Tossing a basket

It is amusing what people will do to win a fluffy toy.
At the recent celebrations for Australia Day one stall holder had a very simple idea for making money. All he had was one basket ball and one hoop and a dozen or more stuffed toys as rewards for the person who could throw accurately. At three dollars for three throws I think he would have been comfortably off by the end of the day! There are not too many people who can throw a ball into a circle only fractionally larger than the ball! For me it would have been cheaper to buy the toy! My left eye is my strongest eye and I am right handed so I have never ever been accurate at aiming a bow and arrow, hitting a cricket ball or throwing a basket ball! At least I can aim the camera!
AJ

Characters of Australia

F6.3 shutter speed 1/500 taken at 200mm with 18 - 200 mm Tamron.

There are wonderful shots to be taken when people are not posing. Somehow the naturalness of a turned head or slumped shoulders conveys such a lot about the person.

Two of the pictures included today are of men busy at the Australia Day event.

The first is of an axeman preparing his blade for the competition. He was seated in the shade with the sun just catching his hat and his shoulders but as the shot was taken in RAW I was able to pull up the dark shadows in ACR without blowing out the highlights. The fact that you cannot see this man's eyes does not worry me, the body language shows the concentration that would be in the eyes. The success of a woodchop depends very much on the keenness of the blade. This axe is a lethal weapon!

F 6.3 Shutter speed 1/500 also taken at 200mm with 18-200mm Tamron lens.

My second character is a smithy, he was working at an old forge so the heat must have been quite unbearable. He looks exhausted and he also looks quite typical of the men of the bush. A true outback character. I caught this shot of him as he turned from winding the handle of the mechanical bellows that blew air under the burning coals to heat the metal he was working on.

Finally a fun shot of a collection of mini characters who were only 30cm tall ....

F 6.3 Shutter speed 1/400 at the full tele end of the 18-200mm Tamron lens.

The piglets were all dressed up in their racing finery for a very special race that they ran once every hour. A dish of milk was placed at the end of the run which was arranged in the same way as the run we have to take to check in at the airport before flying anywhere! The piglets would be released from a small fenced off end of the run and since they had done this a few times already they knew there was a reward at the end of the trail so off they would trot with the audience calling out to their chosen pig but occasionally they would all turn around and head back the way they came! Everyone, including the piglets, enjoyed the fun!

AJ

More from Australia Day

I had such a wonderful time with the camera at the Australia Day festivities that I just have to share some of the shots I took! OK, So I am a show off!

My first picture is of a real Scottish Piper. F 6.3 at 1/320 sec 28mm ISO 200

I heard the sound of bagpipes playing and went off in search of the source of the sound. I didn't have far to look as he was just around the corner of the main building having what he thought was a quiet practice! Bagpipes, quiet? Anyway, I greeted him and remarked that the tune he just played wasn't very Scottish. He asked me which one and I said "Marching to Georgia" and wasn't that an American tune? He agreed but went on to tell me that the tune was used with Scottish words "Hey, the Billy boy" (I think that is what he said!) and gave me the interesting story about the song. Having befriended this uniformed man I asked him if I could take a picture of him at the top of the steps and he willingly obliged. Just as well because I had to ask him to move twice because I didn't want the building behind him, I wanted to get the sky as his background. I think the shot shows his strength of character and his stance conveys that defiance that I always associate with the Scottish attitude to the over-lord approach by the English.

Yesterday I showed the flags lined up waiting to be raised at the start of the Australian Citizenship ceremony. The flags were to be raised by four people who had been given special awards for their contribution and work with the community. Before the raising of the flags the MC told all the people waiting to swear their oath as Australian Citizens to turn to the people on either side of them and shake their hand and say "G'day". My next shot is of two of the people who had been awarded Citizen of the Year for the Gold Coast.

F6.3 at 1/320 sec 65mm ISO 200

The 17 year old had been awarded Young Gold Coast Citizen for his work as a member of the Junior Council program and the man with the wonderful whiskers was awarded Gold Coast Citizen of the Year for his work with trouble youth.

The third shot in this collection is of an Axeman. The Woodchop has been an Australian event since the beginning of settlement. There are three different sorts of events with the timber (in this event it is Ironbark) held upright as in this shot, horizontal and the axeman stands on the timber and at the top of a three metre pole where the axeman has to cut chips into the pole, put a plank in the chip, stand on the short plank and cut the next chip and put a plank in and so on until he is high enough to be able to cut the block of wood at the top of the pole.

