Posted on May 8, 2024
Lupji Photography chose the theme {upside down}, and I have to confess that that is what my life feels like right now. Lots of changes going on with work. We are also heading out on a vacation and trying to get everything sorted out and ready to go next week.
Upside down is defined as
with the upper part where the lower part should be; in or into an inverted position.
I had to think what I had either done or could do to meet this challenge
My favorite upside down was taken at the Miami Zoo. We were watching the dolphins swimming and this big guy came and said hello. Dolphins are incredible creatures and I have had the privilege of swimming in the ocean with them. We had gone out on a scuba dive when a pod of dolphin started swimming around the boat. The captain of the boat allowed us to go overboard and swim with them. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. Seeing them in captivity is not a great feeling for me but I understand that some are injured and brought in because they will not survive out in the ocean.
Also taken at the zoo was this display of the seal and his trainer. They put on a great show for us.
Sometimes even the birds spend a good deal of time with their heads upside down, preening and primping their feathers.
Reflections make great upside downs as well. The tree below was rotated to the upside down position and it works for me. The upper part of the tree, which is now at the bottom, was a lot lighter than its reflection.
There was not a lot of difference when this image was roatated, however in this case the upper is the lower and the reflection was a lot darker.
Every so often I like to play around with my lensbaby lenses. I rotated the sunset image and while I was not 100% sold on this image, it did work.
The next two images were taken using a super wide angle lens and the dark blue is the sky. By rotating the image the appearance now is that the blue is the water.
A great way to turn an image upside down is to use a lensball. I do not own one, but I met up with a friend to get these two images. It’s a fun sphere to have when you want to do something different.
By rotating the image of the moon, we went from a waxing moon to a waning moon. Only thing is Jupiter is now on the right instead of the left.
The last two images were taken in the wetlands doing my favorite style of photography. I like to just get that sliver of clarity. In both cases the wooden boardwalk has been rotated to show it upside down.
It was a fun challenge that Lupji gave us and I hope that you enjoyed what I had to offer and that you look at the challenge and see what you can share with us.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Claire of Wilhelmina Photography is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Instagram page.
Until next time, stay well.
Posted on March 15, 2024
We have just spent 8 days in Arizona, specifically in Phoenix, Sedona, Page and ever so briefly Flagstaff. So this month’s Share Six theme {Sky} I really wanted to use photo’s taken on the trip. Outside of that I have some crazy sky photo’s that I have shared before, mainly sunsets which I love. But for this blog, Arizona sky is what you will get.
We saw some interesting skies this week and I was grateful for the changing sky and scenery along the way. It definitely makes the trip more interesting.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of his work by clicking on his Instagram page.
Posted on November 6, 2023
For the month of November, Lupji Photography chose the theme {Shallow Depth of Field}. I have to confess that this is one of my favorite themes and I love to get out into nature to get these images.
I had the perfect opportunity to get out today. A old school friend arrived at our home on Friday. He has been hitch hiking through the USA, sleeping on the beach, catching up with friends, sleeping on more beaches. He is a very interesting character who has traveled the world. Today instead of sitting watching sport, which him and Richard did yesterday, I dragged him out into the wetlands for the morning. That freed up Richard to do his own thing.
For me nature is beautiful. I love finding leaves on the boardwalk and taking pics of them. I love that sliver of focus that I am able to capture this way.
Getting out into nature does wonders for my soul, and I have needed it this week. This walk was not as quite and contemplative as I may have wanted but it has helped lift a little of the sorrow of last week.
I would encourage you to keep in touch with family and friends, let them know you are thinking of them. If they are close by give them a hug. If they are further away, drop them a note letting them know you are thinking of them. You don’t know when time will become short or when time will end, either for yourself or your friend. While I stayed in touch with my friend, I was still stunned when I heard the news he had passed away so unexpectedly. We have no idea when time will stop, lets not waste it unnecessarily. This is in memory of you my beautiful friend. Myles you were my rock.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Elizabeth of It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Facebook page and Instagram page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Don’t forget to share your photos on the theme {Shallow Depth of Field} Tag us #sharesix_shallowdepthoffield.
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
Posted on September 6, 2023
This month theme {Beautiful Light} was chosen by It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson. Beautiful light can mean different things to different people. Since I am still working through my Australian images, I decided to look though them and find the images where the light appealed to me. Walk through them with me as I share just a little bit more of our Australian trip.
