"A picture is worth a thousand words."



That's me down there, mom!



Embryonic development. Life in the womb, as discribed by a simple flower.




I tickeled this little cutie and she became the giant Boa you see to your upper left. Sometimes you have to be careful who and how you tickle.

Hey, here comes the "Wise Guy."



"That's him, the tickler."
"Notice the wire to his ear? I think he is listening to a stock report, That could be why he appears to be in such a state of dismay."

I'm kind of new to all of this so please forgive me if I screw up every once in a while.

This is all about Alice

As I had told you, on page one, I love to work with flowers, but most of my pictures are in abstract as you may have gathered by the pictures above. It's this type of freedom that I enjoy the most. Yes I say freedom, because in abstract there really are no rules to follow. You are free to create your own world. I'm sure you know Lewis Carroll, he wrote "Alice in Wonderland", where he very artfully told a  crazy story that was in fact an abstract adventure.

Now I mention Mr. Carroll here because the other day I was working with a flower. It was a poor little thing, not really like any of its cousins there in the Dahlia patch.

You see she's not at all like her  puffy ball friends. I took a long hard look at her, trying to think what I could do.

First Copy it: Never work on the original. Then put the original back in the file, so you are not tempted to use by accident and discover that you have gone too far into the woods to get out, with the poor thing still in tact.

Now your free to proceed.

Step two, Crop: In this case I didn't.

Step three, Focus: I did, but not all the way, as you will soon see.

After this I can't be too helpful ,as you have to provide the basic image, and that doesn't take a great deal of talent. Also your software may be different than mine and what I do, you can't find on your software. So here's where freedom comes in. Try any and all of the effects your software provides, but at first only one thing at a time. Like it, yes or like it, no? ... keep notes all the while.

I must tell you that every effect you try will look different with different flowers and sometimes the very same flower, in fact as I have discovered that once I have a winner I can not apply that combination of effects to any other flower and expect to get the same results, but there have been times when it was better and  then of course sometimes not too good, but that's freedom for ya.

After a while you will get the feel of your effects and find that some work better on Roses and some better on Orchids. It will be like riding a two wheel bike, once you  learn, you never seem to forget, making the  long and painful learning process worth it in the end.

I mentioned Mr. Carroll and the cute little flower above, so now after I have made just six steps, this is what I got:

I titled this charming thing, "ello,...is Alice about"?

Nothing was added to this picture, like chairs, or doors, or walls, or carpet, not even chicken feet, despite the fact that it was done using Adobe Photoshop Elements Seven. It seems that this happy little group is doing a bit of the old 'soft shoe' dance. I'll be perfectly honest with you everything you see was quite by accident., and not contrived in the least bit.

The six members of the cast on the front line, two on the left, are singing their hearts out, while grumpy, with the mustache, has a cold and wants to go home. The merry making has left the fellow on the far right a bit sickly, but he'll recover, not to worry.

While these fellows were waiting at the door post, I put the flower back in the old computer and did the same steps again, after which I had to tell them the mood changing news:

 "Oh nooo...sniff..sniff...Alice.....Isn't home!"

Now if this isn't fun, I don't know what fun is. Thank you Alice, and thank you Mr. Carroll, where ever you are.

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