Weekender, January 13-14, 2024

[Rich]

Good day all! The wind is howling, the temp is -13 F, -25 C and windchill in the -40 F and C area. I don't want to go out but I have a funeral of a Church member to go to. Thankfully it is in town and only 5 minutes from home. Streets are clean too.

This photo was shout with my Yashica Mat 2 1/4 square 120 roll film camera. I used a red filter to enhance the clouds. Wind was blowing a bit ( as normal ) so the tops of the tree are blurry. One of my favorite photos. I also painted an oil on canvas  when I learned how to do that. I titled it "Lone Tree."

[Dave]

Thanks for starting our weekender, Rich.

I can see why that is one your favorite photos - it is a superb image. Composition, values, shapes & forms, and sharpness all get top marks.

Well done.

Here's one (a flower whose name I have forgotten) from February 2019 that I never did anything with. So yesterday I processed it - mostly cropping and value & color saturation adjustments in a few selected spots...

   

[Adamphotoman]

Hey Rich and Dave,
Both superb images....
The Unnamed flower benefits greatly from the out of focus bits of green.
Lone Tree is one that I would benefit seeing in the flesh. It's stark nature is handled masterfully.

[Rich]

Thanks Dave and Grant for the kind comments!

Dave, as Grant has said the out of focus area forces your eye to the splendor of this beautiful flower. I am no expert but it looks like it might be in the daisy family.

[Man From Ironbark]

Rich, I like lone trees. I see a lot of them. I concur with Dave's description.

Dave, great colour and focus. I think it is one of the Gerbera family
Gerbera species are tufted, caulescent, perennial herbs, often with woolly crown, up to 80 cm high. Leaves are all in rosette, elliptical with entire or toothed margin or lobed, petiolate or with a petaloid base, pinnately veined, often leathery and felted beneath. Single to several flowering stems from each rosette.

No enhanced clouds in this. Comes from a place between Hay, Hell and Booligal. There was a pub called The One Tree, that is still there though no longer in use. It is the only building near the Cobb Highway on the One Tree Plain.


This is my part of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_and_Hell_and_Booligal

The bold sign at Gordon Paterson's front gate has been stolen three times, and featured in many photos taken by passing motorists.
The 76-year-old owns Hells Gate, a property that stretches over more than 13,000 hectares on the flat Hay Plain in New South Wales.
Mr Paterson told Landline the sign has prompted some unusual behaviour.
"I came along and there was a naked lady sitting on the post, on the gate post, getting her photo taken and it later appeared in one of those girlie magazines," he said.
"I had the sign pinched three times."
The history behind the name of the property remains a point of interest.
"It was called Richlands when I bought it, but it was widely known as Hells Gate," Mr Paterson said.
As for where that came from, Mr Paterson says he does not really know - and if he did he would not tell.
"I don't want to spoil the mystique of it," he said.

   

[Dave]

Thanks Rich and MFI.

MFI, your first photo reminds me of how one of how Buzz Aldrin described the moon - "...magnificent desolation..."

I now believe my flower is an African Daisy, which is one of 74 species in the Osteospermum genus.

[Man From Ironbark]

African daisy was my other choice, yes.

[Dave]

I hope all are coping OK with the extreme weather around the globe: brutal cold, major flooding, and tornadoes in the US; and MFI's area enduring excessive rain, flooding, and uncomfortable humidity.

Here's an unidentified succulent sporting a delicate and nicely-colored blossom; taken March 1, 2019 and newly processed early this morning...

   

[Man From Ironbark]

Oh I'm not having any floods here but on Saturday a storm brewed up right above my head tearing the sky asunder with lightning and thunder while the clouds roiled and writhed, the wind roaring fiercely. All I recorded was .04mm but just over the hill to my east, about three km as the crow flies, 61mm fell in around twenty minutes.
Right at this moment 2:30 AM on Monday morning it is 21˚C which is 70˚F and there is a storm passing just north of me, I may get some of that before dawn but so far only big gusty winds and flashing lightning.

[Adamphotoman]

Window Inspired Art