This shot was also shot with the same Aperture of 6.3 but a higher speed (it was so bright!) 1/500 sec and using the telephoto end of the lens - 120mm and the same ISO 200.

I wanted to be able to freeze the chips of wood as they flew from the axe - this is why I used such a high shutter speed.

AJ

Australia Day 2010

Today is a very important day for Australians, it is a day of unashamed exhibitions of patriotism and pride. There are celebrations the country over and many of us make these celebrations a not-to-be-missed occasion.
My photo was taken from behind a crowd of people waiting to make their promise of allegiance to the country at a Citizenship ceremony.
The flags in front of the crowd are all Australian flags, the one on the left is the Australian flag, the centre one is the Queensland flag (The Gold Coast is in the state of Queensland) and the flag on the right is the Aboriginal flag. The Australian aboriginals do not consider themselves “Australians” so they march under their own flag. (Something that I do not condone – but even if politicians did not like it they are unable to say so for fear of being labelled racist)

I watched as the flags were raised and a volley of shots was fired by six men dressed in the uniforms of military forces that are now no longer in existence and singing of the National Anthem before moving away to see some of the other activities on show - more pictures and stories about the day tomorrow!

AJ

Using a texture over a picture

Just for fun and because it is Sunday and I have time to myself (wonderful) I downloaded a texture from one of the contributors at Flickr "skeletalmess" and had a bit of fun applying it to one of my uninspiring photographs to see how it would change it.

To combine two images it is important to first have them the same size.

With both the texture and the picture open in Photoshop I clicked on the texture to make it the selected image. Then I clicked on Image>Image size to bring up the resizing box. No alterations were done here, what I did next was to click on "Windows" in the menu bar and down at the bottom were listed the two images that were open in Photoshop. I clicked on the obscure name of the boats tied up at the wharf (letters and numbers assigned by the camera) and then clicked on OK in the Image Size box (which was still open).

The texture suddenly changed in size. It became very much bigger. In fact it became exactly the same dimensions and pixels per inch as the other picture.

Now I selected all (Ctrl +A) to select the texture and then copied it (Ctrl +C).

Clicked on the other picture and pasted the texture (Ctrl + V).

Of course, now I could see nothing except the texture. The image had been completely covered.

In the Layers palette I clicked on the blending modes ("Normal" is the default setting) and started to scroll through all the different blending options, pausing when I found one that I liked or found interesting.

Eventually I returned to Linear Burn and then reduced the opacity to 70%. Now this is what I finished up with.

Click here for a larger image. If ever there is a highlighted word in my text it will link to a larger picture.

After this experience I spent quite a bit of time downloading several textures to my HD for future play!

AJ

doggy haircut

Lucky Byron had a visit to the poodle parlour where he could catch up with all the other shaggy dogs in the neighbourhood a couple of days ago.
When I walk Byron past dogs in the street he just has to reach out and see if he knows them but when I take him for a haircut you would think he was unaware of the other dogs. It is really strange - he loves the girls who do the clipping and he loves the fuss they make of him and he loves the treats they give him afterwards but he could not really care less about the other dogs no matter how large or small!
So our super woolly boy is now slim and sleek and able to sneak through the long grass without touching it!
We took him (and Samson) to the park - and as you can see from the photos, the fellows responsible for the upkeep had been a little slack! Great conditions for paralysis ticks!
Throughout the park are jumps and ramps and poles for playing with the dogs - and they love it when I run with them and make them jump over things. The jumps are only knee height and the run is not as fast as it could be (my tiny grandkids could beat me!) but the dogs have fun and I get a bit of exercise too!
Did I tell you that Byron has celebrated his tenth birthday? He is a senior citizen now!
AJ

