Travel with Intent – Above and Below

Good morning from a sunny Hastings this morning.

I loved the poppy themed post last night by Travel with Intent.  I am working on my own remembrance images of the poppy.  In New Zealand we remember our fallen soldiers on April 25th – our ANZAC day.  Usually with dawn services at the cenotaph in each town around the country.  It is a sombre day.  Anyway I digress.

Whenever I am walking around my head is usually up looking above me, or looking down for images to take.  At the moment I can’t go out much so have looked in my archives for some photos looking up and down.  I love the colours of these roses that really stand out from the sky.

I have no idea what these flowers are but again they look strong against the sky.

This one the leaves are highlighted in the sun against a building.

As usual I have included some reflections in water.

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Happy Halloween

Good morning from a grey Hastings today.  Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne are the first to greet the new day so I can be the first to wish a Happy Halloween.

I spent last night on both Photoshop and FX Studio Pro for these images which I then put together in the first photo.  Not my favourite subject really but it is fun trying out different affects.  I went with the theme of the Little Shop of Horrors with these scary looking plants. Then I placed them on the is image of a cobweb to make it look like the plants have taken over.

These empty seed pods look quite spooky even in colour.

These are just plants down at Cornwall Park.  For the actual image I changed the first photo back to sepia to tone in with the whole image.

By changing to black and white and adding texture this gives a creepy look to a normally beautiful flower.

I have used these flowers before but wanted to give them an alien look this time.

Here is the background photo of the cobweb.

Enjoy your trick or treating today.

Photography 101: Shooting in Black and White

Good morning from a cool Hastings morning.

This weeks challenge from     Photography 101: Shooting in Black and White    was a great one for me.  I love black and white, having done a lot of old fashion dark room printing, but the digital age now takes it so much further than I could have done in the dark room.

These photos were taken last night in the CBD of Hastings.  My daughter had to take a last series of shots for her portfolio for her final assessment at school.  So, of course, I went along for moral support, but also to take my own shots.  We had to be careful not to get in each other’s way.

I used Aperture to change to black and white or sepia and then went to FX Photostudio Pro to add the frames and other affects.  The first set of photos show the Art Deco lighting around the CBD.

I used the medium contrast conversion to give a sharper look, but not take too much of the detail away.  I pixilated this photo for the grainy affect.

For these chandeliers I inverted the image so that the background got lost and the focus went onto the lights themselves.

The train tracks run directly through the centre of the CBD, right bang smack in the middle of this water feature.  I used the vintage setting and a grunge frame to give an antique feel to it.

I had already converted to black and white, and then sepia tone to this image looking north.  Then I added another sepia tone to it to change the colour tone completely and then added the grunge frame to give this a more rural setting.  Not an urban setting as it is in real life.

For this one I went for the Noir blue conversion.  I wanted to give this a more surreal look about this sculpture.

There are some tall sculptures to the side of the main square with some really interesting nuts and bolts which make for some interesting photos.  I used the vintage filter for this one.

This photo had a vintage green filter applied to it which I think enhanced the texture of the iron on this link.

I love black and white, but also enjoy adding filters to make completely different photos.

Sonel’s Split-toning challenge – animals

Good morning from a coolish Hastings today.

This week’s challenge from Sonel’s Corner Split-Toning Photo Challenge is animals.  We don’t have any pets but I am always looking around for any animals – feathered or furred to take photos of.

 

This is the original photo of a neighbour’s cat taken in our backyard.

Using both Photoshop and FX Photostudio Pro I used a vignette to get rid of the grass around the cat and then enhance the cat itself.

Using the colour filters is a lot of fun.

I loved this challenge and how it can completely change the photos into something new.

Daily Prompt – Dawn

 

Good morning from a sunny warm Hastings.

