Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
It was awesome to spend some time with the dogs on an afternoon game drive during my last trip. I’ve been fortunate to see wild dogs on almost all of my trips to Africa, but I still get really excited when a ranger tells me that dogs have been spotted on the property.
I spotted a barred owl hanging out in the backyard a couple of days ago while I was having lunch. It spent a bit of time trying to hunt, and the rest trying to nap. It was -28C, so I took the photos through my window, as it was just too cold for me to get out to take a couple of pictures. Besides, Murphy’s Law would have kicked in, and by the time I got bundled up enough to head outside and take a few images, the owl would have flown away.
Thankfully things have warmed up a little bit here; still cold, but at least not bitterly cold. I hope your week ahead is looking up too 🙂
Much like yesterday, today also felt like a perfect day to share an elephant image.
This was shot while staying at Lion Sands Tinga Lodge. We couldn’t go on a game drive without seeing elephants, sometimes an immense number of them, which our guide kept commenting on. It made me incredibly happy, since they are my favourite animal to spend time with our on safari.
Today felt like the perfect day to share some elephant pictures 🙂 Basically, if the day ends in Y, I think elephant images are just right!
My editing software had a bit of a meltdown trying to open one of the raw files to edit; I have no idea what was going on, as the images before and after were fine. Thankfully, I have lots of back ups, and after deleting the file and reloading it, everything was okay. Public service message for the day – always make sure you have a backup of your data!
I hope you enjoy, wishing you a fantastic week ahead.
Happy Monday!
I thought a few landscape images would be a good way to start the week. These are all from my last trip to South Africa.
It’s the start of a new year, and I’ve not come up with any grand plans for the blog. In addition to my full time work, I’m starting graduate school and courses towards a professional designation, so I have decided to leave things open for the time being, until I see what type of time and energy I have. I am hoping to continue on with my Sunday, Monday and Wednesday posting schedule, but I may not end up picking themes for each month, and instead, just go where the mood takes me. I’m just going to play it by ear for the moment.
I’ve continued to be inspired to play around with my artistic impression images, and have a few of those to share today.
I’ve still not had any success with moving over to Topaz Studio version 2. When I have played around with it, I have really liked the flow within the program, but have found it challenging to get photos in and out of the software, with my current workflow. Thankfully, the original version is still working well within my system.
That’s all for today; wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead.
Yesterday I shared a few very colourful photos of my favourite African bird, the lilac-breasted roller, and today, some monochrome images of my favourite cat, the leopard.
I’ve gone on an on before about how amazing I think it is to spend time with a leopard, so I won’t repeat myself today, and instead, leave you to the few images below, and wish you a fantastic week.
I missed the opportunity to get out and photograph my local birds today, which is a bit of a shame, as it has been a lovely day with mild temperatures and blue skies. So instead, I’ll share a few images of my favourite African bird, the stunning lilac-breasted roller.
This will be the last Sunday post not only of the year, but of the decade. It seems a bit hard to believe. I don’t yet have a grand plan for the blog in 2020; so far, the only plan is to continue to share images and some of the stories that go alone with the photos, and see how things go.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead, and many thanks for your support throughout the year.
Today marks the first full day of winter, and while I am very grateful that thus far there haven’t been too many bitterly cold days in the transition between autumn and winter, I know they are coming. I find winter a challenging time, far more so now that I am living in the north than I used to. It isn’t just the temperatures; it is the lack of colour and the length of time that the area is carpeted in snow. Yes, the blue sky days, with the snow twinkling in the sunlight can be beautiful, but this morning, the dull grey skies and ice crystals hanging off the branches seemed to perfectly reflect how I feel about winter. At once both dull and sharp, beautiful and miserable.
I don’t get out to take images that often in winter; I suffer from Reynaud’s syndrome and being out in the type of thin gloves necessary to handle a camera can be a real challenge unless the day is fairly mild. Sometimes it is worth it regardless of the temperature, but those times are definitely the exception.
I spent a bit of time this morning wandering the yard, hoping to capture what I noticed while out walking my dog earlier this morning. By the time I got out though, most of the ice crystals hanging from the moss in the trees had dissipated from the slight rise in temperatures, but those clinging to the evergreens and willows still remained.
Here are my early impressions of winter.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead.
