April 5 - Extreme close-up

I was in Sydney a couple of days ago and stepped out on the verandah when this friendly rainbow lorikeet came to see if I had food for him... (no, but I did get a rather interesting close-up as he walked towards the camera!)

April 4 - Experimental

I have been playing with overlays and colouring in PS lately - I wish I had more time to experiment! These are some horse photos - we live in the 'horse capital of Australia' and many of the country's biggest and best horse studs are near our farm. The mother and baby were snapped at one of the properties down the road, I just loved the matching heart shaped blazes :) but the gorgeous old arabian in our paddock was a boarder here for many years and would run to see if I had a treat for him whenever when I went anywhere near!

The B&W was done with a B&W adjustment layer and a light 'glow' filter, while the others have had overlays done with various combinations of warm texture photos and a displacement map border.

I have always loved to take photos of old walls, tree barks, sandstone and other rocks and these are coming in handy for the experiments, but you can also download textures from flikr where photographers make them freely available. I'm having fun using overlays for grungy effects.

April 3 - Exercise

I must admit - taking a walk 'just' for exercise doesn't do much for me ... but when I take my camera it's suddenly a wonderful thing to do, especially at sunrise on a morning like this at Diamond Head on the east coast of NSW...

April 2 - Excitement

The little bloke loves his play house and anyone who will join in the excitement is welcome to come in! I was playing with creating borders using displacement maps and this was one result - good fun.

April 1 - Evil

Remember the post for 'emotion' where the little bloke was so upset at being told 'no' - well, here's the reason - kitty does NOT like being attacked by a 1-year-old :) here's her 'evil kitty' response... (all hiss and snarl, no claws)

March 31 - Enormous

Iceland has 'enormous' well covered!

Gullfoss is one of Iceland's most spectacular waterfalls - the Hvita river sends enormous quantities of water hurtling down in two stages at angles to each other. See the tiny people on the rocks at the edge of the falls - no safety rails in Iceland - just be sensible and don't get too close to the edge! Once you are down there the roar of the water is almost overwhelming as it hurtles over the massive rock faces. Worth the walk :)

March 30 - Emptiness

Two landscapes today - the Grand Canyon isn't empty, it's teeming with life when you get down there, but the sense of a huge empty space is almost overwhelming when you look over the edge.

In Iceland, the high tundra areas seem to stretch forever, but this landscape isn't empty either, we walked across this landscape to thermal pools and found hardy little flowers pushing their buds through the snow (That's a photo for another time)