***COMMENTS THREAD FOR THE AUGUST PHOTO CONTEST***

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Hi folks,

This is the comments thread for the August Photo contest. Please post your comments here, and not in the official entry thread. That throws off our numbering and makes our job more difficult.

Here is the link to the entry thread:
https://democraticunderground.com/1036104758

Something new this month:

I’d like to try something new this month. Normally, the comments thread gets the usual posts about “I’m in” or “Great pics Peggy,” (who always has great pics). Those are great, but I would also like to encourage folks to maybe add a little bit about your photo if you like. You could describe how or where the photo was taken, and the nature of any photo-processing that you performed. If the photo is straight out of the camera, that’s great. If you worked on the photo for an hour straight, that’s great too. This is strictly voluntary! There may be a question about anonymity, however anyone can find the identity of the owner by checking the original thread anyway. Also, most DU members who vote aren’t members of our forum and probably never see the comments thread. Let’s try this for a month and see if it works .

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. OK, my dear Grumpy! I am in! And thank you for your lovely compliment. ♥

My photo was taken at the Smith Oaks Sanctuary in Texas, last April. It's also known as High Island.

AndyS and I were there during my visit, and I was blown away by the amazing wildlife I saw! The photo shows the reflection of the island where the birds typically have their nests and raise their chicks.

Something caused me to look at the water. The reflection really caught my eye, and I thought, what a great photo this would be! So I snapped it.

There was not much post-processing done. I think I increased the saturation of the colors a bit, but they were already wonderful.

So there you have it. All you have to do........is look.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

2. That's wonderful Peggy!

You always have such lovely entries. This month is no exception.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. ...

Thanks!

[mnhtnbb]

4. My shot was taken on a morning beach walk (edited)

Last edited Thu Aug 11, 2022, 09:58 AM - Edit history (1)

in October 2020 at Emerald Isle, NC. My favorite time of year at the beach here in NC is October and I usually try to spend a week at a beach house. I'm out with my camera every morning--before dawn--to capture the change in colors of the sunrise. After the sun is up, I pay more attention to what has washed up on the beach overnight. This particular grouping of shells caught my eye one morning, partly because it was highlighted by the early golden light. Other than cropping the shot and boosting the saturation a bit, I've made no other edits to the photo.

Edited to add: my favorite sunrise shot that morning




and favorite sunset shot that evening (which captured the sunlight through the spray from the waves)



which demonstrates one reason Emerald Isle is my favorite beach in NC in the fall: the sun both rises and sets over the Atlantic Ocean because the beach faces south.

[Diamond_Dog]

31. I love the NC shore

You’re making me want to visit again! Such gorgeous photos, makes me feel like I’m standing there with the salt water rushing over my feet.

[mnhtnbb]

32. I'm booked for a week Oct 15-22 this year.

Can't wait!

[Diamond_Dog]

5. My photo - In The Flight Path

was taken right outside my house. I was throwing the ball to my dog, and her ball happened to land in the stones by the side of the house right next to this beautiful Blue Jay feather. I went into the house to fetch my camera to snap a photo of it. I didn’t move it at all. I thought the colors and textures of the stones made an interesting backdrop for the feather which is beautiful in itself. I cropped the photo and adjusted the color a bit but not much. I guess I have Sophie to thank for leading me to this shot!

[BWdem4life]

22. Looks like a serious contender to me!

Beautiful.

[Diamond_Dog]

23. Thank you so much

Fingers crossed. 🙂

[Talitha]

24. What a serendipitous capture, Diamond Dog - it's the essence of this month's theme.

Thanks for sharing, and please give Sophie a good bellyscratch from all of us at DU!

[Diamond_Dog]

29. Thank you!

And Sophie does indeed enjoy her belly scratches from her DU friends!

[Happygram]

58. Thanks Sophie!

She definitely led you to a beautiful picture.

[Diamond_Dog]

61. Aww thank you Happygram

We are looking forward to seeing more of you on DU!

[Mz Pip]

6. Hidden

Unless you look up. Decided on a different take and posted a photo of something huge but hidden - an overpass in NYC.
Took this on my last trip there. We were stopped in traffic under this overpass and I looked up.

Mz Pip

[mike_c]

50. I love that photo.

[Callalily]

7. In the vineyard

Took this last season when my friend and I were helping pick grapes. This particular place does it all by hand. Labor is free, but you get lunch, two bottles of wine and a t-shirt! It was a lot of fun, but hard work. Not sure if I'd do it again.

[Diamond_Dog]

30. Beautiful shot, Callalilly!

I can just smell those grapes! Mmmmm! Reminds me of being inside my grandma’s grape arbor when I was a kid. 🙂

[Callalily]

33. Thanks for your kind words.

It's a beautiful vineyard.

