Fantasy Island

Many of the photos I've edited for this blog so far have created illusions while still bearing some resemblance to reality. Today I went for something totally different.

The "island" in this image is actually part of a leaf.

Chilli Flower

I'm still hard at work moving my bonsai blog to it's new domain and, while working with the photos I need for it, I came across this shot of a chilli flower which I used in a post I first published in early January this year.

I was very excited by this little flower, which was the first one on a seedling that I'd acquired a few months before. It was really tiny - about the size of my thumbnail, and I found it quite difficult to get a decent photo.

When I'd done editing it for my bonsai blog, I spent a little time playing with it in Photoshop and created a couple of semi-abstract flower shots.

This first one isn't too different from the reality, but the second one is much more abstract, though still recognisable as a flower.

By contrast to these, a lot of the images I create from my photos bear no resemblance to the photos I started out with.

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Linking up with Saturday Show Off and Macro Monday 2.

Fantasy Cactus

It's been another busy day during which I haven't had much time for my photos. However while sorting through photos I need to prepare for my bonsai blog I came across this wacky edit of a photo I'm planning to use in one of my posts.

The actual photo shows a spiky succulent I was hoping to use as bonsai. Unfortunately something went horribly wrong and it died shortly after the photo was taken. It's sad, but I'll always have the photos.

What it really looked like

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Linking up with Outdoor Wednesdays.

Table and Chairs

Once again I've picked a photo where everything isn't quite as it seems. In reality there were a lot less chairs than there are in this edited version.

Once I got started in Photoshop, I couldn't resist playing with the photo a bit more and eventually came up with an abstract which bears little resemblance to the original.

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Linking up with Monday Mellow Yellows and Ruby Tuesday Too.

Fun with Photoshop

Sometimes reality can look quite boring and when it does I often see what I can create in Photoshop. This was one of those cases.

When I saw that tall tree with all the low branches broken off I just knew I had to get a shot. If only it had been in a more interesting spot, or perhaps even if I'd had more time to look for the perfect shot, I might have settled for the real scene. Instead I created something slightly surreal.

I went a bit overboard on my first edit, getting carried away with trying to emphasise the dramatic clouds. Eventually good sense prevailed and I toned it down somewhat.

Even so, I'm not sure I don't like the simplicity of this black and white version better.

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Linking to Scenic Weekends.

Digital Flowers

Sometimes I think that digital art is more my forte than photography.

When I came across the artificial flowers featured here, the sign in front of them immediately grabbed my attention, so out came my camera. Perhaps it was the poor nature of the lighting, but after my initial attempts at editing, I wasn't too happy with the result.

So I decided to see what else I could do with the picture. After a little experimentation I liked this one a lot better than the original photo.

Suddenly, while writing this post, I realised what I was doing wrong with the original, so it was back to Photoshop, where I finally got a result that I like.

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Linking up with Randomosity.