The Dance (Again)

The answer to yesterday’s mystery picture: It is made from the photos in Sunday’s Turn Around post. I.e. the seven pictures of the Peacock butterfly slowly turning on top of cone flower, all mixed together.

Transformation

 
1. Original

2. Sharper, darker

 
3. Black-and-white with just a bit of colour focus

 
4. Bringing out colour…

5. Even brighter…

 
6. Manual end result after playing around with the extremes…

7. Automatic result from using multi-exposure of 1-5 in Picasa

… Hmmm… Maybe some day I’ll be ready for proper HDR…?

This is an old abandoned building, I think it used to be a transformer station. Whether it was or wasn’t, it could perhaps be said to be one now, since I used it for my own photographic “transformation” experiments…

Here’s another experiment with the multi-exposure in Picasa collage. Can you identify it? It is something you have already seen on this blog, just recently. (If you have been following, that is!)

The Dream of the Secret Garden

1. Sprouting   2. Flowergate   3. Live Rust
4. New Wave   5. Seed   6. Vine
7. Tradition?   8. Skansen-inspiration   9. Song of Songs 4:12

For a week and a half, I have been showing pictures of these gates at my DawnTreader’s Picture Book blog. I also showed most of them at the Soaring Through The World blog during “Fences and Gates” week. So some of my followers are probably tired of them by now… But for those who have not been following the other blogs, I thought I’d throw in a summary in the form of a collage here. The gates are all from an open air exhibition Gates - The Dream of the Secret Garden.

I was asked in a comment to reveal at the end of the show which one is my personal favourite. I have to say I find it hard to choose. It so much depends on the context – what kind of house, garden, fence, surrounding… I don’t have a garden, and any of them would look rather silly on my balcony!

The ‘Song of Songs’ gate I cannot imagine as entrance to somewhere I’d actually live. But as a sculpture, I love the mystery of it. All the other gates are of the kind you can see through. They are inviting kind of gates. This one however is the shutting out kind; but at the same time makes you wonder all the more what’s on the other side.

In that particular setting in the museum park where they were exhibited, with all the old buildings as background, I also took a special liking to the ‘Live Rust’ one. But if I actually had to use it daily, I would prefer one that was not rusty.

In an “imaginary real life” I would probably go for either the simple but elegant ‘Vine’; or possibly the somewhat bolder ‘New Wave’.

Yin Yang Sculpture

1914-1976

 

[In Taoism] Yin and Yang are the primordial feminine and masculine energies, symbolic of all polarities of mind, which produce our experience of the world. The categories of Yin and Yang are inter-related and mutually-arising: you can’t have one without the other! The classic example of Yang is the sunny side of a mountain; and Yin, the shady side. Within every human body – men and women alike – there exists both Yin and Yang energy.

From About.com

Spring Flowers Collage

I know that some readers of this blog also follow my photo blog – DawnTreader’s Picture Book – but in case you are among those who don’t, I’m taking the opportunity to remind you of it’s existence.

The collage of early spring flowers above is a “summary” of more detailed pictures and facts I’ve been sharing in the Picture Book this week, starting with the post Springtime at the Old Mill on Tuesday 4 May.

Seeing that the individual pictures get very small in a collage, here they are again:

 
 
 
  
 

Quotation of the Week (6/2010)

Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light,
so when we are in sorrow, then this light
is nearest of all to us.

Meister Eckhart

We Have a Situation

The snow plough actually did come around just after I finished my blog post yesterday. However, Eeyore's predictions were spot on: More "blizzards and what-not" set in just about an hour later!

Getting up this morning, I found that the Snow Situation had actually gone beyond plain boring to becoming sort of interesting again. Even the snow ploughs seem to have realized that. I ventured out for a walk with the camera later on and I don't think I've ever seen so many busy snow ploughs.

It did say in the paper yesterday that the town authorities had finally decided they had to start getting rid of the snow in the central parts of town; so now they are driving away truckloads of it to dump in a more out-of-the-way place.

I live about half-way between the town centre and the out-of-the-way place.



