Landscape..

Perhaps two, maybe three times a year I manage to leave the city boundaries and get out and experience the fresh country air and sights of rolling hills, farmers fields, lakes and trees. This past Thanksgiving Monday was one of those days.

We ventured north east to the Northumberland hills, and ventured around Rice Lake. I knew in my mind how I wanted to approach any photo opportunities this year, and rather then concentrating on close ups and fine details of individual leaves and flowers I opted to go with compositions showing distance.

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I recently watched a movie about the Impressionist painters, and I have been influenced by their work. I made a conscious effort to pay attention to the natural light and as much as possible the shadows. There is something about a singular tree in the midst of a vast field that I love. It stands alone, strong, beautiful and keeping watch. Add a brilliant splash of colour from mother nature, and the tree appears majestic.

Here is a sampling of the shoot, along with some fun post edits.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

iPhone images..

It was not too long ago when I was doing research for the play I was collaborating on that I read that the iPhone had become the number one source of images being downloaded on flickr. After doing a little more research into the many, many thousands(?) of applications one can use on their phone to create interesting images I have to admit I was a little more then curious.

Lucky me, I received a new iPhone for my birthday shortly after this discovery. Now....as my friends know, I rarely use the phone for its intended purposes, but I have come to love the few camera applications I have had the time to explore. If for no other reason, they are fun to experiment with. Granted, I am still guilty of trying to maintain good composition, but the alterations you can make are endless. Remember when I said I wanted to keep my images as natural as possible? Well, with my Nikon, I still do. So I'm not a total sell out. Am I?

Anyways, here are some random photos I have taken on my iPhone and then altered through one program or another.

Enjoy.

Snap!

Last week was a tough one. To make a long story short, I got accepted to show in my first ever juried exhibition called Scapes. I had made a blog entry about it earlier in the year, and had had high hopes about getting in. The problem as many of you already know is that my letter of acceptance got emailed to a wrong address and I never found out in time to get my work in the show. I was devastated and a little angry, but it was out of my hands, so I have chosen to move forward......

Tonight I will enter these four shots into a photo competition/auction/charity event called SNAP! I entered four last year as well, but did not make the cut. This event has alot of publicity and is held at the National Ballet School, and is a huge AIDS charity event. I may not make the cut again, but the submission fees will all go to a good cause so it is a win, win situation.

These photos are a first for me in that they have added effects done in post editing. They are all flower pictures taken the other day at Allan Gardens.

Wish me luck....