Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Flowers

Food morning from a sunny but cold Hastings.

Yesterday the temperature dropped sharply so now we know that winter is on the way.

So to cheer everyone up I have a bouquet of flowers for you thanks to this great challenge from Cee.

Thanks for visiting and here are some other great blogs starting with Cee’s challenge

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Flowers

http://zainabjavid.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/cees-fun-foto-challenge-flowers/

Lights, Camera, Action

http://nowathome.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/cees-fun-foto-challenge-flowers/

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Sonel’s Corner Photo Editing Challenge: Unusual Angles.

Good evening from a windy Hastings.  We have got over the excitement of the earthquake yesterday here, but my heart goes out to those who suffered quite significant damage to their homes with smashed TVs, china and even houses.  It was also hard to watch my old hometown been hammered by that Tropical Cyclone June in Auckland.  The rain stopped here at lunch time but the wind has now picked up in the past couple of hours.  I have nothing to complain about compared to others.  So take care everyone.

This is my entry for Sonel’s Corner‘s photo editing challenge. This week it is unusual angles.  Once the rain had stopped today I rushed out to take some photos of all the drops of rain.  It must have looked funny to see me down on the wet ground looking up or right over top of the bee looking down.  It was so wet it couldn’t move at all.

Poor thing.

Here are some others I have edited with FX Photostudio Pro.  Mostly I used a vignette and then just played around with the different filters until I found something I liked and appealed to me.

I still haven’t really mastered the art of the droplets but with practice will get there.  I think that the sun needs to be shining to really make it pop.  It was still cloudy and overcast for these ones.

I was looking up at these grapes.

Here are some other great blogs to check out.  There are some really awesome photographers out there.

http://sonelcorner.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/photo-editing-challenge-unusual-angles/

http://hopethehappyhugger.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/photo-editing-challenge-unusual-angles/

Jaunty Eiffel Tower

http://geriatrixfotogallerie.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/photo-editing-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-875

http://sonelscornerphotochallenge.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/photo-editing-challenge-unusual-angles

http://firebonnet.com/2014/01/20/sonels-photo-editing-challenge-unusual-angles/

Thanks for visiting.

Sonel’s Corner Photo-Editing Challenge: Nature

Good morning from a cloudy Hastings Boxing Day.  Some will still be celebrating Christmas Day so I will still wish you a Merry Christmas.  My day yesterday was spent quietly with my parents and then skyping family.

Now it is back to some challenges.  I am so happy to see Sonel back with a new challenge –Sonel’s Corner Photo-Editing Challenge.  Her  split toning challenge was the first I took part in and it taught me a lot about photo editing.  So now the challenge has been broadened to include all areas of editing.  Right up my alley now.  It is sooooo much fun to play around with images.  They may just be so so but with editing you can add the wow factor.

These photos were taken yesterday in my mother’s garden.  I couldn’t help myself even on Christmas Day.  Actually it is a routine that when we visited her we had to go on a tour of her garden.  But she has been rather sick lately so that both the tours and her garden has been neglected.  So it was nice to see her out in her garden and showing me around.

I did quite a lot of editing last night and some of them went crazy when I uploaded them onto ViewBug.Com.

These have all been edited with FX Photostudio Pro.  I just upload the image and then go through the different filters to see what I like and what suits it.  As you can see I tend to use the vignettes a lot.  Mostly the black one.  I find that a lot of my photos are of flowers in the centre of the image.  So by using the vignette I really bring  the focus to the flower and the background really fades away.

I chose these ones for the different filters I used.

So enjoy the rest of your Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

After the rains

Good morning from another grey day here in Hastings.

Over the past couple of days we have had some heavy rains and the poor plants got a bit of a hammering.  Yesterday when there was a break in the rain I went out to see what photos I could take.  It was still very overcast so it was hard exposure wise to get a good depth of focus on what I  really wanted.  I am fascinated with rain drops and the little images that could be seen on  them, upside down of course.  I know to get some really awesome photos there is a special lens as I have seen photos done that are just amazing and incredible but I think I have managed to get some small images in the raindrops on these lilies.

There was a lot of great shots to take and it was a matter of where to start.  In the end I didn’t take that many as it was starting to rain again.

Because it was overcast the images are rather muted and very soft.  Next time I will try when the sun is out fully and then I can really have some fun.

Anyway all the best for Emirates Team New Zealand.  We are all behind you.

Cheers and have a nice day.

Raewyn