Today’s     Daily Prompt: The Golden Hour    is right up my ally.  During the winter the dawn is at a civilised hour so I was able to head out around 7 AM in the weekends to take these photos while my family were snug and warm in their beds.  The downside of course is the cold.  The upside is the light was amazing and it was a serene experience watching the sunrise.  Spiritual really. Anyway this first shot was taken as I was talking to a friend and watching the sun rise at the same time.  He was understanding that I was slightly distracted by the view in front of me and having to take photos at the same time as trying to talk to me.  I am quite proud of this photo as it was shown on national TV that night.  We can upload our photos to the TV station website for the weather report.  It can be anything.  I had only been doing it for 3 or 4 days so was totally shocked when this was shown at the end of the weather report with my name.    it was a nice feeling.

Anyway these photos have been taken over several days with a Fujifilm X-S1 on the SP sunset filter which brings out the orange and red light a lot more.  It adds a sepia filter to the photos, while still maintaining some colour.

 

As you can see the light was very magical.

 

Another day and the light was completely different.

 

Another day I drove to another park – Pakowhai Park to catch the sun there.  The mists were amazing.  Again a very cold morning.  It was like stepping into another world.

 

 

Another day and the light is completely different.

For this photo I went to the Rose Garden at Frimley Park and sat there waiting for the sun to rise and managed to catch it through this rose.

 

Finally this photo is showing the colours of the sunrise in a large puddle on the side of the road.

Apart from the sepia filter on the camera I haven’t edited any of these photos as I think they are strong on their own.

Weekly challenge – Horizons

 Good morning from another sunny Hastings.

This is my contribution to the weekly challenge by The Daily Post @ WordPress .  Which this week is horizons.  This photo was taken early one very cold, frosty morning at Cornwall Park last winter.  The sunrise was just amazing.

The other photos I have shown before are of Napier at the Sound Shell.  I liked the way that the columns provide another horizon line as well.

Show day

 

Good morning from a beautiful sunny Hastings.

Yesterday was our anniversary day, a public holiday for Hawke’s Bay.  It is also a traditional show day.  In other words the show has come to town, the A&P Show, that is.  It was a blustery day but that didn’t stop the hordes of people descending on the show ground to enjoy the stalls and animals that are on show.  On the spur of the moment my husband decided to go so I just grabbed the camera and went.  He isn’t very patient with my stopping every few minutes to take photos but we got around in about 2 hours before we had had enough.  I am not one for crowds.  I am also not keen on taking photos of people and posting them.  I have included a couple today but they were part of the show and I guess would accept photos of them posted on the internet.  I hope so anyway.

 

The woodchoppers are very much a part of the traditional rural scene.  There was this soooo cute little boy in the foreground who was trying to cut up wood like his dad.  I am going to contact the paper to see if I can trace him and his family and give them the photos.  I think that they would like that.  I have one photo where he is concentrating so hard with his tongue sticking out.

 

Now this is sooo much of the kiwi scene, with the number 8 wire mentality.  The young me in their black singlets, of course, have to construct a wooden gate from start to finish and then put up the fence.  Backbreaking work.

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This was so funny.  This is a machine that breaks up these bigger blocks of wood into firewood size. This man and his son were so intent on taking a photo of the machine in action that they didn’t notice what was going on around them.  I hope I am not so intense on my photos like that .

 

There was colour everywhere.

 

Machines of all sizes and purposes were on show as well.  At least I wasn’t the only one that was taking photos of me.  I think though that I was looking for the more different shots, not the generic isn’t that nice type of photo.

 

I loved these galvanised wire animals.

 

I couldn’t resist doing some photo editing.

 

Finally we were treated to a majestic sunset, curtesy of the foehn winds.

 

A fruitful day.

 

Having fun with FX Photostudio Pro

 

Good morning from a sunny Hastings.  WE have a long weekend this weekend.  Today is a public holiday for us as it is our anniversary day and then Monday is Labour Day.  Traditionally it is the time to plant your veggies for the year.  That I will avoid.

