Like the previous entry this image started as a simple photo of a mountain stream. Actually it was only taken less than a metre from the previous image. Like its predecessor the only photoshopping was some severe cropping to get down to the bare essentials and remove extraneous detail and some heavy colour enhancement. The aim was to try and capture something of the energy of the water, something of its mood and vibrancy, in an image reduced to pattern and texture.

Well the previous post happened largely by accident. I was unsure what image I wanted to show next, what I wanted to say next, and came across the photo I eventually used whilst searching through my Australian folders; often a happy hunting ground. Yet there is nothing specifically Australian about it so I decided to look for photos with similar potential in other folders. I came across a series of photos, taken in Cumbria, of a small beck on the south side of e Crummockwater. So I played with it in a similar vein to the previous post. There is less photoshopping than you might think. The tumbling waters of the beck, reflecting the blue sky , red and yellow rocks, ripples and swirls in the water; all were there. So I enhanced the colour, obviously, and cropped it heavily to take out unnecessary detail; but no twirling or swirling, no distorting. Muse&Mentor tells me that any photographer can take a nice photo, a happy memento of a place visited, the artist/photographer chooses what to accept, what to reject and how to develop the art and create the image. So a happy collaboration between Gaia, our beautiful planet, and myself.

This image started as a photo of a rock pool on an Australian beach on a dull day. It looked … well rather dull. Yet something about it still appealed to me. So I cropped it a bit tighter and played with it in photoshop, trying many different options until I came to this result; all textures and patterns and colours and movement, not a photograph any more yet an act of photoimagination.
I love the image and I’m really happy to be moving on from the previous theme.

Well this post has been much delayed, partly as I have been busy with other things (even a photoimaginator has to cook, pay bills, clear out junk etc) and also because I was not sure if I wanted to include these next two images in my blog. They are not great images and I generally want to restrict the images I publish to ones that I love and that I hope will inspire or move you in some way. Yet they do complete the series on what photographic club judges limit their imagination to; cuddly animals, cute kids, ugly critters and funny foreigners. Well the first two were quite easy. Mmmm … ugly critters, well I don’t have any close-ups of spiders or snakes, much loved by the judges, but I do have this little beauty (well I suppose it’s mother loved it) taken by the Chobe river in Botswana.

And as for funny foreigners, well this makes me uncomfortable at two levels. Firstly, it is too easy to make fun of people from other cultures and other traditions, Ii prefer to find human differences fascinating and a cause for wonder. Secondly I really don’t have the shear nerve of pointing my camera at other people who may well not want to be photographed.  So I confess, I didn’t take this next picture of a couple of cool dudes; Muse&Mentor did that whilst we were out on the Great Ocean Road (Victoria) with some dear friends, and I had popped into the gas station.

So now I have explained whilst I don’t like photo clubs, too many competitions with boring judges and the same boring images, with those few daring to innovate being derided. So if you have had the same experience then take heart, you are not alone. Equally if you have found a better club then I hope you get much more out of it than I did.

Well this continues the theme of my last post, my take on camera club completion winners of cute animals, cute children , ugly animals and ‘funny’ foreigners.

These images were taken on a sunny day, whilst visiting some friends of a friend, on a very modest 5mp camera. I tried playing with them in photoshop and everything spoiled the dreamy impressionistic feeling. So these are unphotoshopped images. The moral being that sometimes you just leave an image alone.