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The beauty of nature........our glorious world.....

Why I can't delete my picture?

How to consider a portrait.
You are selling the idea that you have appeal an therefore, your picture must have certain elements and as such should clearly show your face. Wearing sunglasses, or putting on your worst face wins you nothing. Portrait is your face and includes shoulders, neck some chest. The more you believe someone wants to see more of your body the less of the real you they see because you have to be farther away. Don't evade the truth about you, no need to because you can work with it. You can pose side-on. If you think you are big and stand side-on don't then put a handbag in front of your tummy because you'll look wider. Practice positions that reduce your bottom or tummy and look at the pictures critically. Use your smile, don't overdo makeup, and pose naturally, not at odd angles. No artistic stuff. Just good images. Those images I award an 8 to are visually explosive and the images are very appealing and well taken. Awarding an image an 8 when it's no better than a 1 does no favours to the subject.

I have been through every female Australian image. I look at every image from the view point of appeal, pose, how well it was taken, clarity, and subject. If you are on this website to find someone give it your best. Let people really see you - the real you.

Yep, it's about time for some fun on here.
If you want to join in, add your own caption(s)
for the following photo.

My first one is; "Honest, it's not what you think !"

Here's the photo;

Over the past couple of years, I've immersed myself in my photography, loving every second of it, and being challenged to do more and create more in the photo club. It's been a fantastic journey, and now that I'm officially retired, my down time from Dec to May with my business is now spent with my camera.

I can honestly say that I've improved significantly with my photos, but still have lots of room to grow. It's heartwarming to have a 'following' on facebook on my photography page, which I finally launched only a couple of weeks ago. I've received several requests to purchase photos, which, in itself, is quite an honour.

As a result of my immersion in photography, my artwork has taken a back seat. I haven't drawn or painted in some time, mostly because I'd rather be outdoors. The camera allows me to combine my sense of adventure and curiosity with creativity. As a result, photography's the winner. lol.

Although I've retained membership in the watercolour club, I rarely go to the meetings as they're in my old community - a 45 minute drive each way. I don't like driving at night, and my interest in the club has waned, significantly. Partially, that's due to being ousted from the jobs I'd been doing, without any consultation. I was just informed one day that someone else was taking over my jobs - things I enjoyed doing. I told the president that never again would I volunteer to do anything for the club. I'd put up and regulated a fb page, administrated their web site, and designed their bookmark - yes, for free.

As I didn't attend the meetings, that's fine if they wanted someone else to take over, but not to say anything to me ahead of time was, imo, rude and inconsiderate. It wasn't that I hadn't done what they'd needed done, it was simply politics. So fine, don't ever ask me or expect me to do anything again.

When I got home on Wednesday night, there was a message from a member of the club (of course, not the president), would I be interested in scanning and photographing their art work for a calendar for them this year? There'd be up to 36 pieces of artwork to scan and/or photograph and they wanted it all done in one evening.

Ha ha ha ha!!!

No.

I told the guy no, I had too many commitments and my own calendars to put together. It wasn't an 'honour' to be asked. It's a sh*tty job, scanning all that artwork or photographing it. And there's no way I was going to be responsible for someone being pissed off because their artwork wasn't the right colour tones or whatever. And do I want to photograph someone's art work? Hardly. Like I said, it's a sh*t job, because it's not just taking the photos or scans, it's adjusting and editing everything afterwards. For free? Nope. G.F.Y.

There are some people in the watercolour club I really like, and why I continue to stay, but the president can pound sand if he thinks he can send a minion to ask for a job obviously no one else wants to do. It's mind-boggling how many people are trying to pick my brain about making a calendar and my success at it. Just amazing no one wants to know you until you're successful at something they want. Then they expect you to give it to them for free, after they've shunned you. lol.

Anyway, it's another beautiful day here, there's photos waiting for me to take, and orders to get ready. I'm going to enjoy every second of it. :)

Went hiking on the Appalachian Trail to the second highest peak in Virginia. This is on Whitetop Mountain.
Buzzard Rock

Summit of Whitetop

Forest





Ran into this little guy on trail. Nonvenomous.

Here are 5 of the 12 photos that I presented last week in my photo club.
They loved them. Perhaps you might enjoy one of them too.
All were taken with my Canon T6i and a Sigma 50 to 500 mm lens.

The first 3 are somewhat difficult. They are of a flying hummingbird feeding from a flower.
They were at a huge garden, where there were literally thousands of flowers.
So, one has little idea as to when the bird would appear, or which flower the bird would feed from. In addition one needs to choose a very high shutter speed (these were taken at 1/3200 of a second) and thus a high ISO ( = 3200).







The next one was of a Monarch Butterfly.
However, while I was just about to press the shutter button, I noticed (something?)
out of the corner of my eye to the right of the butterfly.
So, I shifted the camera a bit to the right to include it in the picture.
I was very happy that the butterfly turned out very well and the other
tiny insect turned out well enough to at least get a look at it.
However, I still don't know what the heck that tiny insect is.



Lastly, I went to a jazz festival last month. Got right up front, center stage and met
a couple of the band leaders. One a female singer and the other one a terrific guitarist,
that I own several CDs of. His name is Mark Whitfield.

While I was taking photos, I sat right next to the guy the festival hired to take photos of the
event. I asked him if he was familiar with Mark Whitfield. He was not. I told him, that I had
never seen him in person, but I owned several of his CDs and that he is an excellent guitarist.

We both took hundreds of photos of each band. After Mark Winfield's band was done, the other photographer commented to me, "Man, he just gave us his all." I said, "Yeah. But the challenge with him, as I saw it, was that whenever he plays, he plays with his eyes closed." He responded with, "Well, I took a lot of photos of him. I'm sure I got several with his eyes open."

I then saw him go through all 84 photos he took of Mark, and not a single one had him with his eyes open. Because I noticed the challenge early on during his set, I got 11 photos of him with his eyes open. While I got plenty of his eyes closed while playing, I intentionally waited to the exact moment that he opened his eyes, to get several of those too, giving options for perhaps a CD cover. I did hand Mark my business card after the concert.

What the other photographer said next, made absolutely no sense. He said, "Well, we just looked at the JPEG photos. Some of the RAW ones probably have his eyes open."
I did not reply, because the RAW and the JPEG photos are exactly the same photos,
simultaneously stored onto the same memory card, except the way the image is stored is different.
I just let him 'save face' (pun intended).

Here's one of the photos of Mark, with his eyes & mouth open.



And here's a short little taste of some of his solo guitar work;

Borrowing the theme for this blog from my old buddy, the one the only JimNastics. He has done a lot of these and I found an interesting pic.

My caption is .... "I said can you please join the car pool."

If you like, have fun adding your own caption(s) for the following photo,
or just enjoy the other entries. Your choice.

My first entry is;

"Holy mother of God, thy bounty is blessed."

Here's the photo;