A short video taken with my phone on our walk from Old Hartley Caravan Site to St Mary’s Lighthouse. The tide was out so we were able to have a look round and in the lighthouse and Island. It was nice to see the Seals hauled up on the island having a sunbath.
Author: Steve Peacock
Semi Professional Photographer with a love of wildlife. Retired Electronics and Communication Engineer, Retired Network Manager and finally Retired Teacher of IT, Computer Science and Photography.
Cold Weather Plant Edit
As the weather was cold I decided to play with a photograph I took earlier when the weather was warm. Edited with Lightroom, Topaz Photo AI, Photoshop and the TK8 plugin.
Texture Blending
Another example of texture blending. In this example I have done little blending to the foreground, all the texture is in the background. The blending is on the edges only with a with a low opacity blend all over the foreground to just colour balance the image. (the original Squirrel was very grey)
Texture Blending
I have lots of images that I like but are not either pin sharp or they will be low resolution due to the amount of cropping needed. Some images also have poor backgrounds that would involve lots of time to fix. So I have started experimenting with texture blending as a way of re-purposing these images
As staring inspiration for this I have to thank Mat Kloskowski of mattk.com for ideas on how to blend in textures and also how to create your own textures for this.
Lanzarote May 2022
Below are a couple of landscape images from our recent visit to Lanzarote. I wanted some images to show the little shelters they build to protect and provide water for the vines. Especially after sampling some of the excellent white wines.
Due to the lava grey landscape the original images came out a little flat so to add the evening colour I remembered I used Tony Kuypers TK8 Photoshop panel.
Roe Deer in the Lake District
Cheddar Gorge Circular Walk
An October trip in our MotorHome to Cheddar, Somerset, UK. On the first day we (me) decided to do the 5.5km circular walk starting and finishing at Jacob’s Ladder. I slept well the next day. The following video slideshow was put together using FotoMagico Beta 6 from images taken on an Iphone 12 ProMax. So glad for its image quality as it saved me, and my lungs, from taking my normal camera of choice the Canon 5DMk IV.
The Time of the Young Birds
This time of year, if there is no wind or rain I can enjoy and hour or so just sitting in the conservatory looking at the garden. It is the time of the young birds, the Blackbirds, Starlings, Sparrow and Dunnocks. They often collect in the garden in the hope of being fed by their parents or anyone that may feed them, they don’t care.
You can see the young Blackbird just sitting there no idea what is going on around them, or rushing out from behind a plant pot as a parent passes by with a worm, shouting I am here feed me. Or trying to get another young Blackbird to feed them, sometimes even an adult Sparrow. Watching an adult in the bird bath then deciding to have a go themselves, but not sure what to do once they are in the water. Sometimes you get a young Blackbird from an earlier brood that try’s to get fed as well and gets chased off, only so it can come back and try again.
Young Starlings arriving in numbers, with or without Adults, then just stand around picking things up then dropping them again, including food. You can imagine them thinking ok its in my beak what do I do with this now. Sitting on the hedge trying to pull petals off. Suddenly disappearing on mass as an adult flys by.
The young Sparrows and Dunnocks relentlessly chasing the adults around, sometimes getting chased off as they have got the wrong adult. Sometimes joining the young Starling groups being just as hopeless. Flying off into the hedge almost too late as a cat arrives.
Starling Invasion
After spreading some dried Mealworms around out lawn we started to get adult and young Starlings, the only way to describe it is invade. Watch how the young have no idea what to do with the Mealworms.
Fox and Hedgehog
First night sighting of a Fox and Hedgehog this year and both together. The Fox learns not to sniff a Hedgehog too close.