February 25 - Conspicuous

A couple of years ago in a huge storm, a bulk carrier broke anchor near the harbour and beached itself at Newcastle. It became a rather conspicuous tourist attraction until the next high tide when it was eventually pulled free of the sandbank. There is now a street named after it! I couldn't resist being one of the 'tourists' that stopped my car along the beach drive to quickly take a photo. My kids were "So embarrassed" ;) but the light was nice and we live a few hours' drive away, so it's not like I could go back the next day...

February 24 - Complexity

I love these images that show the complexity of the architecture of the Eiffel Tower - it is such a beautiful structure, with intricate metalwork and delicate design details.

February 23 - Common

Common here may not be common somewhere else. Kangaroos are common on our property, as are these cute superb blue wrens - I think monarch butterflies are common in both the USA and Australia.

February 22 - Comfort

When we go camping these days we mostly like to do it in comfort, so after years of throwing a tent in the 4WD, we bought a campervan (RV). Now it's like having a little luxury apartment when we go bush. It's nice to have a comfortable bed, shower and loo. The kids gave us a hard time about 'glamping' instead of camping, but they borrow it for their surfing safaris and road-trips, so it can't be too bad ;)

So in this first photo we had just set up in a bush campsite in the Border Ranges (on the border between Qld and NSW) it's happy hour and the wine is poured, the chairs are set up, the mozzie-spray is on the table and the carpet snake is comfortable in the corner ... oh ... maybe we are not so comfortable now ... let's just check on that snake ... yep, a beautiful big coastal carpet python. Took some photos (of course) and sat back with some wine and cheese ... now we were all comfortable again. The snake stayed for a few days, no doubt digesting whatever he had eaten before we arrived (a previous camper maybe?)

February 21 - Colours

In contrast to the B&W play this morning, some of my favourite birds in full colour - rainbow lorikeet sitting at his nest-hollow in the afternoon sun at Lightning Ridge and rainbow bee-eaters in a tree near the river behind our house.

February 21 - still cold ;)

Steve suggested I do a high contrast B&W on the half-dome image, so I did that and a couple of others that I had of the same area. My images are certainly not the quality of the master but I loved our time in Yosemite. Happy for any critiques or pointers to BW tutorials. In general I gave an adjustment layer in sift light to boost contrast, then a B&W adjustment layer and fiddled with the colours until it looked OK.

February 20 - Cold

Cold! The day before we went to Yosemite NP (in June) I had mentioned that it would be interesting to see the park in Winter ... be careful what you wish for! An overnight snowfall made for a picturesque (if very cold) start to the day with the pines looking like Christmas trees along the roadside and a dusting of summer snow on the half-dome. Beautiful!

February 19 - Clouds

Clouds - I have been looking at a weather book recently that has images of every type of cloud ... I fear it may become a new photographic obsession! Had to look through the files to find a couple of photos here as of course the weekend was clear and cloudless...

The top, almost B&W image shows an apparently rare mammatus cloud formation (named this because they look like breasts) taken in Bathurst NSW. I liked how the one from Lightning Ridge, an opal mining town, looks as though the mullock heaps on the ground are being reflected by the shapes of the clouds in the sky. Of course there is also the iconic windmill against a cloudy sky and the other two are taken from our garden across the hills that surround our farm.

February 18 - Clock

Clock - I know the theme is singular but I thought I would show two... In France the clock towers in the villages in Provence had the most beautiful ironwork above them which was different in each place we went to.

February 17 - Cleanliness

Cleanliness is for the birds! We have several bird baths in our yard but most are hidden under trees where the little finches and wrens feel safe. This one is a bit easier to photograph and was full of noisy mynas having their morning bath. Quite a social event!

February 16 - City Life

I avoid city life most of the time - give me the wide outdoors any day, but when we travel it is the everyday aspects of life in a city that can be most fascinating. Venice is an amazing place where the day to day work still goes on, even though the streets are mostly waterways and the 'delivery vehicles' are, by necessity, boats. The post still gets through, food and goods are loaded and unloaded and people walk or boat to work. Washing is done and hung to dry over the heads of tourists and residents ... life goes on. I love this city.

(I know the highlights are blown out on the washing but I couldn't resist including it...)

February 15 - Circular

Circular - agh! as soon as I started looking everything was circular - eyes, flowers, car wheels and lights, the DVDs on the desk... walking past the bathroom I spotted some sea urchin shells (well, not technically shells...) and remembered how much I love all the circular patterns on these - so they are my test subject for the day. Photographed on macro setting (handheld), sitting on a black T shirt with natural light from the window, a little sharpening and contrast from PS. Probably wouldn't have needed the sharpening if I had dragged out the tripod eh?

I found these on a beach in the far north of Australia after a storm, there were literally thousands of them along the beach.

February 14 - Chocolate

My son's chocolate burmese loves to watch the birds from her favourite place by the window - kitty TV?

February 13 - China

These Chinese Opera figures gave me a chance to play with the macro setting in low natural light, then processed with an antique filter layer, wiped back over the figures and then linear dodge on the final layer. Quite happy with the effect and though I despaired of finding something for today's challenge word it's been an interesting exercise. Camera - canon sx30is.

