2010's Ten Most Interesting (according to flickr)..and Happy Birthday to me!

I will never understand (nor do they want me to) Flickr's "interestingness" calculations....I know it has to do with views, comments and such, but I also read somewhere it mattered who was commenting....I mean, isn't that odd? Like, are some comments more interesting than others? Anyway, for whatever reason these are my 10