layers

on my home from work one evening i stopped at an old cemetery. it sits right next to a quaint old church with the classic steeple and stained glass windows. it's the kind of picturesque place you see on old postcards or on a lazy sunday drive in the country. i love cemeteries. you can be alone with your thoughts there and let your imagination run free. i like to imagine what the type of headstone says about the person buried there. and the engraved inscriptions can be quite quaint and sometimes downright odd. but my favorite thing to do at cemeteries is to take photos. on this particular evening the sun's angle was casting such lovely light on the headstones and i happily snapped away. some of the very old stones were weathered and pocked with various shades of yellow to green moss adding extra texture. many of the photos were close-ups of the stones to be used as textured layers on other photos. the 4 flower photos above all have gravestone texture layers added in photoshop. the last photo shows one of the gravestone photos by itself. i just love how the texture layers add so much character and dimension to the flower photos. you can take something bright and shiny and give it an aged patina, making it better than the original. isn't that what life does to us? i can look back over my life and see how each phase and experience shaped me into the person i am today. yes, there are lines and scars and age spots. gray hair and thinning skin show my age. but they also show the character i've developed and the wisdom i'm willing to share. gone is the bright shiny penny and i wouldn't change a thing. not a single thing.