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Thursday, 30 July 2015

Day 211 of 365 Day Challenge

Trying out my iPhone 6 Olloclip x2 telephoto on the view from our apartment. In the background you can see the bridge that takes you to the airport.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Stackables 


Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Day 210 of 365 Day Challenge

The Apple store in Central Hong Kong is a fascinating shop when you see it from the outside. I have just bought myself an Olloclip x2 telephoto lens and it brings the building just that little bit closer from the opposite walkway to give you the interesting details of the 'ants' inside.


Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Day 209 of 365 Day Challenge

It was a lovely day today and I felt like getting out and doing something so decided to go to the art shop in Wan Chai to see if they had some supplies I need. On the way I passed a construction site where the building had been removed and the wall with these magnificent trees was revealed. You see a lot of these type of trees in Hong Kong and I always wonder how they manage to survive.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama, Stackables


Sunday, 26 July 2015

Day 207 of 365 Day Challenge

Still Life. Took 2 angles on this jug and glasses and blended them on top of each other. Then added a couple of extra details.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Superimpose, iColorama



Saturday, 25 July 2015

Day 206 of 365 Day Challenge

Hong Kong has some interesting insects and on a boat trip today I managed to get this photo of a large wasp (or what I think is a wasp!). I find the app Repix on the iPhone/iPad very good for blurring the background. It saves you the hassle of cutting the insect out to blur the background. I use the Blur and Spray tool and then the Undoer to clean up where I have gone over the edges. I then added a border in iColorama.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Repix, iColorama


Friday, 24 July 2015

Day 205 of 365 Day Challenge

Walking home from supper this evening, we came across this tree full of yellow crested cockatoos. Unfortunately it was difficult to get close but I rather liked the tree lightened by the city lights around it. If you look closely you can see the birds which are the white dots!

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed


Thursday, 23 July 2015

Day 204 of 365 Day Challenge

I decided to create a montage today using the free version of the Photoshake app (not the one with the exclamation mark) so while I was in the mall I took all sorts of shots and choose 4 that I thought worked well together. After doing a random shake in Photoshake I took the result into iColorama and did all sorts of manipulations on it. Here is the result.


Here is another plain 'shake' with the same pictures which wasn't manipulated. I thought this looked good just on its own.




Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Day 203 of 365 Day Challenge

Today's photo. I bought these way over the top slippers in South Africa. In Hong Kong you take your shoes off in most people's homes so I figured that if I visit someone I can take these slippers with me. They will at least be a great talking point!

I couldn't decide whether the photo should be in black and white or lomo but rather liked the lomo effect which went with the nature of the slippers but have included the BW version too.

Apps: Hipstamatic (Neville + Kodot XGrizzled), Snapseed, iColorama 




Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Monday, 20 July 2015

Day 201 of 365 Day Challenge

It's a rainy day today and not much opportunity for a good photo so decided to take photos of the wet leaves on the pavement. Did a lot of manipulation and came up with this.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Imaengine, SketchClub, iColorama


Sunday, 19 July 2015

Day 200 of 365 Day Challenge

Spent the day at airports and flying so took this photo of Nelson Mandela which was made totally out of wire and beads.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed


Friday, 17 July 2015

Day 198 of 365 Day Challenge

We are back at my sister's house and it's howling a gale with rain outside so have settled for another cat photo. Meet Tammy.

Apps: Hipstamatic, iColorama, Retouch, Snapseed


Thursday, 16 July 2015

Day 197 of 365 Day Challenge

Another day in Tulbagh and here is an example of the wonderful Cape Dutch architecture that you find in the Western Cape in South Africa.


Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Day 196 of 365 Day Challenge

My sister, my niece and I have gone on a jolly into the countryside to a place called Tulbagh. My sister comes from a wine growing area and this is another. We stopped in on a place called Riebeeck Kasteel on the way there which has some fabulous little shops and eateries. I think we did a great job of supporting the economy there and came away laden with bags!  Today's photo is one of the wonderful interior design shops and another one of a bohemian type alleyway which made a significant dent in our purse.





Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Day 195 of 365 Day Challenge

The buildings in Stellenbosch are typically white Cape Dutch style architecture which makes it a very pretty university town. It has many quaint shops and this one caught my eye.

Apps: Hipstamatic, VSCOcam and iColorama.




