Collage

Trying my hand at a bit of collage again.  I have been surfing flickr and been very inspired so thought I would try something a bit different:

Jay

More on my flickr page:

Rose

Experimenting with Stylize Filters

I decided today to look at the filters under Stylize in Photoshop Elements.  I don't use them much and thought that I should have a go at seeing what I could do with them using blends.  I thought that I could establish a pattern of steps and apply it to every picture that I brought up.  But I should know by now that what works for one picture seldom works for another.

I thought flowers would be the best so I started with one photo.  Then I opened another and tried to apply the steps to it but ended up doing something completely different.  By the time I had finished 4 flowers I had done something completely different to each one of them and because I had to merge the layers together frequently to do the next step I couldn't remember in the end what I'd done.  Oh well, here are the before and afters:

I found using the Trace Contour strange.  When the window comes up it shows the coloured lines as really bold but when you have made your choice and closed the window the lines are much duller.  So I then tried to apply a hue/saturation adjustment to it and the same thing happened.  If you add a levels adjustment layer, there is no histogram.  It is only when I blended and merged it with the original layer that I seemed to be able to up the colour.  Here is one attempt:

This next picture I tried all sorts of things to up the colour and I also used a layer with the Solarize filter.  This was an interesting result and it reminded me of the old vintage postcards.  Wish I could work out how I finally got there...

Then I had a go with these wild flowers.  A mixture of blended solarize, trace contours and emboss layers with hue/saturation changes:

And my last attempt, using a mixture of the above with Find Edges:

Decided to add a flower to Flower Art Friday.

Chooks

I was at a friend's farm the other day and had a chance to photograph some of the hens which I think are just wonderful creatures to use in photo manipulations:

London at Night

Coming back with my friends from the Olympic Games to the main London station which takes us home, we decided to make the most of the lovely evening and walk along Waterloo Bridge which has some of the most spectacular evening shots of London.  My point-and-click camera wasn't really the right camera to be using for night photos but I got a couple of reasonable ones and this is my representation of the sights we saw.  I think London is truly a fantastic city.  I love Sydney and San Francisco and Cape Town but it's hard to beat the wonderful old buildings of London.

Olympic Flowers

The river bank, the main athletics stadium and Olympic Park Live (a massive amphitheatre where spectactors can watch on a big screen) are surrounded by wonderful fields of wildflowers which are truly lovely.  This is the sort of thing you don't see if you've not there. So I thought I would submit a picture to Photo Art Friday and Photo Flower Friday. All these flowers come from the Olympic Park.

More Olympics

I have had such an astonishing time at the Olympics.  I am afraid my blog has been totally neglected but now I hope I will have time to catch up.  I have seen hockey, swimming, athletics and show-jumping.  Phew, I am exhausted but ecstatic.  If you ever get the chance to attend the Olympic games in your own country DO NOT HESITATE!

Here are some pictures but I will be adding to them over the next couple of days.

This is the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in the Olympic Park which is a sculpure as well as an observation tower. It is quite impressive especially at night when it glows red:

On the evening that I went to the athletics here are some events that I saw:  Usain Bolt getting his 100m gold medal, the finals of the polt vault and the ladies steeple chase.

Olympic Moments

Wow, I've had a wonderful time so far at the Olympic Games.  The spirit has been phenomenal and everything has been so slick and well organised.  Transport in and out of the stadium has been a breeze.  Hard to believe that so many people were there.  No queues, no waiting for trains.  Will be interesting to see how next week goes with the athletic stadium full.

The main stadium is very impressive and looks lovely with the wild flowers planted all around it.  Park Live, which is the picnic area with a giant screen is also full of wild flowers, trees and plants. Here are also pics of the aquatic centre, the hockey stadium and last not least the crazy Great Britains!