“One option is to fill the frame with your subject, leaving little or no space around it. This can be very effective in certain situations. It encourages the viewer to explore the detail of the subject in more depth, with no distractions.”
Negative space
“Or why not do the exact opposite? Leaving a lot of empty or ‘negative’ space around your subject can be very impactful. It creates a sense of simplicity and minimalism. Just like filling the frame, it encourages the viewer to focus on the main subject without distractions.”
For this challenge Sandy asks us – “For this week’s Friendly Friday Challenge, I ask you to share a photo and tell us the backstory. What makes the photo special? Why is it a favorite? Is there a story behind the picture? Is it an enhanced or modified picture? What did you do to change it and why?”
This so hard to limit myself to a few photos. As I was compiling the post, I kept thinking “oh what about this one” hence there aren’t any “arty farty” ones or even any flowers or insects. These are memories as well as favourites.
I’ll start with a modified photo of a Tree Fern frond. This photo was a good one, in my opinion, but wasn’t exactly what I wanted. The background was too strong so in order to enhance the image, I used vignette to blur the background a bit more.
I took the photo when I drove to the Gibraltar Ranges after the devastating bushfires in 2019 which almost destroyed my home. The area was black with dead blackened trees turned into big sticks with so many that had crashed to the ground. Amongst all of this devastation, the first signs of life appeared, Tree Ferns had emerged dotting the blackness with their showy green fronds.
This photo is showing life after tragedy.
My first visit to Paris, a city which I have come to adore. These stairs took us to our apartment on the sixth floor which, after a day of walking exploring Paris seemed such a hard climb.
A photo of a happy memory. I feel that monochrome was the best way to show the stairs and light that flowed from the window.
I have to also include Venice another favourite city full of memories and a wonderful time. This is on the way back to our apartment in an old palace the home of a wonderful woman who had stories to tell of Venice in the past.
Just over the bridge and the building with the light was where we stayed. Technically not all that a good photo but holds a time and place to cherish.
I have to add this is the view from our room
I couldn’t do this photo challenge without including a bit of Australian nature. Over the years when I posted photos of Eastern Yellow Robins they always draws comments.
They are the sweetest little birds that hang around my garden. Quite noticeable from the flash of yellow as the zoom around looking for snacks and helping keep my garden free of insects that like to chew on leaves and flowers.
I also have to include another bit of cuteness that live here, Red-necked Wallabies. There isn’t as many as there was earlier with only one family group coming into the garden daily to eat the grass.
I took this photo a few years ago of an inquisitive Joey looking in the kitchen window.
Again a messy photo but you need to be quick before they hop away to the safety of Mum and Dad. In case you wondered I did finish the brick work to the front entrance.
Being green is quite easy for me being my lifestyle since I was in my teens…..way back then. Living in the Australian bush, having to rely on my own water supply, heating and most recently cooling and solar power to supplement my existing electrical consumption, I guess makes me think about what I do and the impact on the environment.
I also belong to Landcare and assist others in restoring or rehabilitating their patch of land as well as doing the same on my place.
This post is a mix of just green as well as nature doing its thing. I love this Pitcher Plant photo. Not many plants consume insects to survive. I’d be drawn to the colour as well.
A little green iridescent beetle doing his thing on a green leaf
This is a bit of green colour and how nature comes back after a fire
and with Eucalypts, the first flush of new growth is usually red
Once the red growth has established, the green takes over to do the plants chlorophyll and photosynthesis thing
Butterflies do wonders for plants reproduction and pollination. I love the annual migration of Caper White Butterflies although last seasons migration there wasn’t as many butterflies.
Bees are always busy
Whether sitting on a plant or flying to the next one to gather nectare and pollinate the flowers
Birds, like this Eastern Spinebill, also have a part in the pollination process as the pollen sticks to their feathers and is transferred from flower to flower as the drink nectare as well
Tiny Scarlet Honeyeaters also move pollen as they drink
Bigger Blue-faced Honeyeaters get right into the flowers and sometimes find insects as well as consuming nectare and spreading pollen.
