Olympic Fever

It's so exciting having the Olympic Games here!  I live 10 minutes away by car from where the men's and ladies' cycle race went past.  I walk almost every Monday past many of the roads that they rode.  I've had the TV on in the background while I work.  I would have gone to watch but I am going 3 times this week to the Olympics and have to catch up with my work.  All-in-all going to see hockey, swimming and athletics.  HOW LUCKY AM I!

Congratulations to Lizzie Armitstead for winning Great Britain's first medal - silver in the road race.  I was glued to the finishing stages.  Here's a bouquet of flowers for you, Lizzie.

Crested Guan

I'm running out of pictures to manipulate so I went back over some of my old pictures and came across this one that I took in Costa Rica.  This was a picture of a Crested Guan that was slightly blurred so decided to give it the full treatment and then finally blended it with a fun circuit board texture.

Flower Art Friday

Just found Flower Art Friday and as flowers are one of my favourite subjects I decided to participate.  So here is my contribution:

Improbable Pairings

The theme for Photo Art Friday is 'Improbable Pairings'.  Bonnie has used a blend of different pictures as her example but I'm going to interpret it completely differently.

My interpretation are these two cheeky gulls who came down and stole our meat off the barbecue one holiday!  One minute we had 4 fillet steaks - the next minute we only had two much to our puzzlement until we saw them lurking on the roof!

Waddesdon Manor

My hubby and I went on a jolly yesterday.  A trip to Waddesdon Manor. This is a beautiful stately home which was left to the National Trust by the de Rothschild family.

As well as the amazing collection of antiques within the mansion, the gardens are lovely with some stunning statues.  Here is a picture of the house as well as my interpretation of one of the statues.

Last Chance to Sign-up

Registration for the Brushes, Patterns and Colour Workshop will be closing at the end of next week.  Don't miss out - it includes all the Beginner and Selection Videos too.  This is the sort of thing we are doing:

Old Pictures of South Africa

I was looking through some of my old pictures of South Africa and wondered whether I could spice any of them up a bit.  Many of them were traditional holiday pictures but I had a go with 2 of them.  I wanted to give the guinea fowl a bit more umph and I wanted to turn the street scene of Franshoek into an old pic but because of the cars it was a bit tricky. Not sure about it.

Buried Treasure

The website The Altered Page has a fantastic idea called Treasure Hunt (click to see all participants). You provide a blog page which links to what you think is your best or favourite blog posts to show some of your 'hidden' treasure. So these are the blogs from this year that I like the most. Click on the picture to go to the post:

Foxy

The fox was in the garden again this morning but none of the cats were around so it was peaceful for a change!  To see the YouTube footage of the Fox and Cat go here. Had to have some fun with some of my photos and decided to add it to Camera Critters:

Playing with Windows

Photo Art Friday's theme for this week was fencing.  Hmmm, well it is sort of fencing!

Lily

The Fox and Cat Saga continues..

Been seeing the fox almost everyday in the garden this week and while I was downstairs making coffee this morning, I saw the fox playing with the black cat.

Dashed upstairs and managed to get this footage using my point-and-click camera. The fox certainly thinks it's a game. Not convinced the cat's happy - he/she walks away in the end bored:

Architecture

The theme this week in Photo Art Friday is architecture and it's one of my favourite topics so decided to give it a go. This is a photo that my husband took in Singapore and here are two of my conversions:

Not sure how I feel about the result. Think I prefer the second one.

Anyhow, here are the layers that make up the picture:

Layers:

1. Original picture.
2. Applied cut out filter with levels=2, Simplicity=3 and Fidelity=3, opacity of layer 46%.
3. Created a black outline.
4. Red glow layer used in the second example was created using a gradient map (Color Harmonies 2). Layer has a blend of Hue.
5. Added a texture layer which has a blend of Linear Dodge.
6. My logo.

Men's Wimbledon Champion 2012

My husband and I were invited to Wimbledon last Monday and were lucky to be given Centre Court tickets. I had my new camera with me which is just a little point-and-click but it has a x20 zoom and is a feisty little bit of equipment. I managed to get a couple of shots of Federer and as he is now the Wimbledon Champion felt that I had to post a picture of him:

Picture manipulated in Studio Artist

Dad and Daughter

I was walking in an arcade several months ago and just in front of me was this dad who had his daughter slung over his shoulder and I thought, gotta have a photo of this.  So I whipped out my camera and took a picture.  I designed this photo manipulation in new software, Studio Artist, which is incredibly versatile for painting effects but one of the most difficult pieces of software I have ever had to learn and I've been working with software for over 30 years.

Isn't this little girl totally adorable:

Texture Tuesday

I have been doing more manipulation of my photos using gradients and thought this would be a good submission for Texture Tuesday.

In Homage to Cats

Due to my previous story of cat bravery I had to do a cat photo manipulation as a homage:

The Fox and The Cat

This rather sounds like another of Aesop's Fables and that can't be far wrong. So what's the lesson?

Yesterday, I slink out of my den to get a cup of coffee inbetween working and low and behold I see a fox in the garden - haven't had one around for ages.

Now I have to set the scene here. My husband and I don't have any pets at the moment so our garden is gangland (and loveland!) for the local cats. I think we have at least 5 prowling around at various times.

So off I rush like a mad woman trying to find my camera and when I position myself upstairs in my den looking out of the window I see that the fox has been challenged by one of the local mafia:

The fox eyes the cat out for a while and then lounges nonchalantly on  the grass:
 

Next thing the cat and the fox are disturbed by something:

The fox goes running off to the top of garden to make his escape.  I thought he had seen me in the window but next thing he is peeping out from the bushes looking at something:

Ah, it's another member of the local mafia come to join the fray so he trots back into the garden:

Actually, I think the fox is a bit put out at this point:

S0 he starts circling the black cat who has positioned itself in the middle of the garden, eyeing the fox with distain.  Next minute the fox takes a lunge at the cat, who hisses back but doesn't budge an inch!

 

He does this several times to no avail so gives up and potters around the garden for a while pretending he doesn't care.  The cat sits and watches him with a beady eye:

In the end he thinks enough is enough and moves to the hole in the hedge to seek greener pastures.

The cat, however, is having none of that and follows him out of the garden.  Goodness knows what happens next.

Wow, that is one feisty cat!

Moral of the story.  Being bigger doesn't always count!