Racing into another week – I hope it’s a good one!
2019-0318: Monochrome Monday
2019-03-17: Signs of Spring
I have not photographed a single sign of spring this week, though I have been enjoying them immensely. I guess in some ways the topic, photographically at least, has been a fail, but it has been making me more aware, and more appreciative of the little signs that spring is on its way.
Today in fact, it really felt as if spring has arrived. Despite the lawn still being covered in snow, it was warm enough to sit on my front porch with an iced coffee and my knitting, and enjoy the warmth of the sun for awhile. Today, that felt a lot more important than rushing around trying to find an image that symbolized the change of seasons.
Instead, here is an image I just finished working on; a 3 shot panorama taken at Phinda Reserve, May 2017. Everyone knows elephants are my favourite, and they are a great stand-in whenever I need an image. This was another moment where sitting and allowing life to unfold was just perfect. Our guide knew the ellies would be heading for the dam, so we drove to it, and just waited. And they arrived shortly after, in groups of 2 and 3, until we had the scene here unfold. And then just as quietly, they all headed back into the bush, to carry on with the day.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead.
2019-02-17: Topic of the Month – Warm
Last week I decided that my Sunday posts for the rest of the month would focus on the topic Warm. It seemed fitting, given how cold it has been and how much I wish it would warm up.
Today, I decided to share images that make my heart feel warm and happy. It should be no surprise to any frequent visitor that this means elephants. Lots and lots of elephants!
I hope you enjoy my selections, and wishing you a wonderful week ahead.
2019-02-06: Wordless Wednesday
2019-01-30: Wordless Wednesday
2019-01-23: Wordless Wednesday
2019-01-20: Costa’s Hummingbirds
I was going to post some of these images on Wednesday last week for a wordless Wednesday post, but I was having a few site issues, and just didn’t have the patience to wait while WordPress loaded slowly. So instead, I’ve gone through my images and found a few more hummingbird images and am sharing them all today.
While I was in Southern California, I enjoyed my morning coffee on the patio, and loved watching the hummingbirds fighting over the best spots at the feeders and various flowering bushes. I also noticed how chattery the Costa’s hummingbirds are. They spent a lot of time singing from the branches of the bushes in the garden. The link below is the All About Birds page for the Costa’s hummingbird, and you can hear what they sound like there.
All About Birds – Costa’s Hummingbird
Seeing these images makes me long for spring even more, when the Rufous hummingbirds return to Prince George for another (short) spring and summer season.
2019-01-01: Happy New Year!
One of the projects that I undertake in December, for myself and a few family and friends is creating custom calendars; formatted both for hanging on a wall (I use a clipboard) or smaller sized to fit in freestanding wood blocks.
This year I’ve decided to share them on the blog, for anyone that would like to have one.
January and February for the half fold calendar is shown below. They are sized for 11″ x 8 1/2″ paper; I use cardstock to print them.
There isn’t a particular theme to the calendars this year; just images that I enjoy looking at and that bring back memories of wonderful times traveling. I hope that these will brighten up your wall or desk a little more than a freebie calendar from the bank 🙂
Click here to download the half-fold calendar for January and February
Click here to download the full page calendar for January and February
March and April will be included in my February Month in Review post.
Wishing everyone a fantastic year ahead.
2018-12-19: Wordless Wednesday
2018-12-16: Luminar’s Sky Enhancer
Last week I decided I would play around with one of the new features in Luminar, a filter called AI Sky Enhancer. Perhaps the timing wasn’t so good though, as yesterday evening I downloaded the newly release Luminar 3, and with the added library function, I was having a bit of trouble navigating the system (since I haven’t yet looked at any resources on how to use the new software). Despite a bit of floundering within the libraries function, the actual photo editing and filters layout remains the same, and I was able to complete my self-appointed task.
This first image wasn’t solely about the sky; it’s kind of hard to ignore the leopard in the tree! I wanted to enhance the natural colours of the sky and bring up some of the shadow areas. I started with the AI Sky Enhancer and added other filters as needed (which was how I approached all the images). I’ve included a split screen showing before and after and the edited image for each one I worked on.
Next up is a photo shot while on a boat on the Boteti River in Botswana. Shooting into the sun left the sky quite washed out; I am impressed how well I could enhance the sky colour and the clouds with Luminar without it becoming to HDR-like.
The Okavango Delta is an amazing place for sunsets; the colours in the sky are incredibly dramatic from my experience. With that much colour already, it is easy to take the image a step too far and have it look radioactive. The AI sky enhancer did a great job accentuating the detail in the clouds, without pumping the colour up to 11.
Finally I have included a sunset from the Hoanib desert in Namibia. There was a lot of airborne dust and sand that evening, so while I did do some noise reduction in the sky to reduce the visible grain, there is definitely still a lot of texture. This was also shot with my Panasonic camera, which is much noisier than the Nikon I was also shooting with. Regardless, I am please with the realistic tones, the detail in the clouds and the textures in the desert and the hills.
I’m going to ow have to spend some time familiarizing myself with the layout of the new Luminar software, so I can work using their library function in an efficient manner.