It was still snowing when I went out, but the wind had calmed down.
I ended up going for quite a long walk, considering the snow.



Somewhere around here (there is a park beyond those hedges, but the walkways in there do not get ploughed in winter), I used to take photos of busy butterflies:



Can you believe that?!

One Mustn't Complain

"Of course, I've still got all this snow to do what I like with.
One mustn't complain." 

Eeyore (A.A. Milne)

PS. Eeyore pictures by E.H. Shepard. I hope no one will sue me because of the collage...

Indoor Experiments on a Snowy Day

It has continued to snow all day. I have not set foot outside.

I did however experiment with some photos taken through the window. The top one was edited in Picasa using both auto and manual adjustments. The two bottom ones have not been edited at all except that they were made into a collage. They were both taken at twilight, in macro mode, with auto flashlight; kind of sideways, so that reflection of the flash was avoided. (More luck than skill!) In the picture on the left, you can see a glimpse of a lamp post outside. In the one on the right, there is a reflection of a potted plant on the window sill.

I also "discovered" something which I had not thought of before: It is (of course) possible to make a collage with only one picture, just to make use of the possiblity to put a coloured frame around it.



You can also do some interesting things with just a little detail from a photo. This image was also made in Picasa, from one of the macro photos of snow crystals on the window. Heavily cropped, maximum sharpening, colour alteration, and collage to add a frame.

If you like, tell me what you see in the last picture!

Dahlias

Just playing around a bit with some photos from last summer...
Feeling in need of some colour as contrast to the frozen white world outside!

Friend's 50th Birthday Party

Click on image to enlarge. Copyright: DawnTreader.

Yesterday I had the honour of being a guest at a friend's 50th birthday party. I have not been showing a whole lot of pictures of friends and family on the blog. Myself, I confess I also feel a lot more comfortable behind the camera than in front of! However, I decided to do a collage of some of the photos from yesterday. It will give you an idea, and since the pictures don't get too detailed this way, I don't think anyone would mind.

Middle: Birthday Boy.
Upper right-hand corner: Birthday Boy's Wife (in blue).
Upper left-hand corner: Peruvian friend dressed up in his national costume.
Bottom right-hand corner: That's me to the left (in blue).

Birthday Boy and Wife have been close friends of mine for almost 24 years. When I first got to know them, individually, they were not yet a couple. As newly-weds, a few years later, they were my next-door neighbours for a while, across the landing. They have their own house now since many years, and two teenage boys. We do not see as much of each other as we used to, but we usually get together in a small circle of friends once or twice a year. They're also the kind of people you can always turn to in a crisis... Even if it was a while since you last talked!

Yesterday was a big party, so I also got to meet with several old friends I had not seen for years. Didn't have a chance to really talk to all of them, but it was good to see them, and to catch up a bit with some of them. It was a long time since I attended a party this size. Some 50th birthday parties I've been invited to during the last decade I have not been able to go to, because of my chronic pain problems including difficulties travelling etc. This one was at my friends' own house and not too far away, so I was happy to be able to go. It was an open house kind of thing, so people kept coming and going. I came among the first, who also happened to be people I know fairly well; and I got a lift home with a friend and her daughter before it got too late (long-lasting) for me, so it all worked out well.

Birthday Boy had said he did not want presents, but would be happy if people wanted to give some money to a foundation for which he works, helping people with drug/alcohol problems. Besides such a contribution, I made him a birthday card with a collage of autumn photos that I had taken the same morning. (Follow link to see it in my Picture Book.) Inside the card, I included another collage of pictures from the years we've known each other. I also took 38 photos during the evening which I will copy onto a CD for him (after some editing - I've spent this morning fixing red eyes!!!). He took some photos himself too (you can see he's holding his camera in the picture above!), but being the focus of the party yourself, it is not easy to concentrate on being the photographer as well... (I know from experience...)

No one else seemed to have brought a camera.
Strange people!
-LOL-

From My Balcony

Nasturtium
(Collage made in Picasa 3)