From Otway in Victoria, Australia.
Christmas from around the world, Santa Monica California, Leanne Cole Photography
I need to do two posts today because I took some new Christmas photos for Leanne Cole’s Christmas from around the World series and the deadline is today. Actually, I’m a little late. There are already some gorgeous photos on her site so perhaps mine will go up next week. But do click on the above link because the photos have so much heart they brought a tear to my eye.
These were taken at
To put it in context, this is the beach scene in California during the holiday season:
Impressions of Australia 8
Otway, Victoria Australia, Great Ocean Road.
Impressions of Australia 7
From Otway, Victoria Australia, Great Ocean Road.
Impressions of Australia 6
Melbourne, looking down at the top of the first floor lights in the mall connected to the Sofitel on Collins, rendered in oil via Corel Painting Essentials. I need to comment that the only reason I took this picture was because I had spent the day hanging around Leanne Cole. My only artistic objective in tagging around with her was to have her “eye” rub off on me. I didn’t seek any technical instruction, which was good, given that I forgot the battery charger for my DSLR and so was just using the compact.
Here’s Maggie Island (I think) shot from the boat on the way back from our Great Barrier Reef tour.
Driving back from the Great Ocean Road, Victoria Australia
After our amazing photography tour with Leanne driving along the:
We took a short cut a get back to Melbourne that took us through vast areas of farmland. We were amazed as we didn’t realize Australia had this.
Impressions of Australia 2
Port Lonsdale pier Victoria Australia revisited
I posted before on Port Lonsdale pier here. I have a lightweight version of Photoshop (Essentials) and wasn’t able to export the RAW to jpg again. That first time was kind of an accident! Now I have a bit of software available from Sony for my camera that allows me to open a RAW file, fiddle a bit, and export to jpg. Well, I still don’t have a lot of control, but I kind of like these anyway.
On this one I specified a gray point, whatever that means, but I shifted the color a bit. Took out some blues.
This one is a different angle on the pier. I warmed it slightly. Then I applied a “creative effect” called landscape. Then I quickly typed here what I was doing so I wouldn’t forget. Then I adjusted something called a D-range Optimizer where I added +17 to the Amount of highlighting. (Shrugs.) Then I lowered the highlighting a lot and raised the shadows a little, managing to reduce some of the white foam in the waves. Well, then I switched from landscape to nightview in the Creative Style, applied some noise reduction and voila.
Then again, here’s the original:
Is the fiddled-with one better?… Looking at WordPress Preview…
Looks about the same, ha ha!
I might need to take a class.
The 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Australia
We arrived late in the day at this magnificent site.
 
It wasn’t easy to photograph because of where the sun was. But I’ll never forget the peaceful feeling of the place.
I had better luck when I found a sample for my favorite dead tree theme! Albeit a bush in this case.
The swells and pulse of the ocean enthralled me. This photo captures a bit of that.
The 12 Apostles were the pinnacle of a magnificent day. And Leanne helped me out with this photo. I like how the sky turned out.
I did not have my DSLR with me. Wish I had. But the important thing is it now goes everywhere with me. As does its spare battery and charger.
Nicci Carrera 