Week 44 by Becky

Hogwarts

I would love to say I went to a country with castles.  Instead, I went to Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida for the kid's spring break. This is the Harry Potter ride. Took this with my son's Nikon Coolpix S3000. I just love how it all looked so real. This was a very popular area of the park. The lines for the Butterbeer were ridiculous. But, I had to have one which turned out to be Vernors and cream. Very tasty. The ride was also very neat. Opened in Photoshop CS5, created a B/W layer using Topaz B/W, then changed the blending mode to luminosity to boost the contrast, then Topaz Adjust 5 Spicify, content aware to remove the tourists from the scene, cropped it down, then applied Topaz B/W Opalotype Collection White Chocolate, resized and saved for web.

Week 43 by Robin

Brahma Hooligans

Love these cows! Taken during my drive home from work. I enjoy the cows on my journey every day and they always seem so curious when I stop and take their photos. I mostly used Topaz B&W.

Week 43 by Judy

 Cruisin' Home

This is looking down at the Lido Deck from our cabin's balcony on the 9th Deck of the cruise ship. It was taken at dusk on the last evening of our cruise while heading back to Port Canaveral, FL. I think it was the only time I never saw any people on the Lido Deck. Looks very peaceful. No editing applied, but I took several shots in camera while playing with the EV compensation dial and this was the one I liked the best.

Week 43 by Becky

Caught!

I am always walking around my yard looking for things to shoot that I have not shot before. Started out trying to take a photo of two Mockingbird eggs in a nest.  Couldn't get the angle right to focus on the eggs. Plus, I didn't want to piss the mommy off too much. I will try again when the eggs hatch which will be real tricky since Mockingbirds are very mean when it comes to their babies. Then I took a photo of my Shih Tzu. Nope, didn't feel like submitting my dog again. Saw this web so I photographed it. It was very tricky since it was windy. I was not too thrilled  by just the web alone. I had no idea where the spider was. As I was about to leave, I saw this fly struggling in the corner of the web and I knew I had the photo for my No Wimpy Girls Photography blog.

Week 42 by Judy

Viva Cozumel!

I went on a 7-day cruise this past week to the Western Caribbean with seven of my crazy female relatives. We had a great time! This is a photo, taken from the ship, of the port in Cozumel, Mexico which was our first port-of-call on the trip. It looks like Ron Jon's surf shops are everywhere! The original Ron Jon's started in a town near where I grew up. I applied a low strength of Topaz Detail filter and some cropping.

Week 42 by Robin

Young Yawning Gator

Took an afternoon drive to Viera and captured this little guy at the wetlands. I edited with Topaz Lens effects to get a selective focus as he was lost in the complicated background. I have a bit to learn. I like editing my photos as much as taking them, but probably spend to much time with one photo. 

Week 42 by Becky

Ford

Went to an Antique car show over the weekend.  I just love old classic cars.  The lines on these beauties are awesome.  Really hard to get full car shots due to the amount of people so I always try to find an angle on the car that looks neat.  They make for wonderful abstracts. I have tons more that I will upload on my other blog soon.

Week 41 by Robin

Classic Florida Sunset

Every afternoon, while driving home from work, I see a pretty sunset over the cow pastures. Sometimes I stop and take some photos with my Canon G10. I liked this one, but the shot was very grainy and the grass was boring. So, after a bit of Topaz Adjust (Photo Pop, I think) and color adjustment, I used a flood filter to turn this into a water sunset. Noise Ninja wasn't doing the trick this time, so I applied a Gaussian Blur over the whole thing and a layer mask to keep some of the details in the trees. 

Week 41 by Judy

 Good Looking Red-head

We went camping again this weekend at Moss Park in Narcoossee, FL. I was hoping to get some photos of baby Sandhill Cranes. The Park Ranger said they had four babies born late last month; but, unfortunately something had gotten them all, probably a raccoon. I did manage to capture this guy while on a bike ride thru the Park. He was alone, which is unusual for Sandhill Cranes, as they are usually seen in pairs, so either he's a juvenile that hasn't found a mate yet, or his mate has been killed. I hope he just hasn't found a mate yet. BTW, the photo (Week 26)  I took of a turtle laying her eggs also lost all her eggs to a raccoon. Sad, but that's Nature's way.

Week 41 by Becky

Lamp Post

Another successful soccer game weekend.  Since I already have posted a photo of soccer action a few weeks ago, I didn't want to again.  Tried taken photos of cows as we were driving 55 MPH down the road.  Not an easy task.  Tried to get photos of an Osprey in mid-flight at the soccer fields.  Didn't have any luck getting the Osprey in mid-flight.  Saw this lamp post that look pretty cool (non-moving) against the cloudy sky.  Figured it would look good with some Topaz Adjust filters applied.  The filters I applied were Topaz Black and White with the blending mode set to luminosity to give it contrast, Topaz Adjust Spicify, added a lighting filter (flashlight) to make it look like the light was on, followed up with Topaz Adjust Vintage Grunge.

Week 40 by Becky

Red Shoes

Well, I did not make it to the camera club field trip, like Robin and Judy did, due to my son's soccer game.  I instead, tried to cause bodily harm to myself.  Seriously!  There is a website (www.dpchallenge.com) that I enter photographs into and they currently have a challenge called Leap Day: In the Syte Of: Natsumi Hayashi.  I went to her website at http://yowayowacamera.com/ to check out her style.  It is very impressive and you need to take a look at this young woman's style.  Anyway, I thought I would give it go.  Nearly killed myself.  Well, it's more likely that I nearly caused myself some bodily harm.  It's not so easy trying to do a photograph in her style.  This is just one of many.  After I fell and scraped up my hands, I figured this was not my forte.  My son felt sorry for me and did the jumping in the air for me, which I love.  He jumps much higher than me.  Since I went through all this pain myself, I figured it had to go on this week's no wimpy girls blog.  Played with some Topaz Adjust filters to make the shoes stand out.  Enjoy!

Week 40 by Robin

Weary Bloom

Taken during our Camera  Club outing to Rockledge Gardens. We had a nice time among all the delightful flowers and unique items for sale. Even though there were millions of perfect plants and flowers, I chose this dying bloom because I thought it was lovely in its own way and interesting. 

Week 40 by Judy

 Nature's Magic

The Camera Club of Brevard went to Rockledge Gardens, a large plant nursery, for its March field trip. The nursery was kind enough to open an hour earlier than its normal time just for the Camera Club members. It was very nice. They have many, many flowering plants, water fountains, garden sculptures and ornaments, fruit and palm trees, and all types of gardening supplies. Another nice feature, is the music; in each segregated section of the nursery, they have different music playing from vintage jazz to Caribbean reggae. Another fun CCB field trip! This photo is straight out of the camera; no editing applied.