We went to Vrolijkheid this last weekend and were stunned by the spring flowers. The birding was not great, but we got some lovely pictures none the less.
Now for the birds
Coot feeding time.
Grebe and gone
And a clicking stream frog.
And a large ant. The Afrikaans name is “balbyter” literally ball biter.
I have joined the Ignite Photographic Club and they have a monthly assessment session. Everyone is invited to submit one photograph and one of the committee assess the photographs.
Last month was F is for faces. So I got creative. Portraits of me by various artists.
Clock wise, starting top left.
Self portrait i.e. me
John Robert
Veronica Reid
Amanda Hayes
And the back view: Amanda Hayes a cutout of a much bigger painting titled The Watcher.
Here is the full painting : The Watcher – and I swear I was looking at a sunset, and not the naked woman. 🙂
A visit to the Stellenbosch University Botanical Gardens provided some stunning flowers to be photographed.
It has been a cold and wet winter. Floods, wind and icy conditions but there is an upside. The storm clouds look great in black and white
Not really black and white. I was playing with an app on my phone and managed to capture this
This gif is made from a series of pictures taken of a mating flight of two Pale Chanting Goshawks – the birds were a long way away but the dance makes up for the lack of sharpness
Recently I found that most creative people have a portfolio so I decided it was time I created a brag page so here we go.
I am a generalist or less politely a jack of all trades. Whichever title you want to use it means I am curious about practically anything so to save you from browsing through the entire website, I will provide a short summary. So here goes
Painting – oil, acrylics and pastels. Acrylic first
Oil
Pastels
Charcoal
Photography – photograph anything that takes my fancy, flowers, sunsets, stars, landscapes and birds.
A glacial pavement just outside Nieuwoudtville when we were part of Pangea.
And then there are the other things
Baking
Bee keeping. Bees Bearding a hive to keep it cool
Hiking
Renovating a house in Riviersonderend
This is a set of photographs that I took when going to photograph a full moon. The clouds, as usual came up and messed up the moon, but they did leave me with some fine sunset photographs
The only pictures I got of the full moon. And then sunset came
We went to the Citrusdal Baths in September 2023 and we got some lovely photographs.
Sunset on our first evening there – the Cederberg Mountains in their evening finery
I was all set up to take photos of the stars at 10 PM. And the clouds rolled in. In disgust I went to bed. At 2 AM answering a call of nature I looked outside and found that the clouds had cleared and this was the view. In a pair or shorts and an open tee shirt I braved the 5 degree cold to take a series of photos, this one being the best.
Coral trees are just so photogenic
And not forgetting the nastutians
And a bit of macro photography to finish up.
This evening it is full moon and I was fortunate enough to be on Table Mountain for the rise of the moon and the setting of the sun. I got some lovely pictures.
I couldn’t resist this image as the heron admired his image in the water.
