Once again this has been an enjoyable challenge from Robyn with lots of great entries from everyone. Here is the original negative and, like the one I used for the November One Four Challenge, it has remained pristine in its protective sleeve over all these years.
Using Robyn’s challenge I have continued to explore the numerous possibilities that Photoshop Elements offers when creating an image, using layers, gradients, color combinations and various filters. Unfortunately the results have clearly not always been appreciated or understood by one of our contributors who found my submissions to be pointless, and described them in his or her comments to me as “surreal”, “unrecognizable” and “garish.” This individual feels that the essence of the challenge is to try “new post processing techniques and be brave enough to post them,” and not use “unrecogniseable post modern variations.”
Fortunately I am old enough not to be affected by such negative criticism. However I am concerned that if someone who is just starting out with their blog, or is experimenting early on in their photography development, received such harsh criticism it might just make them want to give up.
The point of relating these thoughts is to remind all of us that the blogosphere should be a fun, enjoyable and safe place in which to express ourselves, and that any comments we choose to make to others should always be of a constructive rather than a destructive nature.
Now, having got that off my chest I thought you might enjoy some of the other images from the roll of film I shot that day at the Lord Mayor of London’s Parade. Here is the next shot of the carriage as it went by me showing a very young Prince Charles and Princess Anne on their way to Mansion House and I have also included some of the other images in a slide show after the poll.
Once again, thanks to Robyn for all that she does to make this so successful and congratulations everyone on all the great contributions this month.
You could call this Swan Luck in Three Acts when I was lucky enough to capture this swan during our walk in Stanley Park on Monday expressing himself so demonstrably to a remarkably unimpressed partner and a platoon of Mallards, all milling about in the unseasonably warm Vancouver sunshine.
So much for our visit to New York today and the Matisse exhibition tomorrow, which we had to cancel with Winter Storm Juno blanketing the East Coast tonight. Instead here’s my expression of New York with a collage I created after a visit in 1993, a visit which was also for a Matisse exhibition.
“The first time I saw America, I mean New York, at 7 o’clock in the evening, this gold and black block in the night, reflected in the water, I was in complete ecstasy. Someone near me on the boat said: It’s a spangled dress, which helped me to arrive at my own image. New York seemed to me like a gold nugget”
from, Henri Matisse statements on travel to Tériade, 1929
Wishing those of you in the gold nugget city warmer days to come soon.