I was strolling through a garden in Newport Beach, California, accompanied by my favorite new lens for my Nikon D810 — a Micro-Nikkor 200mm. And oh, how I love this lens. It is my new first choice for photography. It's what the pros call "good glass." That means that when you capture images with good exposure and focus, you will get beautiful clear images. To me, it seems like an old school kind of lens, and I just love the feel of it. But, it has been quite a steep learning curve in using it, and I have found that the best images come with the use of a tripod rather than handheld.
Thus, I have entered into a new and exciting adventure of photography with my Micro-Nikkor 200mm lens as it affords amazing selective focus as I zoom in close to capture images of flowers and leaves. My mentors for macro photography — Bill Fortney, Kathleen Clemons, and Harold Davis — all use a long telephoto macro lens like the Micro-Nikkor 200mm. So I have been very excited while learning how to use this amazing lens and delve into macro photography.
So there I was in this special garden that I absolutely love in Newport Beach, California, and I couldn't wait to capture images with this new lens. It was as though I was lost in another world for about three hours, capturing many view of flowers, leaves, and exotic plants. One such plant stood out to me. The leaves seemed to glimmer like gold in the sun. So I focused in on one group of leaves, and allowed all the others to go out of focus into a beautiful bokeh background.
Of course, after every photo shoot cometh post-processing. So when I looked at this image of leaves in Photoshop, I immediately knew I wanted to do something special in photo artistry, highlighting the idea of "focus." Spiritually, I have learned that focus is so important, and that we need to look at what is eternal, not what is temporal. So I knew at once that 2 Corinthians 4:18 would be the verse for this image, and "focus" would be the word.
But further, I wanted to bring out the innate beauty of this image, and have it shine through as it did for me when I walked through the garden. First, I used Topaz Adjust to give it some contrast. Then, I took it into RadLab Software, and used one of the presets that I've created entitled "An Ethereal Tree." What this did was change the colors and highlights, giving an antique vintage feel, yet maintaining the light and exposure from the sun. Then I applied a Topaz Impression painterly filter, reduced the opacity, then masked in all the leaves that were tack sharp so that they would not have any of the painted texture. Finally, I put two different vignettes in place — one with Nik Color Efex in a dark green, and the other with On1 Software.
Now, it was time for the text. As usual, I put the words in the modern Helvetica Neue. Somehow, the word focus just didn't draw my attention. So I decided to do something else that took me an extra thirty minutes. I made the F in "focus" more artistic — why would I do that? I don't know. Sometimes, it just comes into your head to do something different. That's the artist in me. So I found a sweeping font I loved for the "F" and voila, a photo artistry image!
So it is my prayer that when you need to know what to look at in life, you will be reminded by this photo artistry image to "focus" on the eternal and invisible truths found in God's Word.
Lord, help us focus on You and the eternal and invisible truths found in Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Blessings ♡ Grace
