Författare: Leya

Lens-Artists Challenge #411- What is it?

/ Leya / 10 kommentarer
Lens-Artists Challenge #411 – What is it?

This truly is something we never had before … – and What is it? Sofia is the quiz leader, and now I try to jump in with more…

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I know these are quite easy, but I hope you will have some fun with them anyway!

So, now it is your turn. Think of anything that looks ambiguous, difficult to understand or unusual, look for details instead of the whole thing, conceal what might give away what your subject is, but most of all, have fun! Please remember to link back to Sofia’s original post and to tag Lens-Artists so we can easily find you.

Last week Ritva was our host with a looking back challenge focusing on editing. It was a very interesting challenge with different ways of editing our shots and also to see the end results.

Next week is John’s turn to lead us, Saturday 5th September. Until then, take care and be kind.

Here is today’s facit:

  1. ICM at a pond with yellow lilies. Blekinge, Ronneby Brunn.
  2. A close-up of a big Allium ball from Keukenhof, Holland.
  3. My collection of foil balls, given to me by my daughter…A thing she had with that since she was very little. I took care of everything that should not be dropped on the ground. I still do.
  4. Hotel Hvide Falk, Ilulissat, Greenland. The evening lamp inside was reflected through the windows and moving outdoors!
  5. Close-up of a Van Gogh painting. Unfortunately I don’t remember the title.

The header? A male lion vanishing in the high grasses…

Thursday Thoughts – Lost in Arctic Sahara

/ Leya / 11 kommentarer

In 1968, 8th December, three American Lockhead jetplanes flew from Goose bay in Canada heading for Keflavik, Iceland. They were hit by bad weather over Greenland and tried to make an emergency landing at Kangerlussuaq. In those days, there were no roads whatsoever in Greenland, and this area is still called ”Arctic Sahara”.

This ”highway”, or ”Autostrada” as the Greenlanders call it, was built partly during WWII and partly 1995. The river is in low water prone to sandstorms that disturb GPS signals. Tall masts have been built to help out.

Anyway, no road existed where the three planes were lost and finally ran out of fuel. The whole crew of four people, managed to jump out before the planes crashed in no man’s land. In winter the temperatures can fall to -40 degrees C. And this was in December.

Luckily all four of them were saved by helicopters before freezing to death.

The remains of one of the planes were still spread out along the Autostrada, and our bus stopped for us to have a look. There was a sign warning people not to take any souvenirs – but showing respect for the pilots and the remains of the jets. But, there wasn’t much left to see, I guess there were souvenirs brought to many homes as the road made the area accessible.

The driver told us there were many stories about this accident, and he told us one of them – one that he believed was really true:

Since the Autostrada was built, family and relatives of the pilots started visiting the place. Story has it that when the daughter of one of the pilots and her husband was on their way to the site, her father (the pilot) asked them to look in the glovebox for his wallet. And – they found it.

Lens-Artists Challenge #154/410 – One Photo Edited

/ Leya / 38 kommentarer
Lens-Artists Challenge #154 / 410 – One Photo Edited

Just like Ritva, I love editing – and this time I had some extra help…Please visit Ritva’s inspirational site for more different edits! Thank you, Ritva, for a great challenge – I hope you won’t mind some tweaking for my granddaughter…

I have chosen pictures from my Africa gallery, and I can assure you, I had some lovely hours editing! The first picture features one of all the icredibly beautiful skies in Zimbabwe, seen from the Zambesi river.

All the original pictures are on the left side, and the extra edited ones are on the right side. Usually, I enhance the light if needed, sometimes a light saturation, and sometimes a crop if the main object sits in the ”wrong” place. Here I felt free to use some more tricks for Ritva’s interesting challenge.

In this photo, I wanted to get back the warm, golden light before the sunset was complete. (I missed out on that one, so, in fact I saw both these sights, within a short amount of time. Each beautiful in its own way.

The above picture was taken from the easternmost part of Victoria Falls, on the border to Zambia. I fell in love with the little hut sitting just on the precipice – but had difficulties in showing the sight I saw inside my head and the feeling I had of Nature Magic. In the end I resorted to AI, which produced a kind of fantasy picture the looks of JRR Tolkien’s trilogy of the Ring – Rivendell. This result failed me in my own tries.

In this indoor picture from our ”tent” at the camp in South Africa, I loved all the creases and the soft, golden light – but also saw a potential winter’s tale from Sweden. Taking down the highlight, I was still not happy with the window look, so I darkened the picture some, and found a Lightroom preset that both intensified the creases, and made a snowy-like look through the window. This might as well have been a winter stay up north in Sweden.

Often the bush would surprise us with a long neck suddenly peeping up over the trees. I found those moments hilarious, and thought I would make this shot a bit more movie – like. I found a Lightroom preset that fit my inner image, darkening the background and enhancing the giraffe almost into a comic strip figure.

Back to a short real life feeling again! Like many of us, I love water drops, and they often look amazing converted into B&W. Here done with Nik collection.

As my granddaughter of 4 1/2 was here today, and she is in a dragon-and-unicorn phase right now, I might have guessed her answer to my question about what more I should do with this picture … Of course a Dragon is the answer to everything!

Last week we featured a guest host, Steve Hyde (of Steve Hyde Photography Blog) and he provided us with a wonderful, but difficult, challenge. We loved all the fantastic, Best Ever Photos you shared!

Sofia will return next week, so we will see what she has in store for us. Tune in to find out more about the challenge then. 

Until then, please stay curious, positive and kind.

You can keep up with all of our challenges by subscribing to the Lens-Artists team members websites: Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, John, Sofia, Anne, Egidio,  Beth. Ritva, 

For information on how to join the Lens-Artists challenge please click here.

Thursday Thoughts – RAF, Red, Red, Red!

/ Leya / 7 kommentarer

The airport in Kangelussuaq had some interesting guests the day we happened to be there –

The Red Arrows, based in RAF Waddington and on their way to the USA for the 4th July celebrations.

We met some lovely gentlemen, as Englishmen usually are, and really nice young guys from the crew. I was granted a photo after a chat with this young man.

Nine BAE systems Hawk T1 for their Diamond Nine formation. Although I only caught seven of them…They have performed over 4800 displays in 57 countries worldwide. Their Motto is: Éclat, French for ”brilliance” or ”excellence”. The aerobatic team celebrated their 60th Diamond Season in 2024.

I would have loved to see them in action!