Not feeling very much like cooking tonight, so it might be takeout ...
Finally, some much needed rain! This was taken with my iPhone yesterday afternoon during our drenching downpour. Lots of surface water and lots of runoff downhill. It was a challenge trying to take photos with two dogs under my feet, no matter which way I turned. They had to be right beside me because there was thunder. I cannot begin to understand why it was better to follow me around than to stay in the dry safety of the house, but that's what they did. Thankfully, it didn't take long for the water to dissipate once it stopped raining. You can see the new enclosure we built for Houdini. There is no way Bella can climb this fence. The side door to the art studio opens onto this area so they have an outside and a safe inside spot as well. Both of them are getting used to this new arrangement and at least we know they are safe and secure when we go out. Hopefully this means no more calls from strangers letting me know they have picked up my dog in the middle of the road at night! Just a photo of my cottage garden attempt - it is enjoying the good soaking it's getting, and I'm enjoying not having to water constantly. Not that I mind watering, but I was conscious of how low the water tanks were getting. This rain has been great for topping all the rain water tanks up. I think we're in for a few more days of rain which will be nice.
Not feeling very much like cooking tonight, so it might be takeout ...
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Special | Everyday | DetailsContinuing the Giving Thanks For theme that has been happening in the CY365 prompts this month. This one is about slowing down and noticing the little things in life: It's easy to forget the little things. The pile of toys we pick up every single day. The empty carton of milk that always seems to wind up in the refrigerator. The flowers blooming in the yard. Today, slow down. Pick up your camera and capture the little things in your life. This was Friday's prompt. We had finally received some much welcomed rain on Thursday evening and overnight and once I checked the email to discover the prompt was The Little Things one of the things that went through my mind was how thankful I was for the rain, followed closely by wondering whether there were any raindrops left on the flowers so I could take a quick few shots before heading into the city for work. I have been taking a few photos of the agapanthus over the last couple of days as it's been gradually opening and the following photos were taken quickly this morning. Today's prompt is about taking a photo from a different perspective and I was very tempted to use this shot of the agapanthus as I was on the ground looking up the stalk for this one, but thought I'd do something different later. Black and white conversion of a white agapanthus. And finally, the little bee being busy doing what bees do. The original email was of a bee and commenting on how addictive it can be attempting to take sharp, focussed shots of a tiny bee that moves all too quickly. All the photos were taken with the macro lens, but this is the one that come closest to being a macro shot.
Lively | Colorful | VividThis is a prompt from back in early October, and the email had a photo of a stunning autumn scene with gorgeous red, orange and yellow foliage along a river bank. Of course, that wasn't going to be happening here as we were coming into spring, and a dry one at that. I've been watching the rainbow lorikeets at the feeder pretty much since we moved here and started putting wild bird mix out for them. And I never tire of watching them at the feeder or their antics. The other day I had the camera close by and there were two lorikeets so who could resist and I got to less than a metre away from these two. They definitely fit into the Vibrant prompt. They're even colourful underneath. I can't remember which lens I was using for these shots and the information is on the main computer down in the office. Very little has been done in post processing. Just love these birds.
Exercise | Journey | Act This prompt is part of the 'Thankful for' series. Unfortunately any meaningful exercise is out for me at the moment while I wait for two partial tears in my hamstring to heal. I had a PRP injection last Friday and am hoping that it does the job and I can get back into doing some exercise again, and soon. I'm taking it really easy though at the moment, and not even taking the dogs for their morning walk - which I am missing big time. My early morning walks are one of my favourite parts of the day. I'm so looking forward to getting back to running, weights and my ballet classes. Zimi absolutely loves chasing the water out of the hose, which often makes watering the plants a challenge. I'm trying to get him to differentiate between the 'shower' setting which is for when I am watering and he has to leave it alone, and the 'jet' setting which is when he can play. Not terribly successful so far, and worse if he hasn't had his morning exercise as he has all this pent-up energy to use. I've been watering to try to keep a small amount of grass around the patio area alive, mainly to stop it from going back to dirt and then blowing in through the house. Of course Zimi thought this was great fun, so I roped Steve into playing with Zimi so I could get some action shots; just a bit difficult to do solo. However Zimi wasn't playing as well with Steve (or maybe Steve wasn't playing well with Zimi) so I didn't get to take very many. The top two photos show Zimi in the process of leaping up to catch the water and all legs are in the air in the second photo - which according to the daily CY365 email is the ideal shot. Steve took over camera duties so that I could encourage Zimi to play more (which he did). I'm not quite sure exactly why Zimi likes this but he seems to derive great pleasure out having the hose on his face and in his mouth. Misty, our previous German Shepherd also loved chasing the water coming out of the hose, but Bella shows no interest whatsoever.