In addition to the Australian photos are some of my older sunrise and sunset photos which are favorites of mine.
And, finally, a few outdoor flora shots.
Beautiful light, I believe, is in the eye of the beholder. We all see light differently. When googling the definition of light my favorite was this found in the Marriam Webster dictionary:
“the sensation aroused by stimulation of the visual receptors”
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Liz of It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Facebook page and Instagram page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Don’t forget to share your photos on the theme {Beautiful Light}
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
Posted on July 6, 2023
Two months in a row we have tried to do a particular theme. It’s not happening. First, I came back from Australia to a dead computer. It took around 3 weeks before I got it back. Then this past weekend, I managed to damage my 34″ monitor giving it the kiss of death. A huge black spot and then black lines going up and down the screen. Reminded me of Christmas bows, and it was definitely a expensive oops. That said I managed to get a new monitor via Amazon within 3 days and it is all set up, and it is better than the last one so I am all good.
Most of us were challenged with the theme we had originally chosen. So to keep it simple this month, we made the choice easy. The theme we finally selected for Share Six is (Your Choice). However, just a heads up this post is going to be a lot longer than 6 images. I would like to keep the whole story in one blog.
So why Bondi Beach to Bronte? My childhood friend, who lives in Brisbane, shared with me that this was a must do on our list. She told me this was the opportunity to get out and explore the natural coastline of New South Wales, and to really enjoy the beauty of this area. Not everything is about the city.
It’s around 7:30am and we are trundling along the city streets, by bus, watching with interest the world going by. The outer suburbs of Sydney city are much older and the buildings are dated, but they are interesting as well. People hop and off the bus using the tap on and tap off system.
Richard always has these options of how to get to places that involve walking. We could walk from the main Bondi terminal or catch the bus. Obviously I opted for the bus.
The weather is not bad, but kind of hazy while we were heading along the walk. This is also the one day in Sydney that I carried a light jacket. I wasn’t expecting to be cold but there was a gusting wind coming off the ocean.
We finally arrive, about 20 minutes later, at the infamous Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is Sydney’s most famous beach. Is it a nice beach town? Absolutely. We did not explore the town as we were on a time agenda but it looked like there was a fair amount of shopping that could be done. As for the beach, it’s a wide open beach with lots of space and it spans a fair distance. I could imagine that it could be quite busy on the weekends. There were some surfers out, not as many as I expected. Perhaps because it was a weekday.
Richard walked down onto the beach. He loves to get his toes in the sand and he wanted to get closer to the ocean, since his camera was his phone.
I, on the other hand, decided to walk along the promenade taking photo’s of the graffiti. Eventually Rich and I met up again at the end of the beach boardwalk.
Below I tried to capture the bay’s two heads and the rolling waves in-between. The surf appeared to be pumping, however the only person I saw going into the waves was the lifeguard. The were a few people hanging out on the beach enjoying the weather.
Bondi Beach has everything you could want. Lots of restaurants and cafe’s, some interesting shopping area, a grassed area for you to sit on or picnic, and a very interesting board walk filled with beautiful graffiti. I did spot this interesting surfers code below as well.
At the end of Bondi beach we climbed stairs (the first of many) up towards Bondi Icebergs on Notts Avenue. Bondi Icebergs is a local swimming club with a restaurant and a beautiful sea pool.
This is where we started our Bondi to Bronte walk. For the most part the walkway is concrete, with a lot of ups and downs. The map below gives you a time frame for the walk but I think that is for speed walkers. To give you a time frame, the first photo I took was at 7:58am (at Bondi Beach), and the last one of the walk was at 9.26am. Of course, I keep stopping to take photos and Richard keeps walking, eventually he would have to wait for me to catch up. Clearly the beach area is a more upmarket area and the homes are really nice along the walkway. Perfect views of the water line.
Another heads up is that this is a popular walk so you are constantly passing people. There is also a exercise workout stations along the way as well.
We walked through some incredible rock formations. The pathway left the concrete road way and headed down some steps and along a created cement pathway.
I loved the rocky out crops and the different colors in the stone . We passed Mackenzie’s point lookout, and were heading down towards Mackenzie’s Bay. From what I read every so often Mackenzie’s Bay becomes a beach when the sand gets washed up. For the most it is a bay.
