Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
My focus for the month is on elephant images, and I decided to start off with some of the adorable babies that I saw on my last safari.
I’ve had the great fortune to spend time amongst the shy ones, the boisterous ones, the playful ones and the ones too focused on food to even give the vehicle a passing glance. I adore them all. I hope that the individual character of each animal shines through these images below.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead!
It seems like it has been a while since I have played around with tinted monochrome images. This elephants looked good in black and white, but felt better with the warmer, coffee tones you see below. These were taken on different days, but all fairly late in the morning, when the sun was casting harsh shadows. Conventional wisdom says that’s the time to put away the camera, but I’ll keep shooting as long as there is something interesting to look at. The bulk of an elephant and the highly textured skin seem to be able to handle harsh light quite well.
This post was originally going to be the big five, but I had images of cheetah and wild dog that I wanted to play around with, so the magnificent seven it is.
One of the reasons I wanted to focus on my photo art this month was to try and learn a bit more about Topaz Studio version 2. I’ve played around with it a bit, and watched some tutorials, but for the workflow I am using, at this stage I will be sticking with version 1. The issue that I was finding is I can’t get files to make a round trip using On1 Photo Raw. I can get the file into Studio 2, and work on it, but the only option for saving is an “Accept” button, which with the workflow I am using, appears to do nothing. I select it, but the file doesn’t get saved, exported or anything else. New software versions are typically a bit buggy, so I’ll give it a few update cycles and then play around with it again and see what happens.
One of the great things about photo editing tutorials is getting the little reminders for things that are outside of the normal workflow. In this case, the reminder was to play around with blending modes when using AI Remix, Impression and textures. For example, the cheetah image below was edited using (amongst other tools) a filter in AI Remix called Neon Rise. But changing the blend mode from normal to luminosity kept the amazing texture that the filter offered, but eliminated the wild and crazy colours for something far more subdued, and suited to the image.
I hope you enjoy the selections below. Wishing you a fantastic week ahead.
You can find some of these images in the Photo Art section of my gallery.
It’s no secret that I love elephants, and that I love editing elephant images in black and white. Here are a few from my most recent travels. I hope they brighten up your Monday 
Instead of my weekly monochrome Monday post, I decided to share some of my favourite elephant images, in honour of World Elephant Day.
May these beautiful animals roam in peace
Elephants are my favourite animal to spend time with on safari, so feel free to search my site for elephants to find other posts about these majestic giants, or take a look at the gallery.
I saved my favourite for last for my final instalment of July’s topic – Babies in the bush. I was actually so spoiled for choice with images of baby elephants that it was difficult to select which images to share. I’m not complaining, it is definitely a good problem to have!
On all of the properties we visited, the elephant sightings were prolific; so much so that a couple of our guides even commented about the volume of elephants sightings that we were having, and how lucky we were. There were moments that no matter which direction you looked, you were surrounded by elephants. And when we carried on down a road to see what else we could see, around every bend in the road, there were more. Being in the presence of these magnificent animals brings me such a feeling of peace and joy, so you’ll never hear me complain about seeing too many elephants while out on safari.
You can’t help but smile while watching baby elephants. They have so much personality, and are often very precocious and curious. You’ll often see them mock charging vehicles trying to be big and tough, playing with sticks and branches in the bush, tussling with their little friends, having a temper tantrum when something isn’t going their way, or playing shy, hiding between Mom and other larger, more confident elephants.
I hope you enjoy my selections for the week
Happy Canada day to my friends and family. I know I should have been out capturing the beauty of my own country, but the day has been pretty rainy and miserable, so instead, I offer you today a trio of baby elephants.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead!
I was fortunate to see lots of youngsters during my latest travels. While the young elephants are definitely my favourite to watch, especially when they start waving their tiny trunks around trying to act tough, all the young animals in the bush are a delight to see.
Here are just a few of the sightings that I had.