A Koala uplift

Looking through my photos to see what I had, I came across some delightful pictures of a sleeping koala. It isn't only the tourists who love these delightful and harmless Australian treasures, we locals can't get enough of them either!
But this shot needed a little work done to it to lift it out of the doldrums.
The photo was taken with the Nikon 70s and was in RAW format as well as jpg so I was able to open the picture twice in the Abobe RAW workplace. The first time I opened it I corrected the exposure for the background and the second time I increased the exposure, added some fill light and a little more black to correct the most important part of the photo, the koala in the fork of a tree.With both pictures open in Photoshop, I clicked on the image with the koala and its tree corrected. Then I roughly selected around the tree and occupant and Ctrl+C to copy the selection.
Then I clicked on the other image with the darker background and pasted (Ctrl + V) the koala selection onto it. Using the magnify tool I selected around the back foot of the koala to zoom right in to that part of the animal. Then the "V" key on the keyboard was tapped to make sure I did not have any selection or crop tool selected ("V" gives you the "Move" tool) and reduced the opacity to about 30% in the layers palette. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard I moved the koala layer until the hook on the toe was exactly over the one on the image below.Next I clicked on the Add Layer Mask in the layers palette, Chose a soft edged brush and painted away all the bright leaves from around the tree trunk and koala.
Once I was satisfied that there were no tell-tale bright bits to show that I had copied and pasted I "applied" the mask and then sharpened the koala and tree using "Smart Sharpen".
A blank new layer was added above the koala and selecting a shadow colour from the tree branch I painted over the very bright branch behind the koala's head to dull it down. I reduced the opacity and changed the blending mode to "darker color" and when I felt nothing more was needed the three layers were flattened.
and here is the final image.The camera may not lie but it doesn't necessarily see what our eyes see. Our eyes will compensate for the shadows while our cameras cannot without compromising the colour and shading of the surrounds - so with the tools that Photoshop has given us we can now produce what we know we saw!
AJ

Macro monster

I took the advice of the comment with my photos of the dragonfly and when a strange and hairy little critter was spotted in the dogs water dish I fished it out and reached for the Samsung NV3 and while bugsy was trying to find the OTHER side of the shopping docket I one handedly pressed the macro button and got close and personal.
What a fast moving thing it was - those long hairs at the front (I think it was the front!) were waving all over the place so I didn't think I would get a decent shot of him but you can see them quite well in the second shot. No way would I have managed to get this close with the SLR - I would have had to take a shot from about five feet away and crop the image severely - as I did with the dragonflies.
No I don't think I will bother with spending heaps of money on a macro lens when my "reserve" camera will do the job I want!
AJ

The camping bug

Recently Colin and I have been plotting and planning an outback trip with our eldest son Steven and we had been thinking about purchasing or hiring a four wheel drive camper trailer. Even if we did that there would still not be enough room for five adults (my sister and husband are considering joining in) so Paul dug out his family tent and gave us a demonstration on how easy it was to put up and how much room was inside it. This tent was used so long ago that Kayla, the five year old, does not even remember it!

I encouraged the children to help Daddy and Grandad put the tent up - Kayla put in a couple of tent pegs and Grandad pushed them in further and both little girls helped zip and unzip the doors and windows and roll up the screens and generally had a great time in this wonderful big canvas cubby house!

The tent has two rooms, one of which is small enough for a single sleeping bag and the children thought this was the best part especially when granny joined them in there and we all lay down and pretended to go to sleep! It was a shame we had to pull it all down again and pack it away!

AJ

Insects in the garden

When you are not using a macro lens, taking insects and getting something you can see is not easy. This afternoon I wandered quietly around the front garden with my Olympus in my hand and the 40 - 150mm lens and ND2 filter attached. To begin with my spirits rose as I heard the sound of Blue Wrens and one by one three little birds flew out from the vegetation just in front of me - but that was the trouble. They flew out and they didn't return! The wrens are not in the garden all the time, they must migrate to other places because we haven't seen or heard them for months.

Dejected I walked round and round the garden very slowly with eyes peeled and spotted a tiny dragonfly. Carefully I lined him up and focused and fired. Hmm, wrong setting, turned the dials and had another go. Much better. Once more try - but it had gone! Will it turn out? Here it is.....

Then I notice two yellow and black hornets mining for mud to build a nest. I had several tries at capturing them but I really needed to get closer and my camera would not let me. Wrong lens for the job. Oh for a macro lens!!! The insects would carry off their mud and return for more so I would have had plenty of opportunity to get good shots - but my attempts with the 40-150mm are not worth keeping.Another dragonfly was sighted and I kept far enough back for the lens to be zoomed in and focused and managed to get two shots before this energetic insect disappeared. When I processed the shots of this dragonfly I could see that it was different from the first one.

