A little late lunch
Hanmer springs is a lovely alpine village famed for its beautiful natural hot springs, it also has some great tracks to walk and cycle. I spotted this guy -a mule if I’m not mistaken, when we were out for a walk. He wasn’t going to stop eating for anything, or come any closer. Almost forgot! […]
les visiteurs
Captured from the hip on my way up to the spectacular bell-view, previously photographed many times, next door to the cathedral, which can just be glimpsed at the top, behind the end house. I spent hours removing the electrical clutter, mostly from the right hand side of the lane and the horrible council bins behind […]
hare tricks
With Easter on its way, hopping through all this thawing snow, I thought I’d try something a little experimental as well as seasonal with our textures. I was after an antique surreal scene, perhaps in the style of the old master Alfred Stieglitz ‘Camera Work’. I used an old wine crate from my cellar, (with […]
jetty shadows
After a bit of an Epiphany the other day about my last blog posting, I decided to work on a cleaned up idealized version. Purists might blanch, (and probably shouldn’t be here anyway!) but I’ve merged two images together and removed the cluttering couple! The council bin has also gone by simply cloning out, and […]
sea walkers
We’re lucky in this far western tip of the French Côte d’Azur area, with our crisp clear skies, making these wonderfully dramatic shadows. The downside is the very dry North Westerly windchill from the surrounding mountains. This wind is called the Tramontane – meaning north wind which also keeps the winter clouds at bay, so […]
Life on the edge
Back on a misty autumnal day I visited this Roman excavation site, I’ve written about it before in Pines in the Mist This image is from the top of that hill overlooking the famous l’oppidum d’Enserune, a UNESCO protected medieval cartwheel farm system, here, totally obscured by the sea mist. See Here And that’s Martine […]
winter wheat treescape
Another AutopanoPro merge of two portrait formatted landscapes. I’ve left the base showing where I had a missing bit to clone in. Shot as the sun was setting behind riverbank trees. The first copies of the shot were treated to give a Painterly effect.. Then treated with the following textures: Apple Blush ~ opacity ~ […]
the winter group
The other day on our freezing beach. Shot with my 75-300mm zoom lens, this scene was captured from a great distance of a neighboring beach. Because its from a distance the people look much closer together than they were! Not shown on my base image are a line of fishing rods and a fisherman sat […]
Soft dune days
One of those soft yet mild overcast days in August when the low sea clouds come in over the land from the Mediterranean. In France we call it the ‘Marine’ pronounced Maran it brings damp dark weather that can last for up to two weeks in winter! Luckily in summer it’s short lived, tending to […]
Homeward bound
A freezing walk on our local French beach with friends and their dogs over the weekend, produced this simple image. The glow of the cold mid-winter sun warmed by applying several flypaper textures and this time, no colour tweaks!I’m typing this whilst looking out over gently falling snow flakes,Europe and this, our northern Mediterranean coastline […]
ruined windmill story
Our Southern French countryside is dotted with these ancient stone windmill ruins. There must be hundreds but I’ve seen only a couple that have been restored. The backdrop being our black mountains, which help to protect our Mediterranean coastal plains from the worst excesses of the northern European winter cold.The field contains freshly planted vines, […]
Bust and tree
On the same day but taken just before the last ‘Reflected Light’ posting. This is inside our Beziers Park of the poets, decorated with many stone carved busts. Its made up of two pictures, merged in photoshop, as my Autopanopro was playing up!A more finished/textured version of this image is on my Flickr site. As […]
reflected light
Walking back from our local ‘Park of the Poets’ in Central Beziers,I came across this dark and narrow bow terrace.The lowering sun reflecting off the opposite houses stucco in an interesting way, lighting the upper apartment windows.You’ll see I’ve removed a mass of visual pollution from the skyline, aerials are the one thing I almost […]
ape
Whilst on the way to the beach yesterday, with a slight sea mist over the vineyards.I came across this derelict farmhouse in a sea of golden vines.‘Chasse Gardee’ I’m told, means strictly licensed hunters only. Apple Blush – Soft Light Opacity @ 29%Raw Linen – Overlay Opacity @ 100%Necropolis – Overlay Opacity @ 39%Caramel Soft […]
Pines in the mist
A rare misty day in our part of the world.These mists are so far and few I have to dash out with my camera!This picture was taken on a strange atmospheric hill that sticks out of the old sea marshes, or ‘Etang’ in French.It now rises out of a sea of golden vineyards. On top […]
Windswept
These trees are a feature of the coast in the beautiful Catlins area in the south of New Zealand. The wind comes off the sea and sculpts the trees to these wonderfully surreal shapes.I processed this fairly lightly with Soft Caramel soft light 67% , Bruised Saffron multiply 17%and a touch of Raw Linen overlay […]
Rosa Antiquus (with recipe)
I rediscovered this one when I was hunting for something to process earlier, my archives are full of things I’ve forgotten about -mainly because I have such a hard time finding anything!Anyway…after much playing with different texture combinations and then tying to get the tone “just right” this is what I came up with.Necropolis -Overlay […]
l’ennui du dimanche
I spotted this wonderfully lit building whilst coming out of a Beziers art gallery one Sunday afternoon, the weather was a little washed out and everything looked bleached gray except this eighteenth century building painted a cool shade of ocher.Naturally, when I uploaded it was washed out too..:-/So out came the rich flypaper textures to […]
Ginkgo (with recipe)
Another archive shot from my “famous” basement! When you’re using textures, it often pays to try out lots of different blending modes as sometimes the ones you’d not think would work give great results.In this photo for example I used a couple of blending modes I don’t often use, namely vivid light and linear burn, […]
visitor from the past
A simple use of Flypapers Raw Linen in full blur mode.Blend hard light Opacity was 100%, fill Opacity @ 94% Necropolis texture was used to finish.Blend soft light 48% and fill opacity @ 57%. Just these two textures were used to create an almost ‘sepia effect’ of a visitor, perhaps from the past.
Circles of your mind
Here I used five of our ‘flypaper 1’ textures.I find that using several textures at a gentle opacity, really helps build up interesting depth and atmosphere!Pomeii StuccoBruised SaffronRaw LinenWhite ShagreenElysium
