As so many readers have been asking how I made the water droplets for LAPC’s last challenge – here is the formula. Originally I learned it from always innovative and informative Dina and Klausbernd at The World According to Dina.
1) Open an image in Photoshop 2) Crop it to a square format 3) Go to filter – distort – polar coordinates and click polar to rectangular 4) Go to image – rotate – flip vertical 5) Go to filter – distort -polar coordinates – rectangular to polar 6) Expand canvas: go to image – canvas size; expand to your liking but choose the right colour before saving
A small warning though…you will get addicted! Here are a couple from my garden last year – snow on the tiny spring flowers. The original scilla image is in the opener.
Scilla and daffodils after a snowfall
And here is what is coming in a month or so – sweet Anemone hepatica.
Have fun ”orbing” your world! Please tell us about it or post some of your results! We certainly need some fun these dark days, don’t we. ♥
We welcome Anne as our host this week! She has chosen Water – we cannot exist without water, and we admire its beauty and love the many ways we can interact with it. I am sending some water thoughts from a rainy Sweden. Water, water everywhere…
Roni Horn is the creator of the Library of Water (Iceland) in the opener.
Water is the driving force of all nature. – Leonardo da Vinci
I am merely an insignificant creature on a microscopic blue dot in the vastness of space.
– Abhijit Naskar
I always welcome this feeling, it gives me a refreshing insight and reminder of my place in this world. The endless sea is there to show me.
The sound of water is worth more than all the poets’ words.
– Octavio Paz
Because no matter who we are or where we come from, we’re all entitled to the basic human rights of clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and healthy land to call home.
– Martin Luther King III
Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
-Lao Tzu
We live on a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea … and you don’t believe in miracles? – Unknown
I always reflect upon life while walking in nature, I guess many of us do. A Miracle, yes, she is, Mother Earth and everything living on her. I am grateful to be here for a short second.
Yesterday I learned how to make droplets out of my images…so, from my garden I am sending my dewy autumn aster and some clear droplets for you to reflect upon too.
” Within a single drop of water, an astrologically large number “sextrillion or 1.67 x1021” of molecules exists. The size of the tiny water molecule is approximately 0.275 nanometers or 2.75 Angstrom (x 10-10m). Water is the most abundant substance on earth.”
Finally, a favourite image from the Galápagos Islands. My dream of endless, warm water with an abundance of life!
Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.
– Ban Ki-moon
Please show us your thoughts and images of water. Go through your archives and retrieve some memories or make new photographs this week. We’re looking forward to seeing your images. Please remember to use the Lens-Artists tag and link to Anne’s original post.
Thank you for participating in Sophia’s beautiful challenge of “Low Light” last week. Next week we are pleased to have Karina of Murtagh’s Meadow as our guest host. I wonder what she has in store for us…
If you would like to participate in our weekly Lens-Artists Challenge, we have easy to follow instructions. Just click this link and join us:
After years of trying to get there, (Corona restriktions and more…) we finally reached Sandgrund gallery in Karlstad. The owner of this museum/gallery is our Nordic watercolour master, Lars Lerin. When I was young, I tried my hand on this difficult task – watercolour painting. It is not easy. When the Corona restriktions started in 2020, I decided to give my painting efforts another try. I had more time on my hand, and I entered a couple of courses. I was happy. I cannot say I am any good at this, but I love it.
I want you to visit Sandgrund with me, to meet this skilled artist – I hope you enjoy!
A sensitive loner, traveller, artist, painter, writer – in fact he has written and illustrated more than 50 books. Many of them about his travels around the world. In later years he has written several children’s books as well. One of his books, with his thoughts and philosophy on life and the importance of our healing nature, won him the August Prize in 2014.
Lerin always had a dream of living in Lofoten, by the sea. And in his thirties he moved there to live with a Norwegian artist for 13 years. At times he was relying on drugs for his deep anxiety, but managed to leave the destructive life behind. Now he is a free man – married and a father of two.
I loved this study on ice and reed – where he explores his skills of light and shadows, textures and colours.
Elsa and her 28 cats is a children’s book – but it can be read by any age. The book cover shows the splendour of a Swedish summer in Värmland, where he was born. Lerin often writes about people who are different, and stand up to it – just like Elsa, whom he met as a young boy. Can you find some of Elsa’s cats? I bet they were all happy and much loved.
Thank you for letting me introduce you to Lars Lerin, I hope you enjoyed the variety of his skills.
This week we welcome Sofia and her delightful theme ”Low-Light”. Sofia says: ”For me, any circumstance where there is less light than the normal daytime is low-light as it requires different settings to take a good photo.”
