Tag Archives: Wallpaper

June Calendar – Abstract from the Beach

Evening on the Beach, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Evening on the Beach, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Kathy & I spent the week leading up to Memorial Day at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  HHI is our “go-to” beach for a nice, relaxing vacation.

As I had hoped to do, I bribed Kathy with good food and some wine from home to convince her to eat in a couple of evenings so we could enjoy – and I could photograph – the beach at sunset.  She’s such a good sport! 😉

Capturing the water in the evening light often results in images like these that just ooze peace and quiet.  I had a little extra incentive to come up with some good images this time, as we have a few walls in our new place that need some art.  I even made a few verticals with that specifically in mind, but those will need to wait for a blog post since not too many people I know use their monitors in the vertical position.  Although it might make a nice phone or tablet wallpaper.  Hmmmm…. 🙂

I was a little slack with my posting and processing the last few weeks, but I have a lot of new photos to process and a number of them that I am looking forward to sharing!

It May Be May

Flat Rock, Morning
Flat Rock, Morning

This month’s wallpaper continues the abstract theme.  I don’t have many landscape motion abstracts, and the ones I do have tend to be vertical images.  Those would make good tablet or phone wallpaper but not so much on the computer screen.  I do have a lot of moving water abstracts that I really like, primarily because I spend a lot more time shooting water at the beach than shooting mountains.  Plus, making good motion landscapes is hard!  It seems that I have a lot more luck getting water abstracts that I like.  But no matter.

This image is titled Flat Rock, Morning, was one of my first print sales a few years ago and continues to be one of my most popular photographs.  So out of the archives it comes to live for a month on your desktop if you so choose!

Kathy & I will be headed to the beach later this month, so don’t be surprised to see some more moving water photos in June!

No Fooling, It’s April!

Sunrise on the beach, Hilton Head Island South Carolina
Sunrise on the beach, Hilton Head Island South Carolina

Keeping with the theme of abstracts, here is another take on one of my favorite “beach blur” photographs.  Captured by panning the camera at a slow shutter speed, I’ve always loved how the motion tends to simplify a scene.  It’s tough to get right, and a lot of experimentation is required.  One of the benefits of digital cameras is the ability to try stuff like this until we (hopefully) figure it out!

March 2014 Wallpaper

Tree and brick wall, Charleston, South Carolina
Tree and brick wall, Charleston, South Carolina

I’m going to try something a little different starting with this month’s calendar.  For the last year or so I’ve been mostly dredging up old landscape photos mixed in with a few more recent shots.  I’ve recently started to realize how much my photographic emphasis has changed over the last few years, and I find myself photographing a lot less nature and a lot more of what I call “found scenes.”  Sometimes they are scenes I find in nature, but often they are scenes I come across just walking down the street in some town I happen to be visiting.

These photos won’t necessarily be the iconic “hero shots” that I have been posting as wallpaper, but I feel like I need to be true to my own sense of what it is I happen to be seeing and shooting.  And that changes, necessarily I think, over time as I learn and grow.  Some readers may enjoy this work and others may not.  For those who like it, please say so and thanks.  For those who don’t, please feel free to let me know!

I may also add in a few abstract photos that I’ve come to enjoy.  Those also make nice wallpaper, although they may be a little different from what I’ve posted here in the past.

This particular photo was taken in Charleston, South Carolina, last winter.  For me it represents the change from winter to spring – winter from the bare branches on the trees, but spring through the green on the bricks in the background, set against a whitewashed wall that hints of color but also could be seen as representing snow.  Not in Charleston probably, but certainly in many parts of this country, even in March.

I hope everyone enjoys this little change of pace and I hope everyone has a nice March!

Welcome to February!

Abandoned house along SR 264 near Englehard, North Carolina
Abandoned house along SR 264 near Englehard, North Carolina

I mentioned that we had a new house, right? 🙂

I received a number of favorable comments on a similar photo I posted last week and I thought it made for an interesting subject, so I processed another shot from that same location to share as this month’s wallpaper.  I thought about using a snow photo, but for some of us, we’re hoping that the little bit of snow we got this past week means that we’re done for the year and that we can get on to spring.  We’ll see how that works out, but that is the optimist’s view!

