Tag: Gimp

Bellis Perennis in the Rain

Bellis perennis, or ‘common garden daisy’ was the subject of todays image. For such a small little flower that grows all over, they have a lot of potential uses – eaten raw, used in soups, salads, teas, as a vitamin supplement. Romans (and more modern homeopaths) used their juice to assist with wound injuries. Then we have the saying ‘smell the daisies’ – to take a break, relax, don’t stress about the big stuff. To top it off, these are hardy little flowers. Mow them down with a lawn mower, and within the week they are shooting up at the sky again.

It had been on/off raining all afternoon today and with the threat of another downpour looming when I finished work I took a few minutes to look for todays photo before getting in my car. There was nothing appealing scanning around so I set the Ricoh on macro to see what I could find. Remembering the above mentioned saying i picked this little guy/gurl/thing, reaching up for the sun regardless of the less then ideal weather. Will it make it before the lawn mower gets it? – unlikely, but its a good reminder to take a break in our busy lives all the same.

Post work I desaturated the grass slightly and slightly bumped up the sharpness in Gimp.

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Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown

All photos I took today were on film for my Rollei 35 – loaded with my first self develop film in some time. I finished the film, but realised I was missing my thermometer for developing, so will have to get another this week (and post my hopeful results).

Based on yesterdays popularity of ‘Paradise’, I thought I would add one more from the Lake Wakatipu region. Taken from the summit at Queenstown, the view is quite amazing. Todays image is a sew together of two images from my Ricoh. Due to the settings I had on it, I was getting some vignetting at the edges and had a hard time getting the color/shade match right when stitching them together…so its not perfect, but its ok considering.

For those interested, lake Wakatipu is New Zealand’s longest (80km) and third biggest lake. If you base yourself in Queenstown, you can do anything from skiing, para gliding, tramping… the list goes on. – you can also visit Paradise (yesterdays image).

Taken on the Ricoh GRD IV, 2X images, stitched in Gimp.

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Beach Cat

What a long work day! – I didn’t get a chance to snap any images today, so pulled out this one from a few months ago. The beach down the road from us is one of those very shallow, or flat areas. When the tide goes out it stretches quite a way. We were down for a wander when next doors cat suddenly appeared and started running out to sea! As you can see in the background, I was already out quite far when the cat came in for its closeup. Taken on the Ricoh in bleach mode, I upped the sharpness one notch in Gimp as it lost some when I reduced it to internet quality.

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Blue Windows in the Sky

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I stopped in at Takapuna on the way home from work today for a stroll, Ricoh in hand. It was a beautiful clear blue evening, with the moon already up. The Sentinel, a 30 story apartment building in central Takapuna uses blue tint windows, and I liked the overall blue hue I got in this image. Being the biggest building in the Area, you can also capture it in the sky unhindered by other buildings.

Coming home and reducing the image size for the web I was happy to see Gimp has finally released the 2.8 version of their great program. Its taken about 3 years to come about following 2.6 and now offers a single window interface. For people who want something that can in may ways (no not all I know) do all you need in Photoshop, but free-ware, I cant recommend Gimp enough. Overall my work flow shifted from CS4 to Gimp about 3 years ago. Its a bit of a learning curve transferring, but if you have never used either I don’t think it is any harder to pick up from scratch, will do all you ever want & has a massive community of developers adding to it + there is a version for every computer operating system (yet to get to smart phones)

Off for a short 3 day holiday tomorrow, so hopefully I will have some images from a different general location.

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Kung-Fu Lorikeet

Visiting one of Auckland’s bigger bird stores. The Bird Barn, I ran into this colorful little chap. Squarking loud and following my every move as I walked around the aviary, I snapped him on an old compact digi cam, the Fuji FinePix J15fd.He seemed pretty used to the attention and continued running up and down in front of me until I left – to which he started squarking at me again.

Whilst beautiful to look at, over the years various breeders have let these into the wild in NZ. Native to Australia, they thrive, but at the cost of our native birds, who get chased, bullied and have their nesting areas stolen. Unlike the native birds, whom defend their areas often in pairs, they often move in flocks.

As above, taken on a J15fr compact, cropped and slightly adjusted in Gimp.

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By the Lake

On my way home today I stopped for a wander on the local lake on Auckland’s North Shore, Lake Pupuke. The ‘Pump house’, featured in the photo, now a place to see small theatre, was in 1894 a functioning pump house supplying the lakes fresh water to residents on the North Shore. Local Maori legend tells of a couple who cursed the god of fire. In retribution for her, the god of earthquakes and volcanoes destroyed their home – the lake being the result. Todays its much more peaceful and used for various recreational activities from fishing to windsurfing.

Taken on my GRD IV and converted in Gimp to B&W with the contrast up a notch. Also resized to a similar aspect to the ‘Golden Ratio’

One more weekday to go!

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Lost Sunset

I have mentioned that with Winter approaching the days have been getting shorter and shorter. As a consequence, it’s often dark as I leave and go home from work during the week. Today I left just prior to sunset. It was a particularly amazing red sunset tonight, glowing off a mass of clouds. I battled the traffic to get to a local beach to catch it, but missed most of the sunset but the time I got to my destination… never mind!

Taken with the GRD set to ‘cross processed’ and with the saturation bumped up in post process, I caught the last ray of color before it all vanished.

Happy mid week!

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Toetoe in the Sky

Todays image, ‘Toetoe in the Sky’, was shot on the same walkway from ‘Dark Mangroves’. Stretching up to the sky, Toetoe (often spelt/pronounced toitoi) are New Zealands Native version of the Cortaderia family – perhaps know to some overseas as pampas grass.

Shot in color and converted to B&W in Gimp, I like the play between light and shadow on the toetoe, the shadowed under the clouds and the bright under the clear sky.

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Hibiscus Friday

As another Friday rolls up winter is dawning ever closer. We are still getting some stunning cool but clear and fresh weather – in between heavy rain showers. Coming back to the office from an appointment I spotted a hibiscus bush in full bloom. Found in many countries around the world, in various species this great little flower also has a number of health benefits when drunk in tea form.

For today I just snapped its image.  I recently got a few bits put in the post for my old Rollei 35, so I’m craving some film taking in the near future. Due to this, post editing wise, I felt like giving it a bit of a lo-fi old color film look, so applied several filters/masks in Gimp. Its hard to believe from the photo that it was overcast, dark and wet an hour later!

The weekend begins now.

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