Black and White 5 Day Challenge :#2

I chose this photo today to convert to black and white as I thought it had a sort of old world feeling. The children, especially the little girl, are dressed in the fashion from an earlier age, and I wonder if that is a picnic basket or is mother collecting something.

I don’t usually think landscapes look better in monochrome, so I am putting in the original to see what you think.

I also cropped out the bushes on the right hand side to bring it more into line with the rule of thirds.

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Gwennie of “Gwennie’s Garden” has invited me to join in. I love to visit Gwennie, her blog is filled with gorgeous photos of flowers and succulents from her garden and interspersed with stories of her travels. Well worth a visit.

There are only two rules for this challenge:

1. On 5 consecutive days, create a post using either a past or recent photo in B&W.
2. Each day invite another blog friend to join in the fun.

Today I would like to nominate Jude of “Travel Words“ to join in. Of course this is only if you have the time and want to.

Jude has travelled extensively and she takes us with her on her journeys in both words and photos. Not only does she do that but she hosts a “Bench Series” challenge and has a second blog devoted to her passion in plants, “The earth laughs in flowers”

Weekly Photo Challenge : Rule of Thirds

 

This week Jen has challenged us to compose our subject off-center, obeying the Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds is a photography concept that puts the subject of the photograph off-center, which usually results in blank space in the rest of the image. If you focus closely on your subject and use a wide aperture, your photograph’s background will also be beautifully blurred in that blank space. The blurred area behind your focal point is referred to as bokeh.

So when it stopped raining I headed into the garden to experiment with the cameras settings. I think some worked, (some were a woeful failure, and I won’t show you those)..

Grevillea Ned Kelly

Anthurium

Water Lily

Desert Rose

Plumbago

Fungus

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Update on the storm.

Cyclone Marcia caused terrible devastation where she came to land as a category 5 cyclone.

 “The BOM said Marcia had weakened to a Category Two cyclone, with sustained winds of 110km/h (72mph) and gusts of up to 155km/h.

It was about 60km west of the town of Gladstone, Queensland and 65km north-northeast of Biloela, and moving south-southeast at 18 kmh but expected to weaken below cyclone strength by Saturday morning.” (For more information and photos go here to the BBC news report)

Hundreds of people in the central Queensland area are now homeless with their homes torn apart and large areas are without power. Thankfully there is no loss of life or major injuries. As it moved south it gradually lost power and by the time it reached Brisbane it was classed as a tropical low, lots of rain and some flooding, but the winds had dropped. It then veered out to sea away from our corner of Queensland. We had approx. 200mm of rain over 3 days, but no wind. As you can see in the flower photos they are flourishing in the rain.

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