Resting Nite - Raptures Alight!

Grapefruit Juice is a favourite of mine, and when the topic ‘liquid’ came up, I thought of this just as I was pouring the last of the juice that I had in the fridge.

It wasn’t an overly striking photo, so I decided to highlight the liquid - to be more in theme with the challenge, and to practice my spot colour skills.

See other photos for Day 96 by other photographers here.

I went shopping on the day before this challenge. It seems to be a recurring theme where I have the perfect situation for a word the day BEFORE the word is assigned from photochallenge.org. Massive bummer!!

At any rate, I love buying pretty things…

Unfortunately life gets in the way, so some days are missing.

Day 89 - Children

Unfortunately I didn’t see any children, or children-related objects during the course of the day. I even had my camera in my passenger seat as I was driving from appointment to appointment, but to no avail. There were some great shots from others, however…

1. Children Swinging, 2. 89 of 365: children, 3. Kirin, 4. Busy Girl [PhotoChallenge.org 2009, Day 89], 5. Untitled, 6. Hasbro Says Buy More, 7. 89/365: Children, 8. 2009photochallenge Day 89 Children, 9. Pouting Girl, 10. Children, 11. Young Scouts, 12. The Children, 13. When I was a child…, 14. children, 15. Day 89 Children, 16. 033009 Children

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Hacks are a black sweet that I have only seen in Singapore and Malaysia. They are traditionally black, however there are newer flavours including lemon and blueberry.

They have the traditional sweet / candy-style wrapper.

A whiteboard - one of the tools of my trade - I’d be lost without it!

This is the Grand Copthorne Hotel (Waterfront) in Singapore. We were picking up some colleagues of my husband’s and I looked up and noted the shape of the building. Unfortunately it was a dreadfully overcast day and the sky was just terrible.

The U-shape of the building just invited something else to be added to the composition, so I stepped into the frame - lucky positioning on this one, as I only took this shot and I ended up more or less dead centre!

I was almost going to submit a photo of just the building (see below).

I was a little stumped for creativity on this one, so I borrowed an idea from the original Photo Challenge post for this day.

I was also fiddling with the aperture priority to see where I could get the lens to focus. I have a superzoom camera, so it doesn’t have manual focus, but I’ve learned a few tricks on how to get it to focus where I want, and this was a good practice exercise for this.

Dear Husband (DH) and I disagree on which one should be submitted to the Photochallenge.org Flickr Group, so I put his selection in. The version that I preferred is below.

I enjoy Photoshop, but it is pricey, and I am learning that GIMP is a very powerful alternative (not to mention it makes me think of the Pulp Fiction movie = “bring out the gimp” LOL).

Six Revisions has brought out a very cool list of Photoshop alternatives for those of us of the much-interest-little-budget variety.

Personally, I have used Paint.Net, and GIMP. Paint.Net has been handy on low-spec machines, if I just want to resize or crop. GIMP is MUCH more powerful, and even has features that I wish they would incorporate into Photoshop (which I use at work).

If you do not wish to install software (and sometimes at someone else’s PC, or if you are at the office, and have limited admin rights, etc), you can try  LifeClever’s 10 Free Web-Based Alternatives to Photoshop. Personally, I only have used Piknik, because it integrates easily with Flickr.

If you know of any that are not included in these lists, please let me know, and perhaps we can get an extensive list going here.

This is our very own ‘Black’ star!

Stamford (aka Stammy) was lying in the sun on my desk while I work, hence his pupils were closed, and there is a ray of sunlight in the photo over the right eye. There is also a desk lamp to the left of the shot, which is throwing the yellow hues.

I think the eyes add something to this.

Stammy or Buster (our other ‘black’) usually sit on my desk while I work and supervise (with their eyes closed - it’s tiring work). Usually our little girl is somewhere near my feet, or in the kitchen playing with her string! It’s a nice feeling to be surrounded by them.

This photo was taken at dusk on the way home, coming off one highway and merging into another.

I was driving and was trying to snap a shot out of my car window. (Naughty, me, I know.)

I kept the horizon crooked, as that was how I took it - and even though it probably would have looked better if I corrected it, it reminds me of the haphazard way that I took it.

There were a few shots where the full car was in the picture, however it seemed to give the impression of blurred rather than ’speed’.