Every Day is a Gift!
This week’s challenge from Patti asks us to find images of objects that begins with the letter S. I chose a few objects found in or around sand or things that are made of sand.
Seashells and seals on the sandy seashore
Sand Dunes
Many thanks to Patti for this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge #136: Things that begin with the letter S.
Welcome to my world along the Georgia coast where I am surrounded by salt water creeks and rivers, salt marsh and a beach on the Atlantic Ocean is only a five minute drive away. Please join me for a glimpse of some of the natural beauty that is in my world.
Birds and Wildlife of Coastal Georgia:
Salt Marsh, Beaches, and Waterways
Sunrises and Sunsets
Flowers and critters in the garden
Wild Georgia Shrimp and Georgia Blue Crabs fresh from the sea.
Many thanks to guest host Sheetal for this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge #135: a Glimpse of my World.
For this challenge Tina has asked us to demonstrate how we use editing to improve an image. This was a fun challenge that took me out of my comfort zone. Usually, I crop the photo and I’m done. For this challenge I experimented with a few other editing techniques using Photoshop Elements.
The camellias are blooming and I’ve been trying to get a perfect shot of them. To focus on the flower I cropped this original into a square and applied the Watercolor effect. The finished image below shows the details of the flower and the rain drops on the petals.
On the left is the original of a Great White Egret in the salt marsh. I wanted a close up of the Egret so I cropped it before adding the Rough Pastels effect.
This last image was taken in Denali National Park in Alaska on a cloudy, overcast day. I replaced the dull sky with a brilliant blue sky to add more color and enhance the image.
Many thanks to Tina for this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge #134: From Forgettable to Favorites.
I am not a professional photographer. Photography is something I do for fun and I enjoy sharing my photos here on my blog.
I had so much fun getting out my old cameras and going through old photo albums for this challenge. My husband has an old video camera that’s been in a closet for a long time so while I was working on this post he was going through his videos. I would have had this post done yesterday but I am easily distracted and got side tracked watching some of his videos!
I began my photography journey as a kid in elementary school with a Brownie camera. My pictures were pretty bad but it’s fun to look back on them now. I can still remember taking the film to be developed and impatiently waiting to see how the pictures turned out. The first animal picture I can find is of our pet turtles lined up on the sidewalk in front of our house.
When we started scuba diving in the late 1980’s I became interested in under water photography. I would just aim the camera in the general direction of whatever I was trying to get a picture of. After many epic fails and lots of wasted film I finally gave up and just enjoyed the diving. Occasionally, I actually captured the fish but they were usually out of focus. Here are a few that kind of turned out. These are cropped and edited to bring out the colors.
Back on land I had better luck with landscapes. Two of my favorite landscapes were shot with the two old Sony Cypershots. At the top of the page is a landscape from Oahu in Hawaii and the image below is of the Pitons in St. Lucia.
I got interested in wildlife and bird photography after we began traveling in the RV. I managed to get a few decent shots with the Cybershot if the subject was pretty close to me.
A few years later I graduated to a Sony DSLR with a zoom lens after I tried in vain to get a close up shot of a pair of eagles on one of our trips. This was as close as I could get with my old Cybershot.
The next year Henry got me a Sony A550 DLSR camera with two lenses. There were times when the 400 mm lens was too much so I added a smaller zoom lens later.
What a difference these zoom lenses made! I could now get the close up shots of wildlife I wanted. This eagle was high up in a tree in Alaska.
In addition to the landscapes and wildlife I enjoy close up photography of flowers and critters from the garden.
I’ve never been very good photographing people. Other than taking family pictures I think I’ll stick to nature and landscapes.
Many thanks to Patti for this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge #133: My Photography Journey. Also shared with Terri’s Sunday Stills – your favorite landscape
In honor of the January 25 birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns my first two images include checked tartans.
Striped lighthouses and Striped American Flags.
Stripes and Checks in Nature
Many thanks to Ann-Christine for this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge: Striped and checked.
