This weekend I wanted to relax with some low-stress photography fun to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Silver had other ideas! He came in limping so took a Cinco de Mayo Sunday trip to the vet! I have added a few late pictures to the end of the post!
See how a filter can change your favourite portrait or photograph. Join us and the Kitties Blue for some Selfie fun.
I dipped into my favourite filter app Photo Lab, which I introduced here.
I recently renewed my subscription I am so pleased with the results. The way the filters transform a photograph means you can tailor your images to your aims.
Meet Oscar, he is a cafe cat who recently began a trial to see if he fits in with a family.
Although the picture is not perfect I resisted the temptation to adjust it and instead I tried a few Photo Lab filters. The results are pretty amazing.
A filter can make a subtle change or a dramatic shift to how a photograph looks. Check out the three samples of Oscar’s portrait.
Salmonberry Filter Drama
The shadows behind Oscar in the original photograph might look gloomy and frustrate a photographer unless they used a soft flash or reflector to remove it but in the Salmonberry filter it sets off the richly coloured ginger fur with a touch of dark drama.
This is a picture that will really catch the eye from a distance.
Starry Night Filter Transofrmation
In this dramatic nighttime filter, inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s painting ‘The Starry Night’ painted in 1889, and currently in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA. The background is given a lot of texture very much like an artist’s brush strokes and the highlights seem touched by moonlight.
A filter like this would make a dramatic statement. It transforms a simple portrait into something really dramatic.
Oscar here his been given a simple shimmering effect with the ‘bokeh’ filter. A picture like this could have a text
I made some adjustments to the digital image for this last picture. I lightened Oscar’s body, and then moved in and brightened his eye. These slight adjustments mean the softly sparkling bokeh effect doesn’t overwhelm him.
In photography, bokeh (/?bo?ke?/ BOH-kay; Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.
wikipedia
Emergency Vet Visit Adventure
This is ‘unfiltered’ and thankfully not too dramatic.
Silver arrived home and was limping. I gave him a thorough checkup. Feeling each leg and paw, then carefully down his body. He gave some grumpy growls but there was no blood and I felt nothing broken or swollen.
So we took the earliest vet appointment we could get for a Sunday and stopped off on the way to get the week’s cat food at our local Animates. Silver was perking up by now, but he did not fool us.
Silver had hardly moved during the night and though no third eyelid showed I was determined to have him checked over.
Silver was booked into PetVet in Lower Hutt. It is a terrific place and could be our permanent vet surgery if it wasn’t too for me to get to with the stroller. The veterinary nurses and vets are efficient, friendly and nice. It even has a cat waiting area.
Cat Vet Summary
Silver is in good health, and there are no broken bones. The vet lady suspects a sprain or pulled muscle of some kind so it’s house arrest for a few days for Silver.
He is fine but will want to be out and about soon.
OK Back to business! What is your favourite filter? Do you have your own favourite app to use that shows how a filter can change a photograph?
Farewell Daisy Curly Cat
This week we lost one of the internet’s first and finest celebricats Daisy. Always a delight, her audience these days would probably outstrip most high profile felines. She made everyone’s day brighter and her loss is immense.