Summer is a busy time for insects. In close up they are fascinating to look at. (All except the cockroach!)

AJ

The dragons of Queensland

Since I mentioned that Samson was a dragon chaser I thought I should show you what our dragons look like. Actually the dragons on our block of land are very timid - maybe that is Samson's fault - and I cannot get close to them so I have been to a wildlife park not far away where the dragons are very bold. They are wild creatures and are not in enclosures, they are exactly as our dragons are, they live in the bush near the waterways and run around freely.
These two photos are of the same handsome water dragon that I met on one of the walkways that meander around the wild life park.
One of the things I always advise people with a camera to do is to get down to the eye level of the subject. This works both for video and for still photography. If I had been standing upright and had the camera four feet from the ground this lizard would have looked very different - and you would have then seen him from above!
The trouble with getting older is that once you have bobbed down to get the shot you have to get up again without looking as if you are struggling (which is what you are doing!) Having a tripod handy is useful! Having a tree or a post beside you is even better! Fortunately for me this wildlife park is always empty of people - which is why I love it! So I could struggle up without worrying!
These days most tourists want to go on rides or see exotic animals such as white tigers (Dreamworld) or polar bears (Sea World) so Fleays Fauna Centre is off the tourist's list of places to go. I have taken many of my overseas and inter-state guests there and they have loved it. The animals are in large enclosures that look very natural so it is excellent for natural looking shots of Australian animals with backgrounds that look as if the shot was taken in the wild. Another plus is that the walkways are above the animal enclosures so there are no wires to get in the way of the shot - except for the more agile and possibly dangerous animals.
Some of the marsupials are impossible to get close to any other way than by visiting such a park. I know that I have never seen a tree kangaroo in the wild and probably never will but at Fleays I have taken some fantastic shots of one.
I did see one of these water dragons today though. It was resting on a branch of one of the trees over the water at the bottom of our block of land and it leapt into the water and disappeared when I pointed the camera at it! Grr!
AJ

Samson the strong

Beautiful black Samson has been a member of our family for only a couple of years but in that time we have really changed his personality and Byron has found a good friend. From his initial behaviour we deduced that Samson had been neglected - a big dog shut in a small back yard with no company and nothing to do.

Now he has a whole acre of land to stretch his legs and run but what does he do? He lies in his hammock and sleeps all day! The dog bed is just outside the door and when ever anyone comes out, he is head up and eager eyes, and should you talk to him; well! He is on his feet and pressing close against you before you can say "Jack Robinson"!

We reckon he is the perfect security dog. He is black so no one would see him at night, he is silent so no one would know he was there but he would hear any one who came into the garage and he would be there and for sure he would trip them up!

This afternoon Colin and I went down through the yard to go and pick a few mangoes from the trees that lean over the creek at the bottom of the block. Neither Samson nor Byron needed any encouragement to join us - they were right there leading the way. Samson is a lizard chaser and we are rather fond of the big lizards that live in that part of the property so we had to call him back as he raced down to the water.

He was easily distracted by our call and raced back to join us as we made our way rather slower than he had, down to the mango trees.

Colin managed to persuade both Byron and Samson to pose for me with one of the pine cones from the Bunya pine. Byron is a little closer to the camera so looks to be larger but both dogs are identical in size however while Byron is a "designer dog", Samson is a Curly Coat Retriever which is a pure breed. It is also a very old breed of dog. The English Game Keepers of the landed gentry would have a curly coat retriever as their working dog.

The Curly Coat retriever has short hair over the face to the top of the head. The coat is hair and unlike Byron, moults. There is black hair all over the garage floor and we have to sweep it up every day. Poor old Byron is getting really woolly and I shall ring up tomorrow and book him in for a clip. He will then look more like a greyhound!

So now you have met the most important young members of our household. We worry about them when we go away any where and complain that it costs as much to have them looked after as it does for us to have our holiday - but we wouldn't have it any other way! They are always so pleased to have us home. Dogs are very forgiving!

AJ

Top dog in the family

Today I am going to introduce you to my best boyfriend - well I shouldn't say that or I will make my other boyfriends jealous! Tomorrow I will show you my equally best boyfriend - the one that lives downstairs!

