Lately I have been playing around with some watery reflection images.
Wavery forest reflection in a dark pool in the Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver, Canada.
For this challenge I decided to apply the Sumi-e brush stroke filter in Photoshop which I have had a lot of fun with in the past. The filter turns this image into a Japanese painting.
Same pool, on the other side with sunlight flickering in and out.
Not so Japanese-looking but I like it.
Casual Japanese-style landscaping at a duck pond in Charleston Park during Vancouver COVID winter.
The Japanese landscaping heightens the effect of the brushstroke filter.
A golden Koi fish in a pond reflecting the leafy branches of overhead trees in the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Garden in Mexico. The koi in Sumi-e didn’t come across quite as well as the others.
When I went to my iPad to try a few photo apps I was surprised to find that Stackables (which I paid a small amount for) is no longer being supported, and Sketch Guru, which was free, now wants to charge a subscription price of $17.49/ year – not worth it, primarily since it only exports tiny files. Many other apps that I have used now seem to have ‘premium’ filters which you have to subscribe to get. At any rate, this is the Koi in DistressedFX, one app that still works.
For some reason, these pool reflections in Zion National Park in Utah, USA didn’t work in Sumi-e either.
I had in mind using the glitch app Groovo to make the ripples in this pool really ripple, but neither WordPress or Flickr would let me upload the small video, so I edited it in the photo app Snapseed instead…
Hmmm, spoke too soon, the mini-video was uploaded to Flickr – it just wasn’t where I expected it and it doesn’t ripple except in Flickr. More of the Lens Artists Challenge: One Photo, Two Ways
Interesting and fun, Elizabeth! I really want to try that.
I am in the process of switching away from Adobe products, but there are some things, like the Sumi-e brush stroke, that I’m really going to miss. Playing around is a lot of fun, and as Tina noted, there are always new apps to try…
Oh, yes, there are…
Excellent. I LOVE reflections. Viewing the world from ‘the other side’. Well done.
I never thought of reflections this way but it’s true – they are the reverse of ‘reality’. Often the water adds another personality all of its own so it really is seeing the reflection from the other side.
Very interesting Elizabeth. I often notice some of the apps disappearing or changing their pricing scheme. I guess they offer them free to build a user base and then charge for them later. In any case there are always new ones to try. One of our followers mentioned Paintcan which I found really fun. Anyway, I enjoyed the way you showed so many different impressions of your scenes, especially the koi.
The koi was in a pool in the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Garden – I took so many photos of that pool… I will have to try Paintcan since I have just lost two of my favourite apps – thanks for the recommendation!
Interesting!