February 12 - Chill

Chill - Yellowstone in Summer was still chilly on places - nobody seemed to want to take advantage of this quiet picnic table at Sylvan Lake...

February 11 - children's toys

Toys - more often than not, the best toys were a cardboard box or a hammer, nails and wood. My kids also loved measuring tapes - strange but true...

Soft toys are childhood friends that don't hurt when you roll on them during the night and are always there when you need something to cuddle. Scary bear keeps the room safe at night - no monsters dare enter while scary bear is standing guard.

PS: scary bear turned in 'Bundy Bear' sometime during the teen years and still stands guard! (For our friends in other places Bundaberg Rum's label and advertising features Bundy Bear...)

Bundy's had a bit of portrait treatment just for fun, with a grunge layer added, wiped away in the middle to show him in his best light :)

February 10 - childhood

Living on the coast, much of my childhood was spent at the beach where we could run and dig and play without the confines of fences or rules. Exploring rock pools and building sandcastles lasted through summer and in winter you just wore warmer clothes. This little chap was meeting sand for the first time and was soon knocking down sandcastles like a pro...

February 9 - Character

Rasputin was quite a character! Having convinced the Russian queen that he was the only person who could treat her son for haemophilia, he also became her lover. In the basement of the Yusupov Palace in St Petersburg, home of one of Russia's most wealthy and favoured families, a dastardly plot was carried out to murder the 'mad monk'. He was invited there for a meal which had been poisoned, but apparently after waiting a respectable amount of time for the poison to work, it had no effect, so they shot him and he ran away - eventually they tracked him through the snow, attacked him again, rolled him into a rug and drowned him in the Neva river (just to be certain he was finished!). The palace is spectacular in its own right, and in the basement rooms there are wax figures showing the scene where the conspirators entertained Rasputin with his last meal. It's more fascinating than anything else as you get to walk the corridors under the palace with a Russian guide.

February 8 - Chaos

Chaos is definitely not the way things are here at home now that the rugrats have left home, but travelling has moments that sometimes redefine the word for us! This photo was taken as we flew into LA international at 6am on a Sunday morning, but by the time we picked up a car and got onto those roads which looked quite calm (if somewhat confusing) from the air - chaos was definitely the word of the day. I was too busy reading maps and finding exits to take a photo then, so an image of the 'calm before the storm' will have to do!

Soon we were in Yellowstone National Park, which is much closer to our comfort zone, except that the things that bite in the USA are much bigger than our snakes and spiders - and Yellowstone is so busy!! Chaos is definitely the word in Yellowstone when someone spots a bear. Cars and buses stop on the road and people gather in crowds with cameras and binoculars, usually keeping a respectful distance as signs and rangers everywhere remind you that people are just 'food' for bears (and slow food at that!) This crowd was gathering to watch a mother and her cubs in the trees by the roadside.

February 7 - Casual

Casual meals in outdoor cafes are one of the best things about summer - This cafe in Provence was picturesque with flowers and red umbrellas. Plat du jour was a huge bowl of fresh mussels and a basket of bread and we spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around the town. The sky had washed out in this image - I added a gradient layer at about 30% set to soft light to bring it back.

February 6 - Cars

February means the Bathurst 12-hour race will be on in a few weeks and if you have petrol in your veins then Mt Panorama's circuit is the place to be. Apart from the big, fast and noisy cars there are small, fast and noisy ones as well. These Formula Vee racers showed some fast and furious action around the mountain in 2011. Pit crews worked hard all weekend and the adrenaline was kicking in on the track when the main race was on. Cars - easier to photograph when they are stopped!

Feb 5 - Candy

What's candy? - need to have USA to Aussie translation .... ah, lollies!

will have to call on the archives again for this one - a trip to universal studios was candy for the camera - and the shops there were more fun for photos than for actually shopping. In one place they had clear tubes of jellybeans and other sweets in all the colours of the rainbow - so here is today's eye candy from the candy store ... sweet!

February 4 - Candid

Candid photography isn't my forte - I worry about people feeling annoyed that I have taken their photo, but sometimes things like this happen and I can't resist.

The organ grinder and the little girl were chatting on a street in Lyon, France. He was asking her whether she would swap her teddy for his monkey, she hugged the teddy tight behind her mother when he asked that! (you can see it behind her head)

For this image, shot in bright daylight, I wanted the antique look that the man portrays, so I desaturated the image by about 30% then added a couple of antique layers, wiping it away from the figures 100% on one layer, then about 30% away from just the faces on the second. I am amazed at what I am learning in photoshop by doing this challenge. I really like this effect on what was an interesting - but too bright and light image.

February 3 - Busy

I just had to get back to the birds :)

A parent's work is never done - and this mother oriole has been busy feeding, feeding, feeding - I am amazed at the size of the grubs she can fit into those babies! She also cleans the nest, picking up baby droppings and flying away with them. The family have flown the nest now - great timing as it is raining buckets and I don't feel like standing in the rain holding the camera to my eye for half an hour just to get a couple of shots... but it was addictive watching the little ones grow. Missed the last ones of babies balancing on the edge of the nest and flapping around as I had manually focused and bumped it off a bit as I leaned against the tree - blurry babies :(

Photos show her feeding babies over about a week so you can see the little ones growing