More with the Cats....

The end of the snow??

Well, I do love snow but once a year works well for me!

I go walking every Monday with my friend and we always make an extra effort to make it if it's been snowing.  This is what we see on our walks and the light is so beautiful that the only thing I did was reduce them in size so that they would load better on the blog:

Of course, I can't possibly take pictures like this and not try and do something with them but they are so lovely by themselves can I improve them?  Below is an original picture with the manipulations.  What do you think is better:  the original or the changed?

Bird Boxes

Don't you love these bird boxes?  This is a picture I took at Babylonstoren in South Africa:

I just felt that it had a lot of potential which wasn't showing in the original picture.  I wanted the bird boxes to stand out more and to do something funky so this is what I did:

Hmmm, not sure which one I like...

Cats...

My sister has two fantastic cats both with totally different personalities and this picture clearly shows their personalities.  I manipulated pictures of each of her cats using my black and white technique.  Neeko is the Burmese cat - highly intelligent and gets what he wants.  Can't you just see it here!

Another workshop example....

Another example of what we will be doing on my Black and White or Back to Colour Workshop:

Black & White or Back to Colour Workshop

Did I say I was hanging up my dancing shoes?  Well.. I couldn't resist manipulating a picture of myself taken at a 1920s New Year's Eve party.  This technique will be included in my new Black and White or Back to Colour workshop which I will be giving in February.

It's a New Year - Getting Inspiration

Wow, what a hectic month it's been for me and I have totally neglected my blog.  It's time to put away New Years Eve's dancing shoes and start getting back to real life!

I haven't sat down and done any photo manipulation for a while so I hit a blank and when that happens these are the 4 things that I do:

1. Trawl through all my photos and see if there is any photo that inspires me.
2. Go through my 'inspiration library' - folders full of wonderful digital art by other people.
3. Get onto flickr and check out everybody's favourites.
4. Google PSE tutorials to get some fresh ideas.

So that's what I going to do now...