Tag: Photo Challenge

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #412 – Places shaped by Water

Posted in Georgia, Nature, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , 57 Comments

John is our host this week. His challenge: “Share up to six waterscapes—images where water shapes the scene. Choose your favorite places, your favorite photos, or a single location that inspires you. Natural or man‑made, peaceful or wild—if water helps tell the story, it’s fair game”

When I first read John’s challenge I thought it would easy. Oceans, rivers, creeks, lakes, swamps, bayous, and salt marshes are a few of my favorite places shaped by water. However, for this challenge I decided to focus on a place near and dear to my heart, the Okefenokee Swamp in my home state of Georgia. The Okefenokee Swamp is first site in the United States to be added as a World Heritage Site in over 30 years and is the only site in Georgia to receive the designation.

The Okefenokee Swamp is North America’s largest blackwater wetland and one of Georgia’s Seven Natural Wonders. It was designated as a National Wildlife Refuge in 1937 and on July 25, 2026, the Okefenokee Swamp was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can read more about the Okefenokee at Okefenokee World Heritage Site.

One of our favorite state park campgrounds was once named Stephen C. Foster State Park located in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Fargo, Georgia. The state of Georgia renamed the park Okefenokee State Park on September 1, 2026. We camped there many times during the years. Our favorite thing to do was to take a boat ride into the swamp. Sometimes we went on a Ranger led boat tour, sometimes we rented a canoe to paddle through the swamp, and sometimes we rented a small motor boat. As we rode through the swamp through Spanish Moss Covered Cypress trees we always saw plenty of wildlife including alligators and birds.

Here are a few of my favorite images of the Okefenokee.

Into the Okefenokee
Okefenokee World Heritage Site

Alligator in the lily pads, Okefenokee Swamp

Cormorant in Okefenokee Swamp

Okefenokee Swamp

Okefenokee World Heritage Site

Last week Sofia’s fun challenge of What is it? had us guessing what was depicted in a photo. You had some really great photos that made me think “I have no idea”. Thank you to everyone who joined the challenge.

Many thanks to our host John for this week’s fun challenge. If you would like to join the challenge please be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to his post Lens-Artists #412: Places shaped by water.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, September 12 at noon eastern time when I will be your host for the challenge.

You can keep up with all of our challenges by subscribing to the Lens-Artists team members websites: Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, John, Sofia, Anne, Egidio, Ritva, Beth.

For information on how to join the Lens-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

Terri’s Flower Hour #46: Can you guess these flowers starting with P, Q and R?

Posted in Flowers, Nature, Photography, WildflowersTagged , , , , 39 Comments

Are you ready for another photo quiz today? Let’s have some fun with Terri’s Floral ABC’s theme of flowers featuring PQR. I don’t have a Q flower for you so I have included two that start with P and one that starts with R. Can you identify them? You can check your answers at the end of this post.

P1
P2
R

Sharing with Terri’s Flower Hour #46

P1: Phlox, P2: Sweet Pea, R: Rhododendron

Every Day is a Gift

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #411 – What is It?

Posted in PhotographyTagged , , 40 Comments

Sofia introduces her challenge like this: “Imagine this week’s challenge is a quiz. You’ll all be the quiz master setting the images and we’ll have to guess what is depicted.”

I hope you have some fun trying to guess what is depicted in these images. The answers are at the end of the post.

1. What is it?

2. What is it?

3. What is it?

4. What is it?

5. What is it?

And the answers are:

  1. Crab Legs
  2. Jellyfish
  3. Fish in a fish hatchery
  4. Rope Swing
  5. Rusty boat anchor chain

Many thanks to Ritva for hosting last week’s challenge One Photo Edited. I enjoyed seeing all of your creative edits. Thank you to everyone who joined the challenge.

Many thanks to our host Sofia for this week’s fun challenge. If you would like to join the challenge please be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to her post Lens-Artists #411: What is it?.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, September 5 at noon eastern time when John will be hosting the challenge.

You can keep up with all of our challenges by subscribing to the Lens-Artists team members websites: Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, John, Sofia, Anne, Egidio, Ritva, Beth.