Saturday, 11 July 2015

Friday, 10 July 2015

Day 191 of 365 a Day Challenge

We went to one of my favourite places today in the Cape called Babylonstoren, a large estate where they grow all their own produce for the boutique hotel, restaurant and cafe. You can wonder through the lovely gardens, where there are bee hives, insect homes, ducks, chickens. As a photographer you really need to go there on your own and just click away all day.

It was really difficult to choose today's picture because there were so many good ones but in the end I settled for this rooster. Taken in Hipstamatic and tuned in Snapseed.


Here are some more photos:









Thursday, 9 July 2015

Monday, 6 July 2015

Day 187 of 365 Day Challenge

Went for a walk along my road to see if I could get a good photo for today. The mosquitoes seem to be also gone but so do all the other insects. Only one solitary butterfly which was well out of reach. So took loads of photos of leaves and hoped that one would be good. Many of the trees have been growing nobbly little round balls the past month and now I am wondering if they are some sort of wild fig as they are taking on a fig like shape but I admit to being very ignorant when it comes to most plants. So here is today's picture, taken with Hipstamatic, tuned in Snapseed, manipulated in iColorama and then finally grunge in Snapseed.


Sunday, 5 July 2015

Day 186 of 365 Day Challenge

Walking through the streets of Beijing we came across this dog and I couldn't  resist using him for today's photo. Taken with Hipstamatic and changed in Snapseed.


Saturday, 4 July 2015

Day 185 of 365 Day Challenge

Went to see the Beijing Olympic site today. Here is the famous main stadium known as the Bird's Nest.


Friday, 3 July 2015

Day 184 of 365 Day Challenge

Today was the highlight of my trip to Beijing. A 5 hour hike along the Great Wall. We had an exceptional guide with us, Peter, who spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable and interesting.

We started off with a steep 30-40 minute climb to the wall in a wooded area and I wondered at that point whether I had been a little ambitious in my choice of hike. However once we were at the top, the rest was very manageable. The beauty of starting where we did was that we saw the older unrestored parts of the wall and there was only one other small group of people. From here we walked towards the restored areas of the wall where there were quite a few tourists. It was all downhill or steps down and when I saw the number of steps you needed to climb to get to the point we were, I was very glad we had done it the other way around!

It was an absolutely glorious day and we could see for miles which is very fortunate when the smog can often result in no view at all. At the end our guide gave us a usb stick of photos he had taken of us along the way, a fantastic memory of our trip. 

I had so many great shots it was difficult to choose today's photo but thought I would show you a piece of the unrestored wall which you don't get to see plus a few others.

Unrestored area of the wall.


The line in the distance is the continuation of the wall.


Some parts of the wall are almost vertical and without steps. This restored area now has steps but as you can see the horizon is fairly straight so you can get a feel for the angle of the wall. As you can imagine ordinary concrete wouldn't have worked so the concrete they used was a mixture containing sticky rice of all things which prevented the bricks from sliding.


Restored area of the wall.




Thursday, 2 July 2015

Day 183 of 365 Day Challenge

I had a day in Beijing on my own so did a little research and discovered an area called the 798 Art Zone. Just up my street. So after a fair amount of subway changing and a taxi ride I finally arrived at 798. Well, it is a pretty big area of art studios, art exhibitions, coffee shops, craft shops and an old industrial area called D-Park which you can wander around.

I've got to tell you that I roamed around for over 3 hours and hardly scratched the surface. You need a whole day to really do it justice. Some fascinating art often with a Chinese slant. There was also a steampunk exhibition on with steampunk art from around the world. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was disappointed that I didn't nearly get through all the zones. I would love to feature a piece of art as my main photo for the day but not sure of copyright so today's photo is taken in the D-Park and I have included another of the D-Park, an outside sculpture and graffiti.





Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Day 182 of 365 Day Challenge

Beijing was not what I expected. Although parts of the city have high rise buildings much of it does not. Buildings around the Forbidden City are not allowed to be high rise. My husband and I spent the day with a tour guide seeing Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. It really is worth going with a guide otherwise you can spend a lot of time in queues not understanding how the entrances work.

It was difficult to choose a photo for today because I had so many. In the end, I combined two photos which I see as being quintessential Beijing/Chinese. The main photo is of part of the Forbidden City. Note the crowds. The second is an old fashioned looking Chinese man.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Retouch, Superimpose, Snapseed, iColorama