Byron has been a member of our household for almost ten years - I know that because he celebrated his tenth birthday on January 12th and he was a young pup with eyes wide open when we bought him - but he was fortunate enough to be allowed to stay with his mum until he was about 12 weeks old because Colin and I were away on holiday and couldn't pick him up when his brothers and sisters left home.

Byron is a "Paddy poodle" an invented dog! His father was a huge handsome standard poodle and his mother a cute Irish Water Spaniel. Irish = Paddy... see?

We used to have a golden Cocker Spaniel - he lived to be 15 years old and it wasn't until six months after we lost him that we realised that Colin was not sniffling and coughing any more. He had been allergic to the dog hair and we hadn't realised it. Byron does not have hair, he has wool like a poodle. He does not shed any hair so can live inside the house and not make a mess on the carpets. He does not smell all doggy when he is wet so again he can come into the house and (Except when he has had a lamb bone) we can breathe easy around him. It was a chance chat with a friend that I learned about Byron being available and how he would be "anti-allergenic" so without even consulting the man of the house I decided he was to be ours! Its a good job there wasn't a divorce!

With Colin it was love at first sight so no divorce!

Byron now has a new friend - well not so new now, we found Samson at the Council Dog Pound a couple of years ago now and they are firm friends. I will take some pictures of Samson and introduce him to you tomorrow.

Byron is a delightful dog and is an instant hit with all who meet him. The eyes are getting a little cloudy now but since he does not read very much we will not be paying thousands of dollars to a doggy eye specialist to have the cataracts removed. He can see very well still and he is a happy chappy and to us that is all that matters.

AJ

Colour and distraction

I know I have "raved on" about the birds visiting my home previously but I cannot get enough of them! My ears are so used to their high pitched screaming that their din does not worry me any more - unless I am trying to have a conversation with someone or answering the phone! My last photo of the Lorikeets was of them during rain when their feathers were all dull so it is only right an proper that I should show how they really look!
It seems a shame that the name "King Parrot" should be given to a bird that only has two colours to show off while these superb and showy birds are mere "subjects" with a most incredible ornithological name "Thrichoglossus Haemotodus" (fortunately not known by most of us humans), so it is a good thing that we have given them a good old Ozzy name "Rainbow Lorikeet". Most of our common bird names are so obvious that if you say "Oh look there is a little finch with red eye brows" you will not be surprised if the bird book tells you that it is a "red Browed Finch"!!!! I was to begin with - but have got used to it!
Take another look at the Rainbow Lorikeets - can you see the one hanging upside down from the wire? and the one on this side standing sideways and reaching in for food? They are having a really fun time on that wire cage. The big Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (white cockatoos with a sulphur yellow crest!) are too big to get in to the feed. This is why we put the cage there. The cockatoos would, when they have finished eating, toss the dish off the feeder to the ground below. (We are on the first floor, not the ground floor in this pic, so they are banned from the feed dish!)
Every morning we would get between twenty and fifty of these lorrikeets but I always put out the same amount of diluted raw sugar - 1 litre - and four slices of white bread. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to disappear but the trees planted around the house include lots of native flowering varieties so they move on to those and get a more balanced diet. The sugar is only to draw them into the garden, the main feed is actually in the garden.
This morning I was racing around getting stuff ready for our monthly photo and video get -together. I have organised an email group of enthusiasts (and "boy" are they enthusiastic) who exchange both photos to set topics and make short videos so once a month those of us who live in this area gather to watch the videos that have been posted to us as well as videos made by local members. Anyway..... I was racing around getting ready for our day when I chanced to see a visitor on one of my roses. I dropped everything and raced upstairs to get the camera with one of my u-beaut new ND filters screwed in place and whereas once I would have reached for the spray can I nowadays reach for the Nikon or the Olympus!
Here is my visitor.....
Once I had my hopper's picture "in the can" I was once again free to race around and get things ready! I just hope he isn't going to grow to be a huge locust and gobble up all my plants. I forgot to squash it!
AJ

Fun with filters

I love shopping on Ebay and I have to hold back from "surfing" so that I do not get more things that I know what to do with! I had been toying with the idea of replacing my Olympus 500E SLR because it would always "blow out" whites no matter what settings I used. This was the reason I had taken to using my son's Nikon D70s and subsequently fell in love with it!
But I decided on one more concerted effort to learn how to use my own camera effectively and satisfactorily.
For the last two weeks I have been using full manual controls rather than selecting Aperture Priority or Speed Priority and the difference in what I have captured has been nothing short of miraculous. I am also using full manual focus too and the sharpness of the images is definitely better (when I get it right!) and I do not have the frustration of the focus shifting when I have only a small window of vision - like with the Little Black Cormorant through the branches of the tree in a previous blog. When there is a chance of your subject changing its position it is important to be able to focus fairly quickly, when the focus switches back and forth trying to lock onto the subject that is all the time it would take to miss the golden opportunity.Another thing I thought I would try was to put on an ND filter. This was a legitimate reason to hunt through my favourite web site!