Ghostly | Mysterious | Creepy Yep, definitely going right into the halloween theme with the daily CY365 prompts. This one came with instructions on how to create a ghostly effect. I haven't tried anything like this before and after taking these photos there are a lot of things I would like to try. Steve having a bright blue shirt with white writing on it, didn't really work, so I cloned the writing out. That's something else I haven't done a lot of and I'm not too sure just how to do it, but this attempt worked ok for the theme. I was surprised at just how strongly the keyboard came through on this one, with very little showing of me on the keyboard - just the slightest of shadowing. I used Perfect Effects 8 to get the light flare in post processing. Looking at this again, perhaps I should have taken my glasses off - how many ghosts wear glasses?
Yep, good fun and a technique I wouldn't mind experimenting with a bit more. Gourd | Pumpkin Patch | Home Grown I was so excited the other day to see the tiniest little butternut pumpkin on one of my pumpkin vines. I haven't tried to grow pumpkins before, so I have no idea how they will fare here, but it was worth having a go. I've planted two types - butternut and a little round one whose name I can't remember and I can't find my book where I recorded it. Hopefully with eight plants a few will grow and actually produce something we can eat. The prompt I guess was really in preparation for Halloween in the Northern Hemisphere, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to record the beginnings of my pumpkins, and it does fit in with the sub-heading of home grown. My first little one. A couple of the other type just getting started. Promises of a lot more to come ...
The Ocean | The Sky | A WallOne of the previous prompts for the CY365 was Serene and I've had in mind an image for quite some time. I finally decided to get the camera out and see how it would work. It didn't. We have one of those Chinese temple statues kind of things that go in the garden. We had it in Cairns for a couple of years, however, when we got here we had no real idea of where we wanted to put it, so it found a home in the pool area and was forgotten. Once we redid the landscaping we moved it to a place of its own. I thought it would make a nice photo with gardens around it and the pool in the background - a touch of serenity. But it didn't work out regardless of how I tried to take the shot. While crawling around in the gardens I noticed the sunlight reflecting on our ceramic pot, and thought it worth taking a couple of photos. I'm glad I did. The glaze almost looks like blue lava flowing out of the indents in the pot, with the blur of running water flowing over the sides. I also like the orange reflections from the sun; yep, that golden hour for photography, that wonderful light. So while I didn't end up with anything for Serene I knew that there was also a prompt for Blue, so I've run with that for tonight. And that's another weekend over. I saw on Facebook that there are only 8 more Saturdays before Christmas. Where has my year gone? Has yours disappeared as quickly as mine? Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful weekend and that you have a great week in front of you. Night for now.
This isn't a CY365 prompt, although I'm sure if I looked through all of them I could find something to fit the photo. However, I've been putting off doing a workout on the stationary cycle for some time and really should get in and do it - so as tempting as it is, I won't use looking through the prompt list as a reason to put off exercise. I'm not fond of cycling but seeing that going for a run is out until my hamstring is fixed, I guess cycling it is! I was wandering around the garden after breakfast this morning and noticed a tiny little mushroom that had popped up overnight near some ground cover I've planted. I decided to take a shot and have a play with the different sliders in Lightroom that I never use, mainly because I don't really know what they do, to see what sort of effects they created. Anyway I was after a fairyland/fanstasy type of feel in the colouring. I think it needs more work or I need to be more 'out there', but this will do for this morning's offering. I saw one of the parent curlews this morning on my walk, but decided against taking the dogs near the nest.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, whatever you may be doing. Oh, I am looking forward to next year when the mangoes will be ripening and ready for eating.
All these tiny little green things are hopefully going to all become mangoes, and this is just one flower head. At the moment the tree is really covered in potential fruit. Once they get bigger we'll cover as many as we can to protect them from the birds, but the birds will still have plenty from the top of the tree where we can't reach to cover them. Askew | Contorted | CrookedThe prompt was about capturing reflections that were distorted. However, one of the photos I saw on the CY365 gallery used a specific camera technique to create a distorted image and I decided to give that a try. I set my shutter speed on 4 seconds, ISO 100 and aperture f5.6 and had a go at taking some photos with the zoom lens. No luck - all of the ones I took came out white, and I wasn't sure why. That led me to a google search, but I wasn't too sure of what keywords to use. Eventually I found this site which explained what I need to do quite well. I changed my aperture to f32, as what I had used let in way too much light, which is why the photos were coming out white, they were completely overexposed. I then set the shutter speed to 0.3 sec. I left the ISO the same. Those changes made the differences and I was able to at least get something. I think the most difficult aspect of taking this sort of photo is camera shake. It isn't possible to handhold a camera steady at such slow speeds, and then add in camera shake as you move the zoom lens and often it just ends up as a complete blur. The idea is that the centre of the image stays kind of in focus but I think I would need to set up the tripod to achieve that. Perhaps that's a project for another day. One of my first attempts - even though the flower isn't quite in focus, I liked the movement of the lines and processed it to achieve an effect I liked. This is closer to the look I was trying to achieve. Focus in the centre and the movement radiating outwards from the effect of zooming the lens while pressing the shutter button.
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