I’m around…
I thought I should do a post to let anyone who happens to stop by that I’m away…left February 15th returning March 17th. with the exception of answering emails, I’ve not been online…I will visit and post when I have the time…below are photos from Florida…
this fellow is having breakfast in Dunedin…
Lake Dora, Tavares, 
part of the Clearwater Beach skyline…
these are the first photos taken with my “new to me” Nikon DSLR camera…I’m having fun experimenting with it…after only a few days I realize already I need a macro lens, possibly a stronger zoom lens? will see after a bit more working with it…
looking west…
I wanted to play a bit with this photo as I thought it had great potential…as you may have noticed I’m a huge fan of contrasts…so that is what you will see today…below is the original photo…this was taken last Saturday before I went the the Radar Runs…
this is threshold adjusted…
sepia of course…I’m becoming a fan of sepia, it adds interesting colour to the photo, giving an aged appearance to the photo…
up close and personal…
I hunted for these two photos last week and I couldn’t find them…I found one similiar but not the right one…then yesterday when I was looking for something completely different, of course I found these two…the one below is a terrible photo, I was inside the house and there is a very large over hang, like a huge wooden umbrella so it didn’t allow for a great shot, terribly dark and I tried many things to do something with it…but it shows how close the deer came to my house on the lake…
on his way home…as you can see the water is not up to full levels.
Sunset Park…
I took a few photos yesterday at Sunset Park, before venturing over to the Radar Runs…it was such a beautiful day yesterday…today is pretty good as well…sunny and relative warm for a winter day! -2C but 28F for those using Fahrenheit. the photo below is looking out onto Lake Nipissing…to the west. I rather like this one below, something about the trees that always appeals to me…think I’ll do a bit of experimenting with it in a few days…
the next two photos are looking north west along the Lake Nipissing shore line….
radar run…
today was a beautiful day…sunny, no wind to speak of and not terribly cold! I saw in the paper the snowmobile Radar Runs were taking place today at Sunset Park,Lake Nipissing, so I decided to take a few minutes and take a look…I used to love going to these events when I was younger…driving a snowmobile was very high on my list of a good time…I managed to get a few photos, but I have to say the lack of attendance surprised me…there were a large number of participants but very few spectators…years ago when I attended it was wall to wall people, it was difficult to get a good viewing spot for each event…
the photo below should be to the left of the photo above…didn’t know how to pan with the camera so did it in two shots…regardless of the lack of spectators the participants to enjoyed themselves…if you look very closely at the top photo you can see the track just left of centre in the photo…
just finished his races…
favourites…
I’d decided to show you a few of my favourite photos today…but…I’ve been having an issue with the photos showing up on the page properly…anyone else having a problem with this?
looking for heat…
today is one of those days when I’m thinking of Florida…so I’m posting three photos from there…
this is one of the beaches at Naples, at the end of 5th Avenue…there was a person laying on the sand that was rather close so I used the cloning brush and brushed him out…kind of a cool process…this was my first attempt…I think it is rather visible but I’m sure my technique will improve over time…
this is the same beach but if you look way down on the right you will see the white of the condos/high rises farther down…again I used the cloning tool to eliminate a body I didn’t want in the photo…very nice beach and not busy at all!!!
a US Navel ship docked at Fort Zachary, Key West…
more experimentation…or playing if you will!
I’m enjoying experimenting with the settings in PhotoScape…it is a free program that is basically for beginners like myself…it does have a few advanced settings, at least to me they are… of which I’m trying to understand but for the most part it is very simple to work with!
below is the original photo…love this area of Leesburge, Florida…
grey scale…I would like to figure out how to do the grey scale, but adding a punch of color…for instance in this photo the bird or some of the docks could be coloured…that look appeals to me.
worked with the saturation on this one…
and of course the reverse black and white…I love contrasts…
I’ve been playing around a bit more…rather like the results, especially with the luminance and the reverse black & white…
original
snow day photo…luminance
original photo
experimenting with the levels…
yesterday I took this photo of the gnarly birch tree…I love trees with limbs like this one so interesting, always makes me wonder why the limb grew the way it did? I took the photo of the whole tree but it is in front of what I think is one of the City yards and there are work buildings etc., which doesn’t contribute to an interesting photo…too much going on when I wanted to concentrate on just the tree, so as you can tell it is cropped…
then I decided to play a little with the tools in PhotoScape as I’ve not done a great deal with it yet…this one is colour enhanced slightly.
this one is of course grayscale…
on this one I adjusted the luminance curve…
and finally…this one is reverse black and white…
very interesting to see what can be done with a relatively simple program…for the time being PhotoScape works for me…I know there is so much more that can be done with PhotoShop, but I don’t have the time to learn the ins and outs before I begin using it…this works for now!
low visibility or bright & sunny…
yesterday was bitterly cold, more important the wind was very strong & raw, it was a north west wind so it came of the lake, whipping up the snow and blowing it around…I took two photos yesterday of ice huts on the lake to show you what kind of day it was…today I took photos of the same ice huts to compare…
above is yesterday…visibility was very low…below is today, still very cold but nice!
again above is yesterday and below is today…the wind is still cold today but nothing like yesterday…
there was a time when I enjoyed ice fishing, snowmobiling…I’m passed that now! 🙂
Heather Cote... 