I found a seller offering ND2,4 and 8 and at a price any cash strapped buyer could afford! They arrived two days ago and it was only this morning when the sun was absolutely dazzling that I had the opportunity to take a few test shots. Byron, one of my dogs, thought this was a great opportunity to explore the front garden - an unfenced area that he normally never goes on. So with my furry friend I ventured out and twisted and turned the dials to take shots with various settings.

I was using the ND4 (for no particular reason) on the 14-45mm lens and here are a couple of the shots that when I put them on the computer made me feel I had done the right thing in purchasing them.

This first one I am sharing with you is of a Tibouchina, a rather beautiful tree that is just coming out in flower in my garden. the camera setting was f/5.0 and 1/80 (hand held). The colours are richer than without the filter and I seem to have found a good depth of field so that the leaves and buds, although a bit softer than the blossom, look sharp against the blur of the grass in the background.

This is the shot that really made me happy. In all other pictures taken (without a filter) the white of the petal would be so over exposed that there would be no patterning visible at all. The settings for this shot were F/5.6 and the speed 1/100 and for both shots the ISO was 200.

Once the clouds started dulling the ambient light the ND4 filter required shutter speeds that would have necessitated a tripod. But for the full sun it was excitingly efficient.

Now the sky is white with clouds and it is still very bright so I should go out and play with the ND2 now!

When would you use ND8 I wonder?

AJ

Backyard birds

Every morning I feed the birds, it is a ritual that has become accepted by the birds and if I am late the neighbourhood is told about it - the screeching of the lorikeets can be heard for quite some distance! In an earlier jotting I showed you the lorikeets, this time I am showing some of the finches that take advantage of the free feed.

Chestnut Breasted Finches are very social little birds and always seem to be in flocks. They live by waterways and feed on seed when it has just formed - the green soft seed. So these little fellows can often be seen clinging to tall grasses and "going for their lives". However the grass seeds in this ripening state do not last for ever, so the birds have then to forage - and one flock has discovered where the pickings are very easy.

Once the noisy lorikeets have left their dish of sugar water and bread the coast is clear for the finch invasion. We actually have three different finches that are local and regular visitors but I will show you the other two another time.

Sometimes these Chestnut finches are so numerous that they are like a swarm of flies. When it it really wet I put the feed dish on the veranda floor under the roof. with so many little feet and beaks pushing and shoving the seed is scattered all around so there are seeds and finches spread all over the veranda. Since they are small enough to be held in a closed fist these little birds do look like flies when they are in those sorts of numbers!

Small birds are the "bread and butter" of larger birds and because of this are very flighty. They have become quite accustomed to our company and fly in when we are seated at the table but in the beginning would scatter in wild confusion every time anyone made any move at all. (Seeds flying everywhere!)

The lorikeets and the black and white mudlarks are birds that like to tease the little ones and one bird will swoop down and land noisily on the bird feeder to scare the finches which fly off in desperation. The lorikeet (or mudlark) will then fly off and wait for the finches to return, settle down and relax and then do it again!We are led to believe that birds do not think - well I believe they have worked out a fun way to play!

AJ

A fishing bird

Taking my camera down to through the back yard I noticed a bird sitting bravely out on a branch over the water. I know this bird as a cormorant but Colin calls it a "shag" and it can often be seen with wings held out to dry after diving for food and getting its feathers all saturated.
I was wearing a dull coloured shirt and dark pants which was fortunate. Birds can be startled by strong light coloured clothing and I have found that if you wear something neutral and move and stop and move and stop, that the birds lose sight of you. I have successfully used this technique to get close to a flock of black cockatoos and it worked this time for the Little Black Cormorant. If you would like to see another picture I took of this bird from a different position click here. I would have liked to have been able to get a bit closer but the banks of the waterway are rather steep and I didn't fancy falling in!

