Terri wraps up her Great Outdoors Sunday Stills photo challenges with the challenge of Landscapes.
America’s National Parks are some of our greatest treasures. Our national parks, monuments and preserves feature many different types of landscapes. The header image is from Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America’s most visited national park. I’ve included a few different landscapes from around the United States.
Everglades National Park, FloridaAcadia National Park, MaineHoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, WashingtonPolychrome Overlook, Denali National Park, AlaskaView from Glacier Point Road in Yosemite National Park, America’s first national park
Tina’s challenge is to examine the habitats of both humans/and or animals.
A quote from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources tells us that “Georgia’s coastal marshlands encompass approximately 368,000 acres in a four to six mile band behind the barrier islands. Thriving in the waters of the estuaries, these marshes have been identified as one of the most extensive and productive marshland systems in the United States. There are nearly 400,000 acres of coastal marshlands in Georgia which represent a considerable portion of all remaining marshlands along the entire eastern coast of the United States.”
I chose to feature images of some of the birds that feed on the fish, shrimp, snails, and other small creatures that live in the salt marsh. Sometimes I see the birds perched in a tree or on a dock above the marsh as they search for food. It’s fun to watch them wade through the marsh or a creek as they feed.
Great egret wades through the salt marsh searching for foodIbis feeding in the salt marshWood StorkRoseate Spoonbills and Great Egrets share a tree Roseate Spoonbill fishing in a tidal creekGreat Blue Heron perched on a rail above the marshOsprey searching for fish
In honor of Earth Day Donna asks us to “showcase anything from rocky landscapes to cobblestone streets”. I was excited when I first read her challenge because I have so many pictures of rocks I didn’t even know where to begin. It was hard but I finally chose the few I’ve included here.
The header image and the first gallery are natural rocks I’ve found during our travels. The header is of cactus flowers growing on top of Enchanted Rock near Fredericksburg, Texas.
Black lava rocks, St. KitsBarbadosGiant’s Causeway, Northern IrelandCreek in GeorgiaRock formation at Cliffs of Moher, IrelandBalanced Rock at Arches National ParkGrand Canyon North Rim Point ImperialThree Patriarchs in Zion National Park
These next magnificent natural rocks deserve a gallery of their own.
Devil’s Tower, WyomingEnchanted Rock, TexasLooking Glass Rock, Blue Ridge ParkwayHalf Dome in Yosemite National Park, California
The next gallery shows some ancient man made rock structures.
Beehive huts, Dingle Peninsula, IrelandAncient Pueblo dwellings, Hovenweep National Monument, Colorado and UtahBridge at Eileen Donan Castle, Scottish HighlandsMesa Verde National Park, Colorado Stone Stairs in a castle in the Scottish Highlands
This final gallery includes some rocks Henry collected during our years of Wandering Around the United States and Canada in our RV. If any of you have ever seen the 1954 movie “The Long, Long Trailer” starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz you’ll know that rock collecting while traveling in an RV might not be a good idea.
After we watched the movie, I resisted collecting rocks. Little did I know that Henry was collecting them! Luckily, he limited his collection to small rocks. The three in the big image on the left were collected during our Alaska and Canadian travels in 2013. The two smaller images on the right are the front and back of a rock Henry picked up in the cemetery near Seth Bullock’s grave.
John is our host for the challenge Before and After. His challenge is to “feature three or four images in your gallery that you tweaked for whatever reason as well as the original image straight out of the camera.” I almost always crop my images and sometimes do other minor editing. I experimented with a few different edits for this challenge. All of my editing is done using Adobe Photoshop Elements.
My header image is the final edited version of a favorite image from our 2013 RV trip to Alaska. We camped in a waterfront campground in Haines, Alaska for about a week. The following image is the original photo I took one rainy night from our campsite.
To achieve the after image in the header I first cropped the photo to focus on the three ships with the mountains in the background. I then adjusted the blue hue/saturation levels. I finished it off by adjusting the levels of black and white.
Original image before edits
The following image is the original closeup of lemon blossoms.
Original photo before edits
I started out by cropping the photo to a square so the blossoms would be the focus of the image. Next, I added a white vignette effect to soften the floral image. The final image after all edits is shown below.
Final image after edits
The next two images are of Dogwood blossoms. The first image is the original.
Original image before edits
I began by cropping to select the blossoms in the center of the photo. I wanted to create an artistic image so I added the Colored Pencil filter and tweaked the settings to get the look I wanted in the following finished edit.
For this challenge Sofia tells us “we’re looking for Water in Motion, gentle or powerful, man-made or natural, the choice is yours”.
I chose several images of natural moving water. My header shows powerful waves in the Atlantic Ocean created by an approaching tropical storm. These next images are other examples of powerful water movement in oceans.
Devil’s Punchbowl near Newport, OregonWaves crashing against rocks in San Juan, Puerto Rico
I’ll go out of my way to see a waterfall. The following gallery includes four waterfalls, all named Bridal Veil Falls.
Bridal Veil Falls in Nantahala National Forest, NCBridal Veil Falls in Keystone Canyon near Valdez, AlaskaBridal Veil Falls, Yosemite National Park, CaliforniaBridal Veil Falls, Niagara Falls, New York
The final two images are of water cascading over rocks.
Yosemite National Park, CaliforniaGlacier National Park, Montana
Wandering Dawgs 