Beyond Mackenzie’s Bay we arrive at Tamarama Bay seen above in the distance. Tamarama Bay generally offers rough surfing conditions and strong rip tides and is generally better for suntanning. As you can see there is a wide open beach.
Moving along we now were on the last stretch of the walk, from Tamarama Beach, to Bronte. Again there is this rugged coastline to traverse and steps going down and back up again. While Bronte is a surfing beach, the water can be dangerous at times.
Bronte was the end of our journey, but the walk continues and you can follow the trail to Coogee Beach and Gordon’s Bay and beyond to Malabar Headland.
The one interesting thing that happened was switching busses on our way back. If you are traveling from Bronte to Sydney, the bus drops you off outside the terminal in Bondi. The pick up bus was about 15 steps away from where we were dropped off. However, due to our lack of knowledge we ended up walking into the terminal and then had to look at virtually every pick up point before trying to find our way back out of the terminal to the street. My advice check the outside bus stops prior to going into the terminal.
Bondi to Bronte was a beautiful walk and I certainly recommend it if you are traveling in the area. The area is rugged and stunning and like Day 2 on The Great Ocean Road it coast line was very impressive.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. The sneak peaks are stunning and I cannot wait to see the rest. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Janet of @wiredtothemoon_ is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her IG page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Next up is Days 2 of exploring Sydney – The Opera House, a short walk alongside the Botanical gardens, a bit more exploring through the city before packing out bags to head to Melbourne.
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
Posted on July 4, 2023
Sleep came early the previous night. 5pm and we were lights out. That does not bode well for wake up time. 3am and we are hello… it’s still dark outside. Somewhere around 4:30 Richard decides that he is going to walk down to the Opera House and go and watch the sunrise. Well, of course I am going to go, but I see no point in going all the way back to the hotel, to go all the way back virtually to the Opera House to start our day.
So off we go…… navigating our way in the semi dark, down to George Street and along to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s somewhere around 5am. We are going to hang out there to watch the sun come up around the Opera House.
We stop at the end of the pier adjacent to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The bridge is one huge piece of metal. Fascinating structure that spans the river from one side to the other. Interestingly, you can actually climb the arch of the bridge. Not something I would choose to do but I found it interesting that others would want to do that. It’s a lot of steps and I am not crazy about heights. When you stand under the bridge you really look so small. Looking across the river, you can see Luna Park, the amusement and theme park, in the distance.
One thing I do have to say about the people of Sydney, they are very health conscious. There were more people out running so early in the morning than I expected on a work day.
Sunrise is happening and there is nothing nicer than watching the day start with the sun peaking out through the clouds. OK, the setting sun is pretty awesome as well but we really did not do any of that on this trip. However, watching the sunrise over the Opera House is pretty epic. I never thought I would ever see that happen.
This morning was the culmination of a dream that has long been on our hearts. Standing in Sydney watching the sun come up was a thrill. Standing in the city of my grandfathers birth was even a bigger thrill.
Next on our agenda is the Bondi Coastal walk. So another cup of coffee and sausage roll later, yes…. I said sausage roll. Do you know when I last had a decent sausage roll? Not for a long long time, unless I made it myself. Okay I digress. With the coffee and sausage roll in hand we head back to Circular Quay to the bus that will take us to Bondi Beach. Join me as we walk along one of the beautiful coastlines of New South Wales in my next blog.
Posted on May 11, 2023
When you read this, I will be walking the streets of Sydney, Australia. A little bit of history, both my fathers parents were Australian born, but both families emigrated to South Africa where my grandmother and grandfather met, married and created their own family. I will not get to where my grandmother was born but I am hoping that I will be able to walk the streets of my grandfather’s birth town.
However, that is not why we are traveling there. In 2020 Richard developed a melanoma, and for the last 2.5 years he has been on immunotherapy. For a while we did not know which way it would go, but as of the last scan things looked good. But it reminded us that he has not seen his family for a good 10 years, and have not seen our nieces for over 23 years. Our nieces have their own families now. Most of all Richard will get to see his mom whom he has not seen for way to many years.
Ironically, his entire family emigrated to Australia, and mine left Australia.