I have chosen some of my all time favourites. In the header though, a new image from our recent visit to an old health resort, Lundsbrunn. It shows one of the great photo opportunities with low-light – long shadows.
A late evening walk at our summer house can be magical – in the right light.
On the west coast of Spain, just before sunset, I had one of my most magical low-light moments. I had to do some post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop to bring out the structures from the dark cliffs.
My cactus flowers are about 20-25 cm and the flower lasts only for about an hour, night time. They were photographed with my cell phone, and I used a small flash light to make it all possible. I knew when the flower would start to unfold, and by then I must have tried out how to use the light.
Sitting in a canoe, in the Amazon, I faced great difficulties because of the thick darkness. I was not happy about many of those night photos, but some of them managed to catch the magic –
– at least for me to remember the adventure by. I can still hear the sounds and the silence…just by looking at the images. So, don’t be afraid of blurred images – they too have a story to tell!
Of course I have to have something from Iceland here too. Iceland is all about the light. This image is from the south coast, a late winter evening – and the roaring sea. Velvety browns and the black sand beach showing off its diamonds.
Lastly, I will give you a glimpse of our Swedish watercolour master, Lars Lerin. The light in his paintings is incredible. Many of his paintings are from places in low light, Lofoten in winter for example. I believe we can learn not only from other photographers, but also from our painters, artists, how they picture light, and light when there is almost none.
This week we are inviting you to share your experiences with Low-Light photography. Do you have any special tricks to share? Please link your views to Sofia’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag so we can find you.
Thanks also to John for last week’s Change challenge, and for your many creative and interesting responses. We look forward to seeing your Low Light images this week and to your joining us next week when Anne leads our challenge, be sure to visit her wonderful site.
Today I came across this picture, which is a much treasured one, because the bench and the roses are no more. In the header you will find the most relaxing place I have ever been to – the Amazon. Sitting in one of those hammocks, listening to the sounds of the djungle…I have never felt or slept better in my entire life. I brought home some of those sounds.
I kept searching for places where I have much liked to sit down and contemplate life and the beauty around us. The lovely bench with a rose garden, was in Ronneby, our summer town. We went there at least once every year, but now the mansion is sold and the garden is down.In another file I found this colourful tent from a park in Madrid, and I know I visited it at least twice with my students. A very colourful and harmonious place.
In 2016 we traveled in Spain and followed parts of the Camino. This friendly hostel along the road had a wonderful man in charge – with his Alsatian as a trusted companion. I can still feel the silence in that yard.
A cafe’ in Lodz, Poland, became a favourite I visited several times. I must love colours…and harmony…but who doesn’t?
My most loved place to sit is of course in nature, but the next best thing was on the stone steps to my grandmother’s house. But they are no more. So, stone steps it is, now at our summer house. I love sitting there, on the sun warm steps, mornings, evenings, – yes, any time of the day. Watching the sunset, the terns diving and the swallows sweeping over the sea for some late evening food.
Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
– Albert Schweitzer
This week, we’re delighted to welcome John Steiner as a new member of our Lens-Artists team. For his topic, he asks us an interesting question: What does change mean to you? John has some clever answers worth visiting!
The opener shows the change we all are waiting for now – at least here in the northern hemisphere. But it will not arrive for another two months…
Change is inevitable, and I believe Charles Darwin says it best: ”It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who will best manage change.” But survival comes at a hard cost too. I have chosen changes from my own life. A mixed bag of joy and sorrow – Life is.
I love photography, even though it sometimes has to rest for a while – now much due to covid times… This photo is from a dam close by, always an autumn hiking treat. With different possibilities in computer programs, you can play around and get almost any change you want. Photosketcher used here. It is nice when you are in control yourself, isn’t it?
My hiking interest is huge – I have to visit the forest every day for dogwalks and fresh air that will keep me breathing and happy. Some favourite paths are gone, but other areas have become new favourites, and new trees will be planted where the old ones once stood.
In the autumn 2020 we finally decided for a glass house. The old stump from the big birch tree had to go – and make room for so many other plants. I have never regretted building the glass house, because all my special plants will easier survive winter. (And you might get some nice pictures of them too…)
Lastly, some changes are not wished for at all, but belongs to our closest circle of life. I lost my dear mother in 2020, and I lost sweet Totti. Little Milo has now grown up to be my handsome number 1 companion.
Many thanks to Amy for her ”Travels Have Taught Me” challenge, where we learned a great deal from your travel lessons! Next week, we’ll be looking forward to Sofia Alves’ challenge topic. Be sure to visit her beautiful blog!
Leya 
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