Photography by Lisa Van Alstyne

All blogging will now be in one place ~>  Leicca

Berkshire Memories Photography blog is closing down.

With a move to Arizona in our future I am going to drop the Berkshire Memories Photography. I purchased the domain of Lisa Van Alstyne a couple months ago for this possibility. Although at the time it was meant more for the possibility of just using it for the personal portraiture, not my photography business as a whole.I think with a few years of build-able memory it will be better for me to make the switch now.
It is going to be hard to remember I am sure.

adieu
afscheid
Abschied
αντίο
adeus
прощание
adiós
Berkshire Memories...

Salutations
Photography by Lisa Van Alstyne

Thanksgiving really was about giving thanks, after 3 years of not seeing family it was great to see everyone. My little brother even missed me! I have only edited the pics from the kids though and we did not get out that much while on our visit, but I did take some pics of my old home town that I will edit soon and post up here. Til then, meet my nephews and nieces :)

So yesterday after reading Fallon's blog I decided to look up what this Orton Effect was that she was trying out. I like it! It gives a nice ethereal touch to images. I find it looks best with foliage though. Structures are just kind of meh...

So the creative juices were flowing yesterday and I came up with these images.

I love how you can almost see a glow, the shadows have depth, the green seems softer, it almost has a 3d feel to it.

Then I decided to see how it worked on a picture that was a bit blurry to begin with.

This pic was from the Big E ag fair out of Springfield Mass. It was twilight and I didn't feel like carrying my tripod around all day as well as my huge backpack and ended up being pretty disappointed come evening. I really wanted to get some good carnival pics but because of the light everything came out blurry. I thought maybe the Orton technique would make the image a bit more palatable and in this instance it did. I also layered a texture as well as cross processed the image. I like it all in all, it's got a bit of '70s feel to it :)

Then there is the psychadelic sunflower. It's def not my style, but I kinda like how it turned out. A bit funky, very different and kinda standoutish if you know what I mean :D

This also has a Lomo effect as well as a toned down Holga and a vignetting. I cross processed the image to make it appear washed out which really brought the sky out. I might redo this one to bring the sunflower centers out a bit, they are a bit flat here. I want to try to give them a bit of texture.

So that was what I did with my day yesterday. :)

Actions, plug ins, brushes OH MY!

I am having fun editing again. I decided to mess around with cross processing, holga actions and lomo actions as well as gosh... anything that trips my trigger atm!

Here are the latest manipulations. They hardly even look like the originals now! Maybe one of these days I will settle on a style right? :D

Waaaay to much editing on the train. Never though I would say that hehe

A little more down to earth but meh, still not the look I was shooting for... lol get it... shooting for... meh, photographers humor :P

So I am slacking big time with editing what photos I have, as well as taking new ones.

I got a new program last night to play around with. I am in love with it! They have a 30 day trial if your interested in giving it a try.

So, since I am feeling so blah, I don't have anything to say sadly. I will just leave you with the pictures I played with last night and hope that I feel more on top of things soon.

As in like not flurries, but accumulation! It is not even November 1st yet lol. Hmmm has hell frozen over as well? *grins* Well anyways, I had to of course share this with everyone so you could all get chills looking at it and realizing in just a short while you will be knee deep in it as well. Well unless your like Tictac and hide in the deep south! :D

So I am not sure what happened, but I had some major lag earlier and lost 2 of my posts, so sorry to those on my friends list who see I have updated numerous times today. I was able to recover them from a backup.

It is fixed and as my offering of peace to you, I offer you flickr fiends this little treat.
Fun with colors!

Have fun with it!

So a couple weeks ago the hubby and I got out for a rare weekend drive and found ourselves at 5 corners up in North County. So we got out and explored the store where I found my all time favorite apples! Honeycrisps, if you can get your hands on them give them a try, trust me you will dream about them til next September also! I pretty much covered the entirety of the Berkshires, as well as the Capital Region and lower Vermont looking for these babies. We were just thinking of ordering some tree's to plant in the yard, which I probably am going to do anyways lol.

So anyways, I digress, the beauty there... was awesome. There was a covered wagon taking people for rides up to the mountain ridge and cows off to the left, and above and behind us were acres and acres of cornfields and apple trees. Far as the eye could see... The country girl in me squealed with delight!

Here are a few of the pics from that ride, I will post more later.

It's alive and fed on my whole weekend, and for those of you on my Leicca friends list, this will be a double post lol.

The site is finally up! It took me a couple years to finally... finally! Find a gallery that I like, this has been an ongoing search ever since I built our family site a few years ago. That site is also going to take up tons of time now to get it up and active. But for those of you interested... voila, here it is!

Berkshire Memories Photography in it's infancy

So after the abfab pics I got from Woods pond last week, I of course had to go back. At dawn...

"When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?"
~Ralph Marston

I have not been an early riser for the past few years, how could I when I sit up reading about photography, or editing photo's or watching video tutorials on photography til the wee hours of night *smirk*. But I just had to see Woods Pond at dawn. I got my son off to school early and had my gear in the backseat as I drove there. Fearing the whole time that the sun was going to crest the mountain before I got there! Ahh but old Sol did not win that day. I got to the sweet spot I found last week, got my gear out, my tripod in place and waited... and waited... and waited... my feet turned numb, my breath turn my hair to frosty spider webs. The fish were jumping all over, but it was still too dark. The ducks were calling, birds I had never heard were cooing and cawing. And still I waited.

I had no idea that the mountain blocked the sun for THAT long! Granted I was right at the base of it! Finally I noticed the fog that made everything invisible most of the time I was there was beginning to thin and there... just over the mountain I saw a ray!