Week 8 - Mobile Phone Magic

 What a fun way to use up time you don't have!!

Original image

I loaded Snapseed and Rollworld on my phone, not realising how very addictive both apps can be, particularly Rollworld.

Who would have thought rolling your 

photos up into little worlds would be 

SO entertaining! 

But it was. And I wanted to roll up photo after photo after photo!

It doesn't work too well with Sparrows as you can see in the image above.                                                         

But it works particularly well with landscape photos.

Particularly ones with tall buildings.

The image to the left is the

original of the tiny world above.

It works well too on images of the yacht basin where there are LOTS of masts!

The original doesn't have quite 

the same appeal.

Even individual trees create unusual effects.

It does seem to lose Rangitoto in the tiny world though.

Snapseed allowed me to superimpose one image over the other with an interesting result.

 And to add a pencil crayon effect to this image of the Gannets.

Week 7: Bird's eye view

It’s been an entertaining week attempting to see things from a bird’s eye level.  

Some of my models haven’t been too enthused by my attempts to see life from their perspective.

I had thought of using my mobile as a remote as suggested, 

then realised the camera needs to have wi-fi too, 

which mine doesn’t, so that put an end to that idea.

All that was left was to bend those knees.
And get down and dirty.

This juvenile blackbird was quite accommodating.  

More than happy to share her spot in the sun with me, 

even when I, rather clumsily, leopard crawled in her direction.

Trust the grass to be wet with dew that morning.

She just spread her wings wider and settled down lower in the grass.

Maybe she thought I wouldn’t see her.

The Black Backed Gull on the other hand was rather 

disgruntled by my attempt to get down to his level.

I’d interrupted his ablutions and he was most indignant.

I didn’t hang around for a second longer than I needed to.

Peering down at flowers seemed like a safer option.

Quite intriguing how different they appear when viewed from this perspective.

Last but not least in the feathered department was this little fantail 

who’d been having a glorious bath in the stream at Tahuna Torea. 

He looks a little grumpity at the invasion of his privacy.

He had wet feet, as did I.

Week 6 - Nature's Candy

Wow! This week’s raced past.  

I’ve had so many thoughts about what I’d like to post for this week’s challenge but, 

apart from my very early morning walks, 

time for photography has been hard to find .... until today.

 

The Grey Ducks at the Botanic Gardens this morning provided some interesting input. 

Two individual ducks were swimming separately from the rest of the flock when, 

what I assume was the male, started pumping his head up and down 

directly alongside and in front of what must have been the female.

Within seconds he was on top of her.

 His weight meant her head kept disappearing under the water.

When he was finished he swam rapidly along for a short distance with his head 

just grazing the water, then circled round to swim next to her again.

Love was definitely in the air!
That’s the Valentine’s aspect of my Nature’s Candy week.
 

On a more literal level, it’s been all the ‘b’s that have been imbibing in their natural candy.

The birds, the bees and the butterflies!

It was wonderful to once again spot a juvenile Tui at Tahuna Torea 

trying to find sustenance in a flax that appeared to be past its prime.

The bees and the butterflies at the memorial park are always a joy to watch.

As was the Heron at the Stonefields wetland.  

He'd found a skenk in the rocks and was about to devour it.

This is a photo from my archives when the Heron wasn’t quite as lucky 

and managed to drop the worm he’d been fishing for.

 

Week 5: Raindrops

And spider chandeliers!

With resident spider.

 Fortunately it rained here a few weeks ago..

Only briefly.

But enough for me to bank photos for this week's challenge!

There were raindrops on everything.

 On my roses.

 On the Seagull's feather.

On the Hibiscus flowers

Raindrops reflecting back at me.

I couldn't resist including the next 2, though they weren't taken recently.

The first one's of raindrops on a very special Plum Tree.

The hound's buried next to it.

And another reflection.
Raindrops on the car and on me!