There is another cormorant that looks very like this one and is called the Black Cormorant, it is slightly larger but it has a lighter base to its beak and pale yellow on its throat and it is found all over the world where as the Little Black Cormorant is only found in Australia and Indonesia.

AJ

Summer, endless summer

I have just come back from a drive to one of the beach suburbs not far from home and, of course, my trusty camera came along too. It has been a beautiful day with lots of sunshine. The temperature reached 33C and the water in the ocean a very enticing 23C. So it was no surprise to find that every beach side carpark was filled to capacity and lots of cars illegally parked on the sides of the roads straddling the solid yellow lines. (Aren't they lucky there are not too many parking inspectors working on a Sunday?) It was quite difficult to negotiate the two narrow lanes of road that were left clear - they were only wide enough for small cars so when a truck, van or bus came along it was "everyone breathe in!" and squeeze over against the parked vehicles!

Using Microsoft ICE I have stitched together a panorama of the beach and the view of Surfers Paradise in the background - so you might be able to gather that I was standing on Burleigh headland with the camera.

I have cropped a part of the panorama to show part of the crowd on the beach. Those surf lifesavers would have to be very alert to keep an eye on all these swimmers. To see a larger version try this link ....click me

If you are observant you will see where the stitching program has encountered a problem with the joining of the photos. The crashing waves are a different pattern every time you press the shutter so for the waves to be even this good is impressive - I could do some cloning to make this less obvious but I have not done that so you can see that even with such a clever program there are problems.

This CAN be corrected once the pictures have been stitched (five photos make up the main panorama) and brought into Photoshop. Again, for a larger picture .... Click here

My pictures today are just for interest to show you how on January 9th 2010 the people who are holidaying here on the Gold Coast are spending their Sunday.

AJ

A large nut!

Every day I take my camera out and use it. "My camera" could be the Olympus 500E with either of the two lenses that came with the camera or it could be my son's Nikon D70S that he no longer takes away with him when he leaves home for his long distance touring. This time it was the Olympus I was playing with and marched down into the back yard to see what I could find that was interesting.

Living on and acre of land with a waterway at the bottom does give me plenty of subjects for photography. Today was no different.

Lying on the lawn that Colin had only just finished mowing was a most "ginormous" football sized pine cone.

There were two of them, I wanted Samson, my Curly Coated retriever to pose beside one of them to give an indication of the size of it but he would not sit still long enough for me to focus! So you will have to believe me when I tell you that each one is the size of a rugby ball and more than twice as heavy.

When my youngest son was travelling to Brisbane to do his apprenticeship he would park his car in the shade under the trees and catch a train from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. One day he returned to find his windscreen smashed and the bonnet of his beautiful blue commodore, his pride and joy, dinted in a couple of places. To begin with he thought it was children who had been throwing missiles at the cars but looking around he found - you got it!!! - he found a pine cone from the Bunya pine not far from his car. That would account for the green smear on the bonnet! Up to that moment he had not realised that he had been parking his car under a Bunya pine - to him it was just a shady tree among a row of shady trees!

The tree in the back yard is now quite huge - it is over 30 years old and is still growing. The trunk has split quite some way up and the tree has two main trunks now which is why it looks as if there are more than one tree in this picture. The leaves are incredibly hard and every leave has a sharp point so they are not the sort of leaves you would pick to use in floral arrangements!

AJ

Since the rain

Well the rain has eased to morning showers and as a result the neighbourhood is buzzing with the sounds of ride-on lawn mowers and the brain penetrating roar of whipper-snippers (known as strimmers in the UK) because the grass has suddenly been endowed with enough energy to grow "an inch" a day! Almost as soon as the mowers are stopped they have to be brought back into action again!

Perhaps as a result of all the rain the mangos are now filling out and ripening. Our next door neighbour came across to us before going on holidays and told us to help ourselves to the mangos on his trees so we have taken it upon ourselves to drape bags over the ripening fruit to save them from all being eaten by the fruit bats and the cockatoos.

Did I tell you about the cockatoos? They seem to be so full of energy these days! They scream and shout every morning and do somersaults in the branches of the trees. They must be onto something really good!

