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My artistic rendition to express sadness in what is happening in Ukraine... with hope for the future in its seeds producing a new season of sunflowers, this strong and powerful symbol of Ukraine. From our garden to you.

Tags:   Ukraine sunflower HSS

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For Round 4 of the Get Pushed!! challenge group www.flickr.com/groups/1681475@N24/pool/with/6012141552 , I was paired with Three Formed Function www.flickr.com/photos/three_formed_function/ and he gave me a wonderful push:
"My challenge for you is to put an image to an emotion felt by a sound. Translated That means I would like you to start with a sound, could be a song, a sound effect like the door closing as your better half comes in the door, or a voice, Anything that when you hear pulls on your heart strings for any reason.

I'd like you to take this sound and show me how it makes you feel by the image you post."

Cool, huh? So the challenge I got was to take a concept and show how the concept makes me feel, so it's double conceptual. I spent the first couple days deciding on which sound to choose. I decided on the deep rich tones of a 3' tall set of chimes hanging under the redwoods. The sound changes from low and peaceful to loud and calling depending on how the winds feel at the time. The sound hangs in the air and I find myself stopping what I'm doing to listen.

I looked around to find something within earshot of the chimes that would show how the sound makes me feel. I first tried doing a focus stack of some carniverous plants, something I hadn't done before. While positioning the tripod, I discovered a Steller's Jay's blue feather clinging to flowering celery cascading down from the veggie garden. Like the change in bell tone, I was drawn to move over to the delicacy of the feather stuck onto the flowers.

I could feel the tones hanging in the air just as the feather attached to the plant, and either one at any moment could disappear in the wind. Part of me was feeling free listening to the tones of the chimes flowing with the breeze and reaching out to the world, while part of me was clinging and holding onto the notes not wanting it to end, just as the fronds of the feather are both reaching outward and clinging to the celery flower.

Even though this was a conceptural challenge rather than a style or technical one, I thought I'd at least try a couple new things and used this opportunity to try out a #2 close up lens as well as try for an orton-like effect, but using NIK's glamour glow masked into a detailed image. Once I got that conceptual part worked out, I slid the heck out of it with Topaz DeNoise, NIK Viveza, NIK CEF Tonal Contrast and Glamour Glow, PS Hue/Sat x3, some cloning and topped it off with another NIK Tonal Contrast to bring back the detail in the white flowers. Whew! Then I saw that even the flower bokeh on the right represents sound bubbles floating away. Poetry in motion!

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Topaz Simplify

Tags:   garden Russian River vegetable garden vegetable topaz simplify topaz simplify

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Dragon Arum (Dracunculus Vulgaris)
Stinky flower is 2 feet long.
All comments welcome!

Tags:   Dracunculus Dranuculus vulgaris dragon arum stinky flower flower stinky lily dragon wortbeetle Georgia O'Keefe O'Keefe

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