[mike_c]

51. it's a wonderful photo!

[HAB911]

8. Window behind a drop of water

1974, Nikon F2, Nikkor 50mm f2, cross-screen filter, Kodak Plus-X ASA/ISO 125, literal photo of a print, Nikon D750 with a little scratch removal in PS

Good luck everyone!

[Callalily]

11. I REALLY like your photo!

[HAB911]

12. Thank you so much!

I thought it was lost forever, can't find the negative but had a nice 11x14 to photograph. close call!

[Diamond_Dog]

34. Love your photo!

It will be a contender, for sure!

[HAB911]

35. Thank you!

glad you like it!

[Soph0571]

9. I'm in nt

[d_r]

10. I took a photo

a couple of weeks ago at the shore of lake Yellowstone. I have been trying to take pictures of bees on wildflowers. This was the first time I have been to Yellowstone National Park. We were planning to go the summer of 2020 but we all remember how that worked out. This year we went after the floods. We live in interesting times but I am glad that it is still possible to see some of the world.

[Mousetoescamper]

13. It's not easy being green

Last edited Thu Aug 11, 2022, 06:08 PM - Edit history (2)

(I decided to add a little more info) The katydid is reminiscent of Kermit the frog in particular and frogs in general, hence my title. The photo was taken in my backyard using a borrowed Canon EOS Rebel T3 with a standard zoom lens. I cropped to emphasize the katydid's face, legs and antennae, and increased the saturation a few notches.

[LakeArenal]

41. I think your title could be a theme for a month.

[Mousetoescamper]

42. I hadn't thought of that. Good idea.

[Solly Mack]

14. I'm in.

Last edited Wed Aug 10, 2022, 08:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Loving the entries.

Yard. One of the trails in my yard. Adjusted color/saturation/sharpness.

Came upon him by accident. Was moving dead leaves to get to another bug when I spotted him.

[markie]

40. Love your photo!!

good one

[Solly Mack]

43. Thank you.

I've got a thing for bugs.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

15. Backyard Shroom

I love the texture of this little mushroom I found in my backyard. Thanks to the manure-producing efforts of my two dogs, I get a lot of these. I shot this with my Samsung Galaxy Note 9, and used Snapseed on my phone to lighten the image, bump the saturation of the colors a little bit, and sharpen the image to bring out the delicate details.

[BWdem4life]

16. Stop and smell me

Just outside my front door - we were on our way out, probably heading to the store or something and it caught my eye. The timing was great obviously - the roses are dying now.

First posted here as a postimages pic, realized that other platforms were better after posting a different pic several days later. You can see the difference if you check the edits on that post (Roses and Hydrangeas) but I didn’t do any post processing beyond cropping. (iPhone 6s photo)

[sinkingfeeling]

17. Red Rock Erosion was taken at Petra, Jordan. It isn't of one of the tombs cut in the

Last edited Thu Aug 11, 2022, 08:52 PM - Edit history (1)

stone, but of the natural canyon's walls. I liked the subtle patterns in the warm rosy stone.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

18. Yours is a phenomenal capture! I love the wavy patterns too.

Lucky you, getting to see Petra. I've always wanted to go, but I'm old now and I hear there's a LOT of walking!

You will most likely get into the final round. It's a gorgeous photo!

[sinkingfeeling]

19. Thank you. I went there at age 70. There is a lot of walking and some can climb.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

20. That rules me out! I'm 78, almost 79. I can walk indoors pretty well, and stairs are OK too.

As long as there are handrails!

I'll look at the amazing photos and wish things were a bit different.

Thank you for sharing that beautiful photo!

[sinkingfeeling]

21. You could go. They rent donkeys and camels to see the site (which is huge) and they

have carts that will take you the1.2 km through the Siq to the Treasury.

[edhopper]

25. Snapper: Taken with my Canon SX70

At Westbury Gardens on Long Island, one of my friends noticed this in the water, thought it was a frog until it rose to the surface.

In this photo you can just make out the body under the water.



It was a big, scary sucker!

[Grumpy Old Guy]

26. Wow!

That will take a nice chunk out of you!

[edhopper]

28. I shot a video too!

[urbanhermit]

27. I'm in

Took my shot while wandering in my garden this spring. This is the first year my peonies bloomed and didn't know that ants were so attracted to the buds.