In the evening the raucous screeching happens again as the birds swoop around in the fading light before making off for their evening roost. I do not envy the people who have these birds roosting in their yard! I managed to take a snap of the birds between circuits last night but the quality of the shot is not particularly good because they are about two hundred metres away. I did try to take some shots as they flew directly over me but to show you only one bird does not give you any idea of the flock sizes. This group is only part of the flock that was making its departure

Incidentally the mangos are absolutely delicious and well worth making an effort to save a few!

AJ

Exaggerating a light display with Photoshop

When I wrote about the fireworks I told you that it was possible to combine two shots to make a more dramatic one. When the background is black and the fireworks are bright - white and coloured - it is easy to combine two shots.

Make sure both images are the same size to start with (makes life so much easier!) The "Select all" on one of the pictures and paste it on top of the other.

In the Layers palette change the blending mode from "Normal" to "Screen" and the black background of the top layer magically disappears and allows the image below to show through. The top image can be resized and moved to create a better balanced picture.

So that this technique can be seen more clearly I will use two images that are quite different from each other - one is of a home that has been decorated with lights for Christmas.

The second shot is of a burst of fireworks.

By copying and pasting the fireworks picture onto the decorated home picture I can make a very special display - one the home owner didn't plan!

"But", you say, "There are more firework bursts in this combination shot than in the original."

Well spotted!

Once I had pasted the fireworks onto the decorated home picture and changed the blending mode to Screen I then copied and pasted this layer and selecting the second layer I clicked Ctr + T to select Free Transform and holding down the Shift key I resized the layer so that the firework bursts were smaller - and, of course, I moved this layer over to the right so that the sky became filled with firework lights.

I hope that you are able to follow how I combined two or more shots to make a realistic new picture.

AJ

New Years Eve

The year has ended, long live the year - or words to that effect. When the televisions chanels give a potted view of the happenings of 2009 it brings home all the amazing, wonderful, frightening and magnificent things that have happened in one short year. It is so sad that yet another Australian town should be destroyed by bush fire right at the end of the year. Will the population rally to help this community of WA like they did for the people of Victoria? I don't think so. The millions raised for Victoria has not been shared equally among the people who lost homes in Victoria - people with home insurance got nothing but the no-hopers who lost caravans and shacks got $200,000 and now drive around in flash cars - but still do not have a house. This knowledge tends to make those of us who donate money less willing to do so next time - and there will always be a next time.

Last night I took my camera and tripod to our local shopping centre at Robina where once again they were to hold a firework display. For the past two years it has not been held because of the building of new extensions to the centre. Colin and I chose a place not far from the car park next to a stout pillar and just under shelter - because it was raining when we arrived. The pillar meant that the tripod would not be a problem for anyone walking past. Colin stood beside the one leg of the tripod that extended to my right so every leg was protected.

A security guy came over and gave me a few ground rules about not shooting buildings. He was very good, not aggressive or rude at all and was merely passing on information from his "boss" who, from his lookout, obviously had noticed the tripod and large camera and assumed I was a professional photographer. (Fame at last!) The security guard had a receiver plugged in his ear and was receiving instructions on what to say as he stood in front of me. Anyway, after receiving assurances from me that I was just setting my focus by using the lights of the building in readiness for the fireworks I was left alone and treated to a grin or a wave each time he walked past through the evening.

As the first firework was fired the rain stopped and everyone was able to move out from under shelter and lean against the fence on the opposite side of the road - which meant that I had no one in front of me and very few people behind me and a clear view of the fireworks as they exploded. Not long after the security guard had left me another fellow approached me and he was the trigger man for the fireworks and he was able to tell me where the explosions would happen. Because the area was not large he explained that the fireworks would not be large either. So thanks to him I knew that I was in the right place for the action.

The fireworks were fun - but as warned, nothing spectacular. There were only the standard exploding rockets and a short burst of other rockets that spray out with golden lights. Its a bit difficult to explain so here is a picture of one of the sprays.

I basically used the settings on the camera that I had experimented with earlier in the day, using the sparkler. I tried slower speeds but ended up with too much white blur in the nucleus of the explosions so dialed the speed back to 1/20 sec.

The firework display lasted only ten minutes and I managed to take 35 pictures during that time. Not all of them are impressive and in another blog I will explain how to put two or more images together to make a more impressive display. The camera may not lie but the "Photoshopper" certainly can!

AJ