Month: April 2013

She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful

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She’s beautiful, but she doesn’t know it. That’s one of her charms, and she has many.

I’ve blogged about my dear friend, Tylar, before. She was the one who finally convinced me to offer my photography services to people other than my friends. She is my shoulder when I need strength, someone who can always make me laugh, an inspiration to me. She is My Cherished.

Hers was one of the first “formal” photo shoots I did. She loved the photos, but looking back at them, I see mistakes I would love to fix in each one. There was one shot I took that I loved and had tried to complete several times, although I had failed in every previous attempt. But since I’ve been playing around with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements this week, I thought I would try again. And I made some adjustments I hadn’t been able to do before. Still, I wasn’t happy, and was unsure what to do to complete it, so I imported it to my standby, picmonkey.com and tinkered with it some more.

The final product…well, to me, it shows so much of Tylar. Her beauty. Her softness. A hint of mystery and wistfulness.

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I still don’t believe I’ve done her justice. She’s beautiful beyond what a mere image can show.

Lest We Forget

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I have scheduled this post to publish at 0600 AEST, when most east coast Dawn Services start, to commemorate ANZAC Day. I’m borrowing from the Australian War Memorial website to explain what ANZAC Day is. I encourage you to click on the link to read more.

What is ANZAC Day?
ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia’s most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

One of the traditions is to hold the Dawn Service, a service of national remembrance.

Before dawn, the gathered veterans would be ordered to “stand to” and two minutes’ silence would follow. At the end of this time a lone bugler would play the Last Post and then conclude the service with Reveille, the bugler’s call to wake up.

Part of the ceremony is the recitation of The Ode, which I have used in my photo. It is from the poem, “The Fallen”, by Laurence Binyon. You can click the photograph for a larger version, where The Ode is more easily readable.

The photograph features one of the most recognisable Australian natural landmarks, Uluru (Ayres Rock). I traveled to the Australia sim in Second Life to shoot the photograph.

For non-military and adopted Australians, such as myself, it is a reminder that, although this country has rarely been directly attacked in modern warfare, the spirit of freedom lives strong in those who have chosen to protect its shores. This is my small tribute to those who have served and made it possible for me to live in this amazing country I now call home.

What A Surprise!

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I’ve spent a LOT of time today on my post for tomorrow (it’s time sensitive, so you’ll have to stay tuned for more details *wink*), but I still wanted to post something today. Since I’ve been playing with Photoshop, I’ve been going through a lot of my old raw shots and screwing them up experimenting with them. I found some photos I shot at Image Essentials. That was a busy week for me, and although I processed a couple of photos and posted them to my Flickr page, I never actually blogged them.

So, since I decided I needed a quick post, I opened up the folder, and to my utter amazement, I found one I liked…that I hadn’t touched in any way! I’ve even left it in it’s original crop.

That made me think of a personal challenge Chic Aeon did a few weeks ago – Just One Shot Revisited. This is a personal challenge she used to do and recently did again. I decided to borrow her challenge to make this entry actually have a theme.

And without further ado, here is my “Just One Shot” photograph.

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Oh…while I was uploading this picture, I found the two versions I had previously processed already in my media library. I guess I’d planned on using them, then forgot! But, I still think I like this one better 🙂

I know I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Chic Aeon is one of my favourite bloggers. This is my (pathetic) attempt at honouring her and her fabulous work 🙂