Well here we are, already into the second month of the year.  I know I am looking forward to finishing the moving in process at just about the time the weather warms up enough to make getting outside a bit more enjoyable.  Here in the south, February can sometimes mean an early spring or it can mean “don’t hold your breath.”  I’ve got my hopes on an early transition.  We’ll see what happens!

Happy 2014!

Sunset, Hilton Head Island, SC
Sunset, Hilton Head Island, SC

Whew! I have to say that 2013 was a wild one for the Dills family! We sold two houses, observed the construction of a new house, moved twice, took a couple of great vacations and just generally had a lot of fun. But I’m just about worn out! Kathy & I are really looking forward to a little quieter year in 2014, with some time to recharge our batteries, catch our breath and enjoy life with just a little less “excitement.”

In keeping with the “quiet” theme I decided to go with a beach scene for this month. This is another from the archives – all the way back to 2007. Taken on the beach in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, this photo reflects the peace and calm I feel at the beach, especially in the early morning or late afternoon. One of our very favorite getaway locations, the beach is high on our list of places to return to in 2014.

We have a little more settling in to do in our new place, but we’ve got things just about to the point where I can start thinking about photography again. I sort of hit the big “Pause Button” this past year, since I just wasn’t able to give it the time and attention I like to devote to my photography. I’m looking forward to settling in and really wrapping my brain around it again. Stay tuned!

December 2013 Wallpaper

Woodland Trail at Chincoteague Island National Wildlife Refuge, Assateague Island, Virginia
Woodland Trail at Chincoteague Island National Wildlife Refuge, Assateague Island, Virginia

Wow, last month of the year!  And although it’s been a good one there’s a lot to look forward to in 2014.

This month’s calendar is something a little different, but hopefully not too different.  It’s a little more “abstracty” than sometimes, but I was looking for something a little different, that spoke to the season without screaming “CHRISTMAS.”  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.  It’s just that I wanted something a little…quieter.

I hope everyone has a great month, a joyous Christmas/Holiday season and best wishes for a wonderful 2014.

November 2013 Wallpaper

Boat Reflections on Far Creek, Englehard, North Carolina
Boat Reflections on Far Creek, Englehard, North Carolina

OK, so I’m a little late this month – SORRY!  Actually I sort of forgot.  But at least ONE person contacted me to tell me that they missed my update.  Sorry, Kevin W, that you had to go almost a whole day without the latest calendar! 🙂

Lots happening in the House of Dills this month.  Hopefully I’ll be broadcasting from my new “studio” for the December update.  We’ll see.  I’ve got some posts in the works, though.  Words for some, photos for others.  I just have to put them together.

For those of you who also have my print calendar, this is one of the few times that I’ve duplicated my print calendar with my desktop calendar.  But when I turned the page on my printed calendar this morning, I liked the photo so much I decided to put it on my computer screen, too!  I hope you enjoy it.

October Wallpaper Calendar

Morning light and fall color from Pounding Mill Overlook on the

I didn’t shoot a lot of desktop-worthy fall color last year, so I had to go back two years for this one.  While it isn’t “fall leaves and acorns” it is nevertheless color in the sky that you just don’t get too often over the summer.  Not until the humidity blows off do you get these vibrant colors in the mornings.

Pounding Mill Overlook is on the Blue Ridge Parkway just south of the SR 276 intersection, so whether you are in Brevard or Waynesville it is an easy sunrise destination, especially in the fall when sunrise is at a very civilized time.  People don’t believe me when I say that the best color is often 30 minutes or more before sunrise.  Why?  Because people don’t usually start looking that soon, and because it is still really, really dark.  But the color is there, you just have to be ready for it.

Kathy & I have a little bit of fall travel planned, although we will mostly be making day trips. I’ve used up nearly all of my vacation time for this year, and we’re holding onto what few of our vacation dollars are left until we can close on our house.

September Wallpaper

Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia
Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia

Tired of Nova Scotia photos yet?  Good,  ’cause I’m not!

Another photo from our July adventure, the light is what I think makes this photo. The boarded up windows on one side and the hint of color in the other window hint at possibly a difficult past with some hope for  the future.

We saw a lot of buildings with this shake siding, much of it in need of a coat of paint. Probably very durable against the elements despite occasional deferred maintenance.

I hope everyone has an excellent September.