This beautiful feathered friend led me a merry chase all over my backyard the other day. I had apparently interrupted something that he was doing, because he chewed me out royally and flew from tree to tree to taunt me as I pattered after him with my camera.
I shot endless rolls of what used to be E-6 Ektachrome 200 slide film, but now – gloriously – all those shots are on a tiny postage stamp-sized “card”, and the unsatisfactory ones can be disposed of in a flash.
But the picture itself reminded me of the rich colors of the flowers and other plants that I used to stalk with my Canon F-1 loaded with Kodachrome 25. I lived in Florida then, and the flora was very vibrant compared to what I find in the deserts around my house in Arizona. The Kodachrome brought the yellow roses that I favored to life in a way that I see now only in high quality photographs from other artists who still cling to film.
Has anyone tried giclée printing at home? Art.com is offering it as a service for one’s own photos. I am tempted.
Adventures of Dorrie Anne 
Whoa, all the chasing was worth it. Excellent shot…got the beak and back nicely profiled. Well done!
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He finally took pity on me. This was the last shot I took. He plumb wore me out!
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I’ve just been visiting LOL Cats so I feel compelled to write captions . This one says, “The caped crusader tries out a red mohawk haircut.”
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Cute! My favorite recent LOL is the little Samoyed-type dog” “booping” the cat on the head, and then bouncing into the air with LOL in his thought balloon.
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It’s a keeper, Judie!
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Haven’t heard or seen him since. Guess he flew to a less populated place.
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judi, that bird is beautiful!!!! I just bought some seed out at Ramsey Canyon Feed I intend to mix it with the more expensive seed I bought the other day but I don’t want to lose a Cardinal that has been around and other birds that are attracted to it. I lost a whole flock of little finches last spring during a storm ! 31 liitle dead birds in my yard! Talk to you soon.
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So sad about the finches. One finch sock full of thistles, and you will have a passel of “pig finches”.
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by he way you take beautiful pictures!!
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Thank you ! ;-> My goal with these pictures is to pass along the happiness that I feel when I take these pictures, as well as the pleasure it is to resurrect the older ones and remember the good times when they were taken. I’m glad you are enjoying them. That makes me happy!
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Giclée is just a fancy name for ink jet printing. If you have an ink jet printer, your prints are “giclée” prints. Quality will certainly vary based on equipment, ink, and paper, but don’t be lulled into thinking there is anything special about giclée prints!
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Right – I think giclée means something like “spray”. I read up on it a few years ago, but have forgotten the details. Maybe the ink jets are super tiny, thus more DPI?? I’ll have to do more homework on the topic.
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Bev beat me to it. Yes, “Giclée” is a word put into use some years back by art galleries as a way to make their digital prints sound fancy. It’s in the same category of euphemisms as “faux” (= fake) and “resin” (= plastic). “Yes sir, this gallery-quality resin sculpture on a genuine faux marble base is a steal at only $799.”
Now, it’s true that some inkjet printers are better than others. A print from a $15,000 Iris printer is likely to look better than one from a $39.95 Lexmark printer. But the truth is, almost any modern “photo printer” (meaning one with more than four ink colors) from Canon or Epson, if used with high-quality paper such as Epson’s Matte Heavyweight, can produce results that are indistinguishable from hundred-dollar “giclée” prints.
Unless you need poster-sized output, you can get lovely prints from an 8″ x 10″ or 13″ x 19″ photo printer selling for well under two hundred bucks. (E.g., Canon’s large-format Pixma iX6520 sells for $130.) I used to do this before I became a full-time RVer, and the technology has only improved since then.
In fact, nowadays most so-called giclée prints are made on wide-carriage Epson or Canon printers. The high-priced Iris printers lost that market some years back, although their new owner, Scitex, is still trying to coast on Iris’s reputation. Deja vu… Scitex is the company that dominated the photo-retouching market in the 80s, selling incredibly expensive dedicated “imaging workstations”… until Adobe’s Photoshop, running on off-the-shelf Macs, took it away from them. But they don’t seem to have learned from the experience. 😉
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