry
January 26, 2010
I’ll leave it to Babs to say what she did with Photoshop, but yes, the sky and the lakes can look just like that. The Old Mission and Leelanau Peninsulas make up part of the purple, and the Bay shades from deepest violet and blue through turquoise and back again on a regular basis. (Now watch – Babs will say it was a grey sort of day so she decked it out in colors . . . then she’ll say it wasn’t even the Bay but Elk Lake . . . then I’ll have to go on vacation for awhile until the laughter dies down.)
Babs Young
January 26, 2010
I will chime in here. I always take these little beauties into Photoshop. I don’t use Picassa. This happened to be a time when it was mostly cloudy, but the sun was peeking through now and again. I was lucky to capture the grass and snow when the sun was out, thus the nice color on the the grass and snow. The sun was not shining on the water and background. Yes I usually do boost the color in all areas a bit. But I could argue that the camera tones down the color that I see and I bring it back to what I think I saw. Or I could argue that this is my image and I’ll make it any color I want. Just as a painter would do. I don’t subscribe to the notion that I must just show what camera supposedly saw. I made all the decisions about what to capture, what aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. thus I can make all the decisions in post processing too. I hope that explains it for you.
Gerry
January 26, 2010
Personally, I’m just along for the ride. I remember having a . . . discussion . . . with Rob the Firefighter. I said, “They’ve painted Mariners Church black!” He said, “No, Mom, it’s in shadow.” I just couldn’t see it that way at all. He was right, of course, but it was a memorable lesson in the shifting nature of perception. Elizabeth Lurie sees every color of the rainbow in a white glaze that to me looks, well, white. And Babs sees a Technicolor world wherever she looks. And cameras, of course, don’t see at all. Then there’s the whole issue of how different these digital images look on different monitors, but we’re definitely not going there tonight.
Preston Surface
January 26, 2010
What a beautiful photo Babs has provided. I do enjoy the colors so much.
I knew a lady once who knew a lady named Babs, and now I know another lady who knows a lady named Babs. Just thought I would share this.
Kathy
January 26, 2010
Thank you, Babs! I’m not attached to posting a picture the way the camera says it must be, either. Except I don’t know enough about how to alter the images yet either. Thank you for sharing. You are a wonderful photographer. Wish I could sit next to you as you work in Photoshop and see what you do.
Babs Young
January 27, 2010
Photoshop is a wonder to behold. You can spend most of your life learning it. I am far from fully conversant in Photoshop. I’ve taken a couple of courses at the Community College in Traverse City and workshops here and there. For me it makes photography worth doing. I like taking the actual photo but that’s only half the fun, the photoshop part is the other half. It’s costly, but if you take a class you can buy an academic version for much less. It’s addictive and you have to use it a lot to keep up the skills.
Gerry
January 27, 2010
Ohboyohboy, just what I need, another piece of addictive–and expensive–software to go along with my addiction to tracking down my Civil War veterans. In fact, I can see how it would come in handy to restore those blurry old photos. You see how it works? One step on that slippery slope and YEEeeee . . . . . . . .
Kathy
January 27, 2010
I’m echoing Gerry…it’s addictive and expensive? Yikes!! Maybe I should stay with Picassa for a little longer…at least REMEMBER to use it.
Gerry
January 27, 2010
Wait, wait, you misunderstand me. I like that about it . . .
flandrumhill
January 30, 2010
I’m trying to figure out the color of the snow shadows in the foreground. Lavender perhaps? It all looks so good.
Scott Thomas Photography
February 4, 2010
Catching the light like this is something I try to do whenever I see it. Makes the foreground pop and brings a persons attention right to it.
Not sure if you planned this or not but the colors are very complimentary.
I use Aperture 2 right now. Waiting for Apple to bring out version 3. However, I am getting a bit impatient and may switch over to Adobe’s Lightroom since it gets updated and Adobe’s business is about about digital imaging. Photoshop is a bit out of my budget for now.
Gerry
February 4, 2010
Believe me, colors are always planned by Babs. But she really, really likes white.