Spring Flowers with a tinge of blue!

New!! Mini Challenge ~ Cosmic Spring ~

Cosmic Spring - The Award Tree

I took this shot of the opera house in Sydney about a year ago.

Thought it would make a good candidate to play around with.

The balloons and reflection have been added in CS6.

I don't think there have ever been hot air balloons anywhere near this, it sure would look good.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for looking and all the comments, favourites on yesterdays project.

Norbert

It's supposed to start snowing today, so hey, let's think spring! HSS!

Edited with an effect and colour manipulation in Topaz Studio 2.

Thank you for your visits and comments, always appreciated! Have a great day!

Thank you to Jon DeBoer for a Facebook post that inspired this.

Day 318

Just playing

Life above the clouds.

Day 269

Follow my photography on Facebook.

Peafowl 34558708130_15a6212371_o_created_using Own photo, _Artensoft_Photo_Collage_Maker, Pixabay, Photoshop

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Angel-sound for baby-sleep,

used: Photoshop, Filter Forge, Pixabay

Digital Manipulatoin

My Textures (Free Textures by TCP)

My brushes created in Photoshop Brush Tools

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feed-back very much

I liked the original picture so much, that I almost didn't go through with finishing this edit.

Here's the original: www.flickr.com/photos/notkalvin/7386600050/in/photostream

Some will say that is a mini-notkalvin, (nasty little things, some say), running across a field. The hand of [insert supreme being of choice here] reaches across to deal a mighty thwack to the back of the little dude's head.

That may be the case. but, even if it is not, we all know one thing:

There's no running in empty fields. Duh.

Day 295

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much. You are welcome to visit my original Nature and wildlife Photos at:

www.flickr.com/photos/soes_nature_and_art/

Eurasian Red Squirrel, artistic, used: Studio Aartsit, Filter Forge, Own photo, Photoshop

3 combined images showing the trajectory of this sunrise

This used to be the South Park Calvary United Presbyterian Church. The church was built in 1853; however, only the facade remains after a 1992 fire. Today, a community garden exists where the sanctuary was.

If I put a description here, I would just be misleading you.

Day 263

Follow my photography on Facebook.

Thanks to everyone for visits , comments , awards and invitations, I appreciate your feedback very much

Thanks to everyone for visiting , commenting , awards and invitations.

This afternoon the 2021 Iditarod Race will begin. Sadly - due to Covid, it is has been drastically changed this year. (See article below)

In this image I was having a little early morning chat with a neighbor who is participating in this year race.

Sun, March 7, 2021, 2:06 AM•

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Forty-seven mushers and their teams of huskies were due to begin their trek into the Alaska wilderness on Sunday for the 49th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, on a course drastically altered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The starting line of the 2021 event has been placed off-limits to the usual crowds of cheering spectators, and none are expected anywhere along the abbreviated route for this year's running of the world's most famous sled-dog race.

Access to the start area - a secluded spot at the edge of a frozen river in Willow, Alaska, about 75 miles north of Anchorage – has been confined to competitors and essential race personnel.

Canceled was the usual Saturday ceremonial kickoff to the race in Anchorage, a day of festivities that traditionally have packed Iditarod fans into the downtown district of Alaska's largest city.

And there will be no finish line in Nome, the Bering Sea town that has long served as the end point for a race course that roughly follows the path of the legendary diphtheria serum run to Nome by dog sled teams in 1925.

Instead, this year's race will run to an uninhabited checkpoint called Iditarod and an abandoned mining settlement named Flat, then turn around for a second leg sending mushers back to the starting line at the Deshka River in Willow.

The total distance is about 860 miles, roughly 100 miles shorter than the traditional route to Nome.

The coronavirus-altered route is designed to minimize contact with residents of the region. Even where the trail nears villages, the checkpoints are isolated with access restricted. The route skips all the native Athabascan villages along the Yukon River and all the Inupiat villages on the Bering Sea coast.

Camera in motion, capturing three lights in a candelabra. Lights, shadows, and blurs in the image were subsequently modified in Lightroom, Irfanview, and NIK software, producing a mix of electric and painterly effects.

The sun sets directly at the end of the Venice Pier on the winter solstice when this was taken. HDR from 3 exposures organized in Lightroom, tonemapped in Dynamic Photo HDR and edited with Topaz in photoshop.

From a recent trip to the Tucson Botanical Gardens, processed in GIMP and G'MIC.

Flying Umbrellas,

used: Filter Forge, Photoshop, Pixabay

Eventually it runs out.

African green mamba...

Having some digital fun with stock images. The shot of the green mamba was taken in Jan 2014 during a reptile exhibit at the RBG.

We have a huge flock of White Crowned Warblers draining our feeders every day. Snow is melting rapidly, and huge puddles are full of thirsty, and bathing birds. I expect the warblers to take off any day, and head to the tundra where they will build nests on the ground and lay their eggs. Until then, I am really enjoying the sound of their happy chirps.

Day length today: 17h 12m (May 9, 2022)

5 minutes, 40 seconds longer than yesterday (May 8, 2022)

12 hours, 5 minutes longer than winter solstice (Dec 21, 2021)

2 hours, 36 minutes shorter than summer solstice (Jun 20, 2021)

Lovely view