For information on how to join the Lens-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #154 / #410 – One Photo Edited

Posted in PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 50 Comments

This week Ritva is looking back to Tina’s challenge #154 – One Photo Two Ways. You can view Tina’s original challenge here. Ritva asks us “to explore the different methods you use to create images.”

I don’t always do a lot of photo editing except for cropping and sometimes a few minor edits. For this challenge I have chosen three images and used different editing techniques to create the final image. In each of the examples the original photo is on the left with the final edited image on the right.

For my first example I took a photo of pink Knockout Roses. I thought the original photo was kind of blah so I cropped the photo to a square with two blooms and replaced the background with black to bring out the vibrant pick blooms.

In this next example I wanted to give this old cabin at the Fort King Georgie State Historic Site a more old fashioned look. First I cropped the photo to focus on the cabin surrounded by the ancient oak trees. I then converted the image to sepia tones.

In this final example I thought the original photo of the blue umbrellas and chairs on the beach was ok but I wanted to make it a little more fun. I tried several different effects before I decided I liked the way it looked with a colored pencil effect.

Many thanks to guest host Steve Hyde’s for hosting last week’s challenge. Your responses to his Best Ever Photo challenge were fantastic. Thank you to everyone who joined the challenge.

Thank you to our host Ritva for this week’s fun challenge. If you would like to join the challenge please be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to her post Lens-Artists #410: One Photo Edited.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, August 29 at noon eastern time when Sofia will be hosting the challenge.

You can keep up with all of our challenges by subscribing to the Lens-Artists team members websites: Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, John, Sofia, Anne, Egidio, Ritva, Beth.

For information on how to join the Lens-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #409 – Best Ever Images

Posted in Birds, Butterflies, Photography, WildlifeTagged , , , , , , , , , 54 Comments

We are happy to welcome Steve Hyde as our guest host for this week’s challenge. In honor of World Photography Week he is challenging us to share five pictures that show our love of photography – Our Best Ever Images.

Choosing five images from thousands of photos was not an easy task. I finally narrowed it down to the following images.

This is one of my favorite bird images of all time. There is a tree in our neighborhood next to a small pond where I often see birds hanging out. Several years ago I captured this Wood Stork and Egret perched on one of the limbs of the tree.

I have many Butterfly images that I have posted in the past. I dug through my archives and found this image of a Monarch Butterfly on a pink flower with a Black-Eyed Susans in the background.

Monarch Butterfly with Black Eyed Susans in the background

Up until a couple of years ago we always had a boat. We spent many happy hours with our children and grandchildren riding through the salt marsh in the saltwater rivers and creeks exploring the uninhabited islands and sandbars. One of of favorite places to go was through the narrow, winding creeks that the locals call the Mosquito Ditch.

The Mosquito Ditch

I love to take wildlife photos. This pod of Orcas in Alaska is one of my favorites because we almost didn’t see any Oracas on our trip. We had taken two other wildlife cruises in other parts of Alaska and saw many different kinds of wildlife but we still hadn’t seen any Orcas. Our last opportunity to take another wildlife cruise was in Valdez. The scenery and wildlife was spectacular. All of a sudden this pod of Orcas surfaced right beside the boat. I was ready with my camera and was able to capture a few photos before they went on their way. This is one of my all time favorites because it almost didn’t happen.

Pod of Orcas in Alaska

My final image is my favorite landscape. I chose it because it brings back happy memories of our trip to St. Lucia to celebrate our 30th anniversary many years ago. Seeing this view each day from our villa was magical.

Pitons, St. Lucia

I enjoyed seeing all of your wonderful Over the Top responses to Egidio’s challenge last week. Thank you to everyone who joined the challenge.

Many thanks to guest hose Steve Hyde for this week’s fun challenge. If you would like to join the challenge please be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to his post Lens-Artists #408: Best Ever Images.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, August 22 at noon eastern time when Ritva will be hosting the challenge.

You can keep up with all of our challenges by subscribing to the Lens-Artists team members websites: Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, John, Sofia, Anne, Egidio, Ritva, Beth.

For information on how to join the Lens-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift