Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: one Item or the Number One

 

Good morning from a grey Hastings morning.  Yes it does rain here.

I love the photos from Cee’s Photography  – Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge and

  have decided to take up this challenge today.  These photos were taken yesterday at Cornwall Park.  My daughter is about to finish school and had the afternoon off to prepare for her graduation dinner last night so we went down to the park to  feed the ducks before going out for last minute shopping for shoes and makeup as you do with teenagers.

So here is my offering for the challenge.

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A sunny day at Cornwall Park

Good morning from a cool but sunny Hastings day.

Yesterday turned out to be a really warm, sunny day.  It was lovely but it isn’t ideal for photography.  By 11 AM the light was really harsh as well as it was getting a tad too warm for me so it was time to give up.  I had saved up some bread crusts so I headed down to feed the ducks as  you do.  I am getting rather well known down there and people tell me where to go for the good photos.  By studying the behaviour of the ducks I can see when they will stretch their wings for a more interesting photo than a duck just swimming around.  But then again the reflections are interesting as well.

There are a lot of ducklings at the moment so there is always something new to see.  As I approached the duck pond I found this mother duck with all her many children asleep in the grass.  They really didn’t move when I came up to them.

It is interesting as well to see how protective the mother is of her children.  She is constantly quacking in a softer tone to reassure them and to warn them of danger.

The duck on the right is always at the same spot and I love the rich colours of it’s feathers.

Because it was so bright and sunny and there was no wind the reflections were just amazing but it is a challenge to capture what I saw on camera.  I have a polorising filter which I turn around to get the maximum affect of these reflections.

I love the way the ripples can distort the branches and so the images are never the same.

Later on though, the light starting bleaching out the highlights.  The contrast was just too much so it is time to give up.

What was good about the bright light was the faster shutter speed for these photos.  Birds have a tendency to fly off quickly so you do need your wits about you to get them in focus.  i must look a sight wondering around with a camera but looking up into trees for anything to take.  That is what I mean by standing out and getting well known.  But it is a good way to work on my camera skills.

Cheers and have a nice day.

Raewyn

Birds of a feather

Good morning from a calmer, sunnier Hastings this morning.  Daylight savings started last night so it was a much later start to the day.  I am not so keen on the time changing but do love the longer evenings.

Yesterday was incredibly windy.  Hard to take photos of flowers when they are blowing in the wind so to speak.  I did mange to get some nice shots of the birdlife at Cornwall Park. The sparrows were much more accommodating than usual.  Maybe the wind blew away all the noises and scents so that they didn’t fly away like they normally do.

These photos were taken on the Toamoana Road entrance at the duck pond.  The sparrows are hard case, they hang around the pond as they know that people will be coming to feed the ducks and they scrounge around for the crumbs.  It also means that they are not as flighty as in my garden.

 

These photos were taken around the back of the park where there is a manmade canal there for the ducks.  If you look closely at the second photo there is a dead duckling behind the sparrows.  As I had taken these photos with the maximum lens I didn’t see it until I looked at it more closely on the computer.  The law of nature I’m afraid.  I have noticed that the number of ducklings is shrinking.

 

Around this canal I spotted this sparrow on this leaf fan.  Again it obliged me by staying put just long enough for me to take a couple of photos.

But that blur in the centre of this photo is the elusive fantail.  I have been trying to take a photo of one for several weeks now but they are like butterflies.  The don’t stay still for very long and flit around me, teasing me.  I need a shutter speed of at least 1/500 but it is hard when they mostly fly around the canopies of the trees and so it is darker.  By the time I have focused on them, they are gone anyway.  Watch this space.

I thought that the first photo is ideal to make into an embellishment.  I have tried different ways to make embellishments, using both Photoshop and the Mac’s Preview app.  It was longwinded and the Mac didn’t like doing too many and would stop on me.  So I spent several hours last night playing around with Photoshop and reading the book – Photoshop for Dummies and then with one simple click, by accident I found a very quick and simple way.  After I load the image I think click on the information layer to the right of the programme and change the layer to ). Voila.  Just go around the image with the magic wand or the lasso brush, push the delete button and there I was.  Soooo simple.

 

Of course I found some cute ducklings.

 

I found these three, very much alive ducklings cuddling up to each other with no mother duck around which was unusual.

 

Cheers and have a nice day.

Raewyn