This is probably the last post you will see on this site. I have finally wrapped my head around giving Lost Aussie on the Loose a new home.
Future posts will be featured at the new website. So please bookmark it. Not too hard, it's just LostAussie.com
You will still be able to read and browse, even if you are not a Facebook afficionado, so no worries on that score. Comment and sing away as you please!
Thanks for tagging along.
Marie
This weekend's adventures included a rather off the cuff and last minute dash down to Charleston, South Carolina where I enjoyed some fabulous walks on the beach, a decent amount of "head cleaning" and just generally enjoying the seaside air.
The above pics are of Folly's Beach and the Fishing Pier.
Lots of fun people watching and chatting to the folk fishing along the way ....
....and some pleasant camera indulgences in Olde Town Charleston.... including frolics in the fountain and some fabulous fenetres.
I could have stayed there for weeks and hope to go back again soon .... lots more to see and do. Great landscape imagery to be had if you are in the right place at the right time and fantastic birding and wildlife in the marshes, not to mention oooodles of lovely decay in the old buildings that abound ...
Mad dash back to Charlotte because I had tickets to see the Charlotte Roller Girls this evening. Quite the bag of fun and mayhem with some good shots to be had. I definitely need a faster lens for this kind of thing though...
... sorting through some off the cuff street images tonight and thought that I would share a few that captured my eye ....
I also came across this quote in my internet meanderings.... and rather think it fits the bill ...
”When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes.
But
when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls!”
–
Ted Grant
Amen to THAT!
If you browse back and look at the post from Thailand and check out my Palace Stairs, you will see the BW starting image for this series of Mandalas....
I love concocting these things. It's a rather calming and certainly serendipitous kind of creativity that you just can't beat .... and the results aren't half bad either ...
So reminiscent of being a kid and twisting those funny tubes so that the crystals would align just so... and create that funky visual magic....
And lest you should think that I am doing narry but gazing at the Lake these days, I am in the throes of a massive digital re-organisation project. Web-sites, blogs and stuff..... very headachy! But hopefully soon to be productive and good....
Despite the continued rain, 22 days in a row, this weekend has been filled with fun, food and friends - so far.
Last night we met up with a couple of friends and ventured to downtown Charlotte and tried out BLT which was an absolutely stellar experience (and you all know how picky I am when it comes to restaurants!).
Today we "hoofed" off (yeah bad pun, sorry!) across to Harrisburg to visit other friends at their "ranch", I guess you could call it, and enjoyed some country hospitality. DH did a little hiking whilst I headed off with some four legged friends for a ride through the forrest, wading creeks and rivers and toning down the pace so that the horses did not falter in the heavy mud.
Surprisingly, there is no horse racing or polo hereabouts but, horse riding is very prevalent and since it's something that I enjoy a lot, I think a little exploration of the local amenities is in order! I could easily get used to some relaxing rides round the lake and through the woods.
Fiddling tonight with some of the images that I shot in Florida earlier this year with a view to using one or two for Pixoto or some Nature comps and this particular fellow caught my eye amongst the slew of RAW files ...
... a Pelican that I shot sitting on the end of a dock down by the water at Fernandina off Amelia Island. I managed to get within feet of this lovely creature, clearly being used to being gazed upon by the riff raff, hence the lack of camera shy ....
On the Tech side of things, I have finally finished my migration to Photoshop CC. All filters, fixin's and go funky stuff migrated and installed and CS6 has been removed from the system.
It's a chore, chore, chore to reinstall all the extra Plug-Ins, but on the upside, most of them have been revamped to work with the current version of Photoshop and getting everything up-to-date is never a bad thing and I have noticed that my computer is happier to have only one version of Photoshop to talk to....
It's been a looooong time since I did much with Photoshop other than than using it for photo processing and compositing so tonight I broke out the virtual canvas and the Mixer Brushes and had at it....
... and since my "proper" etching press is still dismantled and in various boxes, I spent the evening tinkering with techniques to recreate a somewhat faux old, etched/litho styled image.
The photo on the left is the SOOC starting point.
From there I worked various layers in Photoshop using the Mixer Brush tools to develop a more painterly image.
Created some custom brushes to work with the Pattern Stamp tool, added a few doses of texture, various filter effects and a bunch of adjustment layers to get the contrast the way I felt it would be if the image were being inked and etched.
The final tie-in was to create a custom Gradient Map to mimic the bluey/indigo tones that you get when you ink a plate and press (the color is never quite black black) and then another Gradient Map to match the shades of antique paper.
On the whole I am pretty pleased with how it turned out and the "recipe" should work fairly well on most images - so it's been filed in the "book"....
Oh and there was another batch of Jam today ..... this time Pineapple and Mango (with Lime and Ginger) ... very yummy too! Fortunately, there are only a few more empty jars left ... perhaps one more batch of pickle and then we can call the preserving adventures done for a while!
It's been raining on and off now for 14 days here in the Carolinas. Lots of flooding and soggy ground and so the sunshine moments need to be grabbed while you can.
Today's Carolina adventure was off up into the mountains again, this time to Saluda to check out Coon Dog Day.
For the uninitiated, Coon dogs are hunting dogs. Several breeds and the cheeky pup above is an English Red.
There were LOTS of dogs to be found in the doggie exhibition area but fearing the loss of yet another pair of shoes to Carolina Clay mud, I opted for the main street jaunt, filled with food vendors, music and sundry other goodness.
From Saluda we ventured off along the Blue Ridge Parkway. An awesome visual feast for anyone interested in mountain and landscape imagery.
Sadly not long after we hopped on the parkway the weather started to close in. We stopped for a bite to eat at Mt. Mitchell hoping to wait the storm out, but to no avail and found ourselves climbing higher into the clouds and getting colder and wetter by the minute.
Eventually after leaving the restaurant were greeted by this.......
.... at which point we cut the sightseeing short and headed for home.
The Beemer did a grand job of navigating down the mountainous hair pin bends, but I daresay it might have been quicker in a raft! Probably could have sailed right down the river to the dock in the back garden!!
After a little research, DH and I decided to venture off to the US National Whitewater Center to celebrate 4th of July and take in the local color and watch/photograph the fireworks.
All augured well to start, clear sunny skies and the usual thunderstorms of late, thankfully absent.
The Center showcases a man-made course of Class 1 and 2 white water rapids and I garnered quite a few fun images of the rafters and solo canoeists.
There were live bands, good food and locally brewed beer and the wait for nightfall was by no means tedious.
However with dusk along came the clouds and the sharp crackle of lightening and thunder. Shortly thereafter, the heavens opened and down came the rain.... Cameras and tripods were hurriedly drawn to shelter and we scooched under the eaves attempting to stay dry - without success I might add.
Out came the trusty iPhone to record the moment....
Eventually the rain stopped and we dashed back out, cameras and tripods at the ready, only to be thwarted yet again as the rain came back.
Eventually the fireworks started, amidst the pouring rain and us left enjoying the show through a veil of water.
And one barely snaggable shot, which looked like this .... UGH!!
So I might not have got the fireworks shots that I wanted and lost a favourite pair of shoes (as they were totally sodden and trashed getting back throught the mud to the car) .... but it was a pretty fine day regardless.... and I hope your July 4th was full of sparkle and delight!
