Civil War Reenactment & PP Software

Civil War reenactments are popular from Spring through Fall held in many towns and cities in the U.S.  The one I attended was sponsored by the Lombard Historical Society at the Four Seasons Park in Lombard Illinois.  There were artillery demos, skirmishes, battles, drills, plus the encampments of the rebels and union soldiers.

These events are a photographic delight, a challenge, and loads of fun!  Both woman and men wore period costumes. What was really cool, is the actors did not pose for any of the shots.  They just went about their business as if you weren’t there.  That made images more authentic looking.

Rebels on a march

The best part is left to the last.  Post processing all the images by adding layers and converting to black and white with sepia and other tones, scratches, and other effects to give the image a period effect. 

Naval escort for Abe

The Navy making plans for the day

Besides, Adobe products, ON1 Photo Raw and NIK, there are a few other photo editors worth looking into.

GIMP is open-source and free. It does a decent job of replicating Photoshop’s recomposing and manipulating your photos, applying effects, and cropping and resizing images. GIMP supports editing PSD files, and its arsenal of tools: Filters, brush tools, text tools, layers, distortion and color-correction tools, cropping, resizing, and effects options. GIMP doesn’t match up to Adobe’s editing software when it comes to advanced features and color management but does have a selection of plug-ins including content-aware painting (removing strange objects) and RAW support.

Officers have their privileges family, servants and kids

Corel PaintShop Pro features a full array of photo-editing tools including layers, filters, one-click HDR and other filters, retouch tools, and more RAW-format support than any of the free packages (including 16-bit RAW). Corel PaintShop Pro can create vector graphics and exchange brush tools.

                    

Portraits of individuals doing what they do best, posing.

Cyberlink PhotoDirector has features similar to Lightroom providing tools to make raw conversions and process JPEGs, TIFFs, and PNGs, layers, cloning tools, HDR, presets to apply effects and more.  Cyberlink PhotoDirector will import up to 4K (UHD) video to capture still images, and create panoramas.  The best part of course is it is very affordable from $35 on Amazon.com.

Those black powder rifles are awesome

The Western Japanese Garden

Chicago Botanical Gardens

Water is a major component of any Japanese garden.  The ponds and waterfalls are located in precise orientation with respect to the sun to determine how it will be reflected by the water.

The sound of waterfalls adds to the soothing nature of Japanese gardens.  At the Chicago Botanical Gardens (CBG) the cascading waterfall is very unique.  You start at the top and take a path down to view separate parts of the cascade. Take the bridge to the island then turn around and observe the waterfall from further away.  Along the path you come across a fountain with slow dripping water from a bamboo pipe.  It is located in a dark corner for you to contemplate the sound and observe ring pattern and light from each drop.

In Japan, the house and garden are meant to have a certain integration, with the building being positioned to frame the garden scene. The garden in a Japanese traditional context is an unfolding work of art. It is not intended in which to relax or play. 

Note the rocks and stones in the garden, stream, or pond. They anchor the garden to the ground and give it personality. Rock and stone play a major role in a Kaaresansui garden. 

Gravel is raked into patterns representing waves and rocks or mounds may represent a mountain or an island.  The Kaaresansui garden at CBG contains stepping stones for your eye to travel to the edge of this garden leaving you with a mysterious feeling.  Plantings and lanterns are also used in the Kaaresansui garden.

A pond isn’t complete without water lilies or lotus. The water plants as well as land plants are associated with moving thoughts and the universal forms of life. Water lilies float on the surface while lotus grows with a strong stem anchored at the bottom of the pond.

The Anderson Japanese Garden (AJG) in Rockford IL has some excellent features. It also is a top rated garden in the U.S.  You enter their garden through an enormous gate.  Note the stone pagoda in the entrance.  It echoes the roofline of the gate.  Although not a traditional Tori gate it is representative of a Mas Imazui gate.

Below the waterfall at AJG, the pond contains what are known as living flowers or Koi. Koi are a colored form of Amur carp crossbred for over 100 years. Koi can live a long time; some can live up to fifty years. In Japan they are a symbol of strength and tenacity.

Anderson Japanese Garden