Bigger birds like Wedged-tailed Eagles take care of the carrion and unfortunately road kill
It is easy to be green and enjoy yourself at the same time
What was the last good……thing I ate. My breakfast a BLT on a sourdough roll and a coffee
What was the last good……song I listened to. Strange Brew by Cream
What was the last good…….nature photo I took. A Yellow-faced Honeyeater in a Yamba Gold Grevillea
What was the last good…..blog I read (and participated in) Paulas Pick a Word. One of the first Photo Challenges I started doing way back in 2016 I think and has always been a favourite
I was trying to think of what to post but my head kept singing this song…..so what should I do but just send a bit of weather in song for you to enjoy from an Australian/New Zealand band
Here at the moment there has been a bit of wild weather and huge thunder storms.
I was on my first foray into the world outside of Australia. After realising what I wanted was rather expensive I settled for a bus tour. I flew with Korean Air and I was amazed at the service and food. There were a group of people going to one of the Korean Air Hotels and waited for the bus to take us. As we got into the elevator something funny happened to someone and I looked at this woman and we both could hardly contain laughing.
The next day a bus took people back to the airport. Boarded a plane to Madrid and it had a stop over in Amsterdam to refuel. I over heard a conversation about going on a tour. Once in Madrid I introduced myself and said I am on the same tour. We headed off to get the bus to the hotel to wait for the tour to start. More smiles as we sat in what we called, the Nana Bus.
Meet Kerri and Joerg
WE roamed the streets of Madrid with no special plan and headed off to explore what we could find. Didn’t go into the Prada, I went there next time, we just enjoyed what we found sometimes the same thing twice! Hence we were Chaos Tours.
There was always laughs and fun in the bus as there were lots more under thirties than oldies. I wasn’t cool enough for the back seat or fuddy duddy enough for up front.
There were really helpful for me to get my head around another world as we went from Madrid to Granda, along the Mediterranean – Southern France, Nice, Avignon up to Northern Italy, Florence, Venice – everyone on the tour went on guided tours in Pisa. Kerri, Joerg and I found a great little place and had a pizza in Pisa, one of the best I have had. Then Croatia, Rovinj in a resort and Split was amazing, a quick overnight in Ljubljana, Slovenia and onto Vienna.
Kerri and Joerg left the tour in Rome. I am so glad we clicked and are really special to me. We still email and FB message, the occasional phone call. I have used Kerri and Joerg in a previous challenges.
As this is a two week challenge, I’ll just pop in a close-up today with a Female Satin Bowerbird. Over the past week the Satin Bowerbirds have taken over the garden. The males are easily distinguished as they are a shiny blue/black. The Females and the juveniles have the same colouring and markings. The immatures stay much the same colouring for around four years when they start to change colour. By the seventh year the moult will produce the black feathers of a male. The males are promiscuous and their bower is an attractant to lure the females.
Here is the close-up of a female Satin Bowerbird in the Honey Gem Grevillea in my front yard. This photo was taken through my kitchen window.
If I go way back things are so far back that this brain has trouble getting around the concept. One thing that Amanda wrote stuck in my brain as I read her wonderful post of childhood, the pitfalls of eating – luckily my mother was a wonderful cook even if it was the standard meat and three veg and I are it all. Once home sometimes I would be in the kitchen shelling peas or peeling potatoes or just playing outside with my imaginary friends lol. I did get a bit of a yell at if I even thought about a swing on the Hills Hoist,
I was a constant in the local library and read everything I could get my hands on. I read all of the Dr Doolittle book as much of Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Micael Moorcock and other sci-fi as I could find. All of the unusual titles also drew my attention like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, The Phantom Tollbooth, The World According to Garp, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy The Gulag Archipelago, Catch 22 and the list goes on.
But mainly from Amanda’s post, the thing that made me laugh and remember a photo I have is the “I am young, walking home from school down a very steep road, partly finished with asphalt, wearing an outdated, unfashionable, yellow raincoat. It is a garment made from the kind of thick rubbery plastic that makes one sweat profusely, but fails to thoroughly keep the skin dry – (its sole purpose!).”
Well Amanda you can look cool in a yellow raincoat
4TheRecord is dedicated primarily to Ausmusic from all eras and most genres, we will explore the dynamics of the creative process, and reveal the great drama, lyricism, musicality, and emotion behind each classic song.
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