capturing animals in 2010 ...

so here is the first of my round up posts for my personal photography of 2010 ... there has been so much going on this past year & honestly i have watched my photography grow in more ways that i could have ever imaged. So i'm going to share with you guys some of my favourites ... & from this first post i know you will see a theme for the things i love the most! 

provence ...

So i have to say i'm sorry to you guys for the lack of posts ... for a while there i was on a roll but thing's have been happening at my end (you know as life does) & so i haven't posted as often. So now for some more photos from my trip to Provence, it's hard to believe i've been back for 3 weeks already. Work is as exciting as ever & the weather sucks but anyways it's nice to curl up on the couch. 

Ok back to the photos ... these were all taken on our first full day down in Provence. It was a day where we got to do a whole lot of driving, partly because somehow i forgot my camera. Yes i had everything else including my lenses but no actual camera. So we had to return to our hotel to get it, thankfully we weren't that far down the road. & the first few photos are from our wanderings down the back roads of Provence, being the driver it was easy to make my fellow travelers stop, lucky for me they didn't mind. 

Being as it was Sunday we weren't sure what would be open (if you've ever lived in Germany you'll know the whole country seems to shut down on a Sunday) but i'd read about this town up on top of the hills & an abbey that was open on Sunday's. By the time we reached Gordes we'd been in the car a wee while but it for sure worth the effort. 

& this was our view at lunch ... 

The town itself was stunning, very quaint, very french, & possible a little touristy but gorgeous all the same. 

From Gordes we headed down into the valley to visit the Sénanque Abbey. It's hard to explain just how stunning the Abbey was. It's still inhabited by monks, & surrounded by the mountains & fields of lavender. 

You can't go inside the abbey unless you do the tour (which was in French) but i knew me & the camera needed to check out the insides so i paid my money & whilst the guide gave us a history of the abbey (i have a flier in English containing the short version) i wandered with the camera, exploring everything i could. 

The details everywhere was stunning not to mention being incredible peaceful. The monks who live there belong to a silent order ... so well you can imagine the effect if has on you. The calm & tranquility, nothing to "spoil" you just life at it's simplest. 

Anyways from there it was back to Aix-en-Provence for dinner ... but of course we stopped a couple of times along the way ... with views such as this who wouldn't?

photoshop actions ...

I was introduced to the wonderful world of photoshop actions last year by my friend Jen Kiaba. It was love at first sight. Simple put they are a way of changing the tones & feel of a photo through a series of actions in photoshop, done all at one time. & they are so much fun. I love messing around with the free ones on the web (check out websites such as Coffee shop & The Pioneer Women) & customizing them for my own work.

As a photographer i firmly believe that composition is the key to a good photo, & photoshop is a tool in creating stunning images but it needs to be used in conjunction with the actual process of taking a photograph. I personally feel it is wrong to use photoshop to "remove" an object from a photograph because you don't like it there (& trust me when i say there is a whole lot of debate on this subject) & actions can & do sometimes push the boundaries. But i feel that where you are using them in the same way you would use a camera, a lens, light, or the old school dark room it's ok & all kinds of fun.

Anyways back to actions two of my wonderful talented photographic buddies have recently been creating their own actions & me being me well of course i volunteered to take a look. On the butterfly below i used an action by Elle Moss called "dreamland" (for more information check out her blog) minus the "optional blurry edges" just because i felt for this image it didn't work (this is the fun on actions).

& for the chairs i used "dark dreamy glow" created by Jen Kiaba that i have fallen in love with (it creates such a haunting feel to many of my images for some reason) & totally transforms what would otherwise be two wooden chairs stood in the corner.