Anyone that has read this blog more than once or twice is familiar with my love of elephants. So it should come as no surprise that I have created a painterly effects project using elephant images.
I’ve really enjoyed working with elephant images this week, as the large, recognizable shape has allowed me to work with some very abstract settings, without compromising the ability to know what it is you are looking at.
I hope you enjoy my images for the week, and wishing you the best for a positive and happy week ahead.
A pair of young elephants greet each other with affection.A pair of bull elephants test each others strength in the shallows of the river.Follow me.A herd of elephants gathered at a dam. This is an 8 shot stitched panorama.Mother and daughter stealing a drink from a broken pipe.
Today I felt inspired to share a few images from my last morning game drive before heading home from safari last May. It was a rather epic morning, featuring elephants, leopards and this pair of lions (basically an entire safari’s worth of sightings in one morning). After listening to lion calls whilst having our morning coffee and rusk stop, we found this pair a short distance away. They would walk together for a short distance along the road, stop and survey the area or lay down for a few minutes, and then carry on.
I hope you enjoy my selections; wishing you a wonderful week ahead.
Pausing and listening before moving on. There were lots of lion calls in the distance; lots of drama in the bush that day.An impressive guy, one of the Matshipiri male lions.A bit of lion flirting.We drove down the road from the lions a short distance so we could get photos of the pair walking towards us along the road. Obviously they didn’t get the memo as to what was anticipated 🙂Our ranger parked alongside a termite mound to give the pair space as they came closer along the road. They stopped to one side and looked as if they were going to mate (pictured here). She suddenly changed her mind, crossed the road and climbed to the top of the termite mound we were parked alongside, and they proceeded to mate there instead. When that happened, the pair was inches from the hood of our vehicle.
Since today is Mother’s Day, I decided to create painterly edits of some of the mama’s from the bush. I’ve selected images that will make my Mom smile; I hope you enjoy them too.
To some, using software to make a photo look as if it were sketched or painted may seem like an abomination. Photographers often go to great lengths (sometimes at great expense) to create sharp and crisp images that show the viewer exactly what the scene looked like. But what about those times when that beautifully crisp, perfectly exposed image doesn’t convey the feeling of the moment? Or, heaven forbid, what if you goof up on the exposure, or mess up the focus a bit, but the moment was great and you still want to do something with the image? These are just some of the reasons for exploring painterly effects with photography. I’ve edited photos in the past for all those reasons and while I don’t post them too often, I do have a gallery of my favourite Artistic Impressions or Photo Art images.
This week, I was inspired by a vintage style travel poster I have had hanging up for around the last 12 years or so. I see it every time I walk towards my sitting room; this week I was struck by the interest in creating a photo series inspired by it, whereas most of the time I just look at it and think “I really want to go to the Serengeti someday”.
A quick snap of the poster that inspired this week’s editing.
I decided to do a series of Big 5 animals; I can imagine these in a vintage travel brochure advertising visiting the “Dark Continent” to see the wild and ferocious Big 5. I edited all of them using the Topaz Simplify filter through the Topaz Studio program.
The photo challenge topic for the week is lines (not the kind you were stuck writing in school if you were misbehaving in class…) 🙂
Here are a few images that I found that I feel have a strong linear element to them. I hope you enjoy.
A game trail through the desert leads up a hill and around a bend. Don’t you find yourself wondering what might be just beyond the line of sight? Namibia, April 2017.Jagged hills zigzagging into the distance in this aerial shot above the Damaraland region of Namibia. April, 2017.Game trails through the desert again, but this time leading us to a lioness heading towards the river for a drink. Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, April 2017.A road through the Nxai Pan leading to the Baines Baobabs. The image is deceiving, as the tree trunks are as wide as a vehicle. Botswana, May 2017.I took this image of the sky while on a sundowner drinks stop; I was drawn to the way the setting sun was illuminating the linear clouds. South Africa, May 2017.
I had planned to put together my GoPro clips from Kenya this week, but time slipped away from me, so I have had to put that off until next week. Instead, I am sharing some of the stitched panorama images I have created over several trips.
The landscape is rather unremarkable, but I saw this lone impala running and took some shots hoping I could create something like this. Botswana, 2015.A beautiful sunset to accompany a sundowner drinks stop on Phinda. South Africa, May 2017.The vast skies of the Masai Mara.A group of giraffes amongst the fever trees. Ol Kinyei Conservancy, Kenya.Sunrise over the Masai Mara. Kenya, 2016.