Anyway thanks to Sonel and Amanda ♥ Unique So Chic I am learning so much about photo editing.  I headed to the app store and downloaded FX Photostudio Pro.  Well, what a lot of fun.  I have always wondered how to get the frame affects and now I have them.  The affects are amazing.  I have also joined an online camera club – view bug.com.  This is an incredibly positive club where only positive comments are given – you get points for liking and faving other photos and generally encourage them.  There are contests to enter as well.  But these photos are getting well received.  In two weeks I have received over 800 likes and 150 peer recognitions.  It really does make you feel that you want to learn more as well.  Anyway there are quite a few photos today as I have just had so much fun it was hard to stop.  I go out and take photos which I love, but then what do you do with them afterwards?  Have fun editing of course.

 

I have found my roses to be really popular with a lot of likes and peer recognitions.

 

These two photos were of an unusual seed pod of some flowers I had taken before.  They were just amazing and of course made for some awesome affects.

 

Lines are amazing for photo editing.

 

The first photo is a reflection at Cornwall Park.  This is with the marine filter and it really gives a depth to the photo, while the other is the charcoal sketch filter.  I love the creativity of the filters and how it can completely transform an average photo and really lift it.

 

The sepia toning is good on this app as well.  I love the G & A frame on this which gives an old postcard or photo look to it.

Finally this is the photo that everyone seems to like.  There are two sepia filters with this app.  The other sepia photo above was the aged photo toning but this one was with the sepia filter itself.  I am not sure as I can’t really remember how I got to this, but I think I changed it to black and white first, before adding the sepia filter.  The colour photo was good, but the toning and editing have really brought out the rays of light and added depth to the photo.

So have fun with photo editing.

 

A whiter shade of pale – Weekly Challenge – The hue of you – Day 4

 

Good morning from a sunny Hastings.

This has been quite a challenge finding photos that follow a colour theme, but fun too.  Todays colour is white.  White is just not white.  There are so many different shades of white.  I have about 3 different shades of white for my machine embroidery – natural white, snow white etc.  There are so many different hues of white.  So I focused as I do on roses as they are just so lovely at the moment.

 

The rose on the right had a bit of a pink hue to it.

 

While this definitely has a pink hue.

 

This shows how the colours can change from a tight bud to a full blown rose that is white with a pink hue.

 

This full blown rose is more of a white white if I can say that.

 

Backlighting can really show up the colour hue as well.

This is more of a yellow hue than white.

 

This flower is also a strong white against the strong blue sky.

White is like red, it is hard to photograph out in the sun as it is hard to get the textures right and the hues can come out really different to how you saw it..

 

 

Pretty in pink – Weekly Challenge – The Hue of You. Day 3

 

Good morning from a wet and miserable Hastings today.

Today, as you can see the colour is pink.  All these photos this week have been taken on the same day so that the lighting conditions are the same.  I looked for 5 different colours to focus on.  Easy really as there are lots of roses out for this colour.  Pink has so many variations.  Yesterday I was doing a photo book for my step daughter of her wedding.  Her favourite colour is pink.  I did all the pages and then realised that the  pinks didn’t match.  I ended up going back and replacing all the backgrounds with the same pink background.  It made things so much easier.  Her bridesmaids were dressed in a cerise pink and her flowers had cerise, white and pale pink roses which I then tried to match up with embellishments of the roses I had taken.  Anyway I hope she likes her Christmas present.

 

As you can see the rose on the left has a slight purple or blue tint while the rose on the right is more of an apricot tint.

 

These roses had a yellow centre which changes the colour of the pink a bit as well.

 

I like the two tone affect of these petals.  The light leading to the deeper colour on the edges.

 

Different shades of pale pink here as well.

 

 

No two rose has the same pink tones and hues.  It also changes with the light as well, whether in the shade or in full sun.

 

Here are two different size flowers to contrast against each other.

Have fun looking around for pink colours and hues.