[sinkingfeeling]

36. I've never seen a peony without ants. It's always a problem bringing them inside.

[HappyCynic]

37. Morning Dew

I took this a few years back in late January at Stanley Park (Vancouver, BC, Canada). While I've named it Morning Dew, it was actually taken in the early afternoon. At that time of year, with the temperature and humidity, the morning dew pretty much lingered all day. In addition to the dew, what I personally like is the blade of grass that is running through the dew laden blade of grass. I'm not sure how this happened nor how frequent this type of thing is but I found it interesting to look at.

Here's the original photo:



For my entry, I cropped it, and applied a bit of sharpening and some colour corrections. No other changes were made.

[Solly Mack]

38. I love it!

[Diamond_Dog]

48. That's an amazing image. I love it.

The dew drops looks like jewels.

[ShazzieB]

39. Just uploaded my entry.

I took this photo at Yellowstone in September 2018. Someone pointed out bison hoofprints in the mud by one of the many hot springs, and I did my best to get a shot.

I cropped the original photo to improve the composition and increased the color saturation to bring out the bright blue color of the spring.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

44. Wow that dog in the market guarding the place is a great shot

I mean you could see it in his eyes that he's watching and watching and protecting just like the real secret service. Love that pic.

Where is it?

[LakeArenal]

45. Thanks. A feria which is a farmers market.

First and third Wednesdays.

[url=https://postimg.cc/sGS3hSM0][img][/img][/url]

[url=https://postimg.cc/8Jx1cwz6][img][/img][/url]

[url=https://postimg.cc/DJSv7Rnh][img][/img][/url]

[Laura PourMeADrink]

46. But where is it? Don't see on pics

[LakeArenal]

47. Aguacate Cost Rica.

Aguacate means avocado.

[mike_c]

49. Eupholus weevil species from New Guinea.

Last edited Sun Aug 14, 2022, 03:55 AM - Edit history (1)

So the specimen is a weevil collected in the 1970s in New Guinea and currently residing in the Cal Poly Humboldt entomology collection. It's focus stacked using Helicon Remote camera tethering software and (probably) Helicon Focus for stacking the images. I used a WeMacro focus rail to advance the camera between images. I shot them using a Nikon D7200 camera with a P4 bellows and a 50+ year old reversed El Nikkor 50mm flat field enlarger lens that is god's gift to macro photography.

The image is a close up of the beetle's head and antennae. The "blue-tiled" looking structure on the left is part of one foreleg.

I hope you like it! I think I've shared it here before. I've been so busy these last several months that I don't have any new images except some pretty clinical ones for my classes.

[Callalily]

52. I'm not all that fond of bugs, but some are really beautiful.

By the way, your weevil photo is very impressive.

[mike_c]

55. thank you!

[Grumpy Old Guy]

53. Stunning photo and great technology!

It sounds like you worked hard for this one. It's great that you used an old enlarger lens. When I think back to my old Besslers those lenses were amazing.

[mike_c]

56. thanks!

Yeah, I've gone pretty far down the rabbit hole.

[2naSalit]

57. Clover...

Was taken around summer of 2015 in the Hebgen Basin area to the west of Yellowstone NP. It's just a simple clover. I took several shots of different clovers, made a brief study of them and I wasn't sure which to use. I rarely do anything beyond crop, color saturation and some sharpening... I wouldn't know what to do with anything else. I mean, if the shot is a good one, in my mind, I shouldn't have to do much else. I usually shoot with that in mind.

Amazingly, I know I used a Cannon Powershot 120 SX to take the pictures. I still love that little thing though it needs maintenance before I can use it again.

I haven't cropped these but I think I did color sat and sharpening.





There are more but I have to find them, these were isolated for a project.

[Solly Mack]

59. I really like them both.

I love clover and your shots show how beautiful clover is as a flower.

[2naSalit]

60. Thanks.

Once I got a camera with macro capabilities, I never looked back. The Powershot was my first and it actually takes some really good macros for an early point and shoot.

And most simply walk on or past clover most of the time.

Clover is so amazing and when I saw how cool they looked, delicate, lacy and dainty, I try to best these shots on occasion but haven't succeeded yet.

[LakeArenal]

62. Winner winner I'll buy the chicken dinner.

P S Im voting for your pic.

[2naSalit]

63. !!!

Are you allowed to tell?



Thanks.

[LakeArenal]

64. Too late...... it's really a beauty.

[doublethink]

65. Blades of Grass ...

I shot that somewhere down there ...


A few years ago with a Fuji Digital camera on micro mode. Stupid camera gave out right after I shot these. Anyway here are a couple others before I just went ahead and mowed the grass ... lol.





And this one of a match head and a philips head screw ...



Ahh it was fun while it lasted. But yeah I've felt pretty guilty destroying the little creatures homes down there (bugs and what-not) when mowing the grass ever since ... sigh ...