While we are gone I thought I would share another beautiful sunset in the good old Florida, USA. I love silhouettes and on this particular night I managed to get a few.
I loved watching the sun go down, and last of all the blue hour after the sun sets.
I hope you are all having a fantastic day. Think of me, I already picture sore feet. We are going to be walking a lot. I have plotted out a map of Sydney and I cannot wait to see it. In addition, we plan to walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte, and on a different day catch a ferry to Manly. I also get to meet up with a cousin on my dad’s side of the family in Sydney and hopefully Melbourne and meet up with a childhood friend who will fly in from Brisbane. I joked that it seems crazy that we both have to go halfway around the world to meet up again. That is the scatterings of Africa. We are all over the world.
In addition to spending time with family in Melbourne, we will be doing the Great Ocean Road, as a 3 day road trip. I cannot wait to -Port Campbell and see the incredible rock formation. The challenge here will be that Richard hates cities and I love to walk through them and see all the architecture and beautiful buildings. He wants to walk to waterfalls. I’m not saying I don’t like that but I do want a balance of city and surroundings.
Until next time, stay well
Posted on May 6, 2023
{Shooting through} was the theme chosen by Elizabeth of It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson. Again this was not an easy theme for me. I had to improvise a bit this month. This is a crazy month. In January I said that I was going to be traveling to Australia, and here we are 1 week away and it is hectic trying to get everything in place. Added to that I have some work deadlines to meet before we leave and poor Luka had to go for surgery last week, and of course, I had to go along. I know what it is like to to be waiting alone and I did not want Amy to have to do that.
Through the Window
So we have had a lot of rain lately and I just happened to be out in it. So while I was sitting stationery at the traffic light I snapped the following two photos of the night lights ahead. These were two different evenings. I did some post editing in photoshop to get a bit more black in the images. The first night I was driving home from work. The second evening I was leaving my study group and heading to Amy’s to sleep over because we had to get up at 4:30am to drive to the surgery center and be there by 6:30am. I am not a big fan of driving in the rain either.
Through the foilage
This is a favorite spot of mine. I love to stop off at this pond before going to catch the sunset. Dependent on where the sun is setting, I have got some really nice images. The sun was setting behind the trees this time.
I went on to the normal place I shoot the sunset. In this image I was below the road level shooting up through the trees to capture the sky.
Through a Lensball
I was chatting to a friend recently. I noticed that she was posting images taken with a Lensball. I asked her if I could meet her at the sunset one evening and take a couple of photos through her Lensball. I had not planned to meet her this particular evening but as it turned out it was a good thing that I did. The sunsets the following week were not great.
Through a mesh fence
I took a walk along the side fence of a church and cemetery. The gave site closest to the fence had lost 6 of the children. How hard it must be for a parent to go through such loss.
Through a crinkly plastic bag
This did not quite have the effect I was expecting it to have. I thought I would see the crinkle lines but I did not.
Through a plastic bottle
I cut off the top and bottom of a plastic bottle. I had seen a photo taken through one and it had a better effect than what I got here. I was hoping that I would be able to see the undulations better.
Through the bottom of the bottle
I took the piece that I had cut off from the bottom of the bottle and I held that up over the flowers. The center of the base of the bottle draws in to a finish to the mold and the color is a deeper blue than the rest of the bottle. I did get that effect here.
Through a plastic lid that had a design in the middle
I was looking at what I could use and found this lid to an old coffee machine part. The lid is a clear plastic but the rim has a blue tin to it. The lid also had a design on it. You can see the upside down V over the flowers.
Through a prism
I am not sure what made me think about it but I have had a prism for years and still truly don’t know how to use it properly, but I played around with it trying to get the photo’s. In the next picture I got the kitchen counter and the dishwashing liquid as well as the flowers. In the next image I got the ceiling and what looks like the edge of the computer.
Lastly I took the prism outside and tried to get some outside images. This was the one I liked the most. I have a wild orchid that is in bloom now and I like the rainbow effect of the edge of the prism.
{Shooting through} was an interesting challenge. I am glad I was able to come up with more than one option. I am glad I have managed to get this done. It leaves me one week to get my study work prepped and my toiletries and everything else sorted out and packed. I cannot wait to see Sydney, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. I have them all mapped out and ready to go.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented ladies in the group. The sneak peaks are stunning and I cannot wait to see the rest. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Janet of @wiredtothemoon_ is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Facebook page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Come and share your images to Facebook and Instagram tagging #sharesix_shootingthough
Category: Share Six Tagged: #nature, #naturelover, #naturephotographer, #naturephotography, #outdoors, #sharesix_shootingthrough, #sharleenstuartphotography, #shootingthoughameshfence, #shootingthroughabag, #shootingthroughaclearlid, #shootingthroughalensball, #shootingthroughaplasticbottle, #shootingthroughfoilage, #shootingthroughrain
Posted on May 1, 2023
It’s another week and another project. This week’s theme was Blue Hour. That is the period just before the sunrises or just after the sun sets. I had a couple of Saturday night but they did not count because they were in the wrong week. So it was back to Loxahatchee National Park on Tuesday evening to see what I could come up with.
Love watching the sun set on the day. It feels like an achievement of sorts. I have survived the day, and survived another day to put it honestly. I am always so conscious that time is limited now. I am at the age where things start to go wrong. I remember growing up and the folks would meet up with friends, and the conversation would be “do you remember so and so…, yes… , well they are dead”. Yikes. I have reached that age. So it is good to get out and celebrate each day.
Finally the blue hour arrived, and I got the image below. I had hoped for more clouds but it is what it is. I definitely got the blue.
As I was walking away down the embankment to the car, I turned around to see what was behind me and spotted this silhouette. I think this may be my blue hour image that I will submit.
Nature is a great place to get out and appreciate the beauty of this world. When the day is tough and the troubles are huge, find somewhere where you can just walk and appreciate the beauty around you. That is what I like to do.
Look out for more sunsets, more Macedonia pics, and Whoo Hoo, in a few days I am heading to Australia for 2 weeks. I know, I know 2 weeks is not enough, but it is all I could convince the other half into taking. Stay well until next time.
Posted on April 24, 2023
This has been an interesting week. It has been a time of reflection. Two close friends brothers died this past week. A dear friend from one of my study groups lost her husband this week as well. It makes me so grateful to know that I am still alive to see the sun come up and go down each day. I am especially grateful now that we have a toddler in our lives. Luka is our grandson, and I pray that we are around to see a lot more sunrises and sunsets so that we can immerse ourselves in his little life. Time flies and before we know it, he will be a teenager. My friends grandson turned 9 yesterday and it feels like he was a toddler just the other day.
So Saturday I needed to get some sunsets for a project I was working on. (look for it at the end). However, Luka was having a sleepover and so I asked Richard to come along with me so that he could watch him while I photographed the sunset. He ran all over the place and was a sweaty child by the time we left. We had to have another bath when we got home.
It was good to see them both out and about. As I talk about gratitude. I am so grateful that Richard has recovered so well from his melanoma scare. Two and a half years of immunotherapy and he is doing well. I am so glad he is around to pour into this little guys life. Oh I know the picture is not perfect but it is hard to catch a moving child in the dark when your settings are on the sunset.
That said I was there to catch the sunset. I needed to get my creative project done by midnight Sunday. The theme for the project was Dreamscapes and I had to use images taken during the week. Dreamscapes is not my idea of an easy task. I managed to capture Luka sleeping on Friday, and then I combined the image with two of these sunset images. Pulled birds from another image, and threw in a moon just to finish it off. More about that later in the blog.
The sunset was stunning and there was enough cloud to make it more interesting.
The theme Dreamscape was a challenge for me. As I mentioned there are a number of layers to the composite. First I create the swirls using three different sunset images and manipulating them in photoshop. Then I added Luka sleeping. After that I added the birds and cleaned up around each one of them. Lastly I added the moon.
I tried to create a composite of light and dark with the purple reflecting the rem stage. The moon is still out but the orange of the sun is starting to come out and the dark is starting to fade. That twilight zone. Quite often Luka will laugh while he is asleep or smile. I often wonder what he is thinking about.
Going back to my opening paragraph. We are not guaranteed to see the sun come up or the sun set. If you have not told your loved ones that you love them, now (sooner rather than later) is the time to do so.
30 Minutes in the Life is a small group of bloggers who get together once a month to put thought to paper and share on the happenings of their lives. Take some time to follow the link to see what my friend and very talented photographer Lupji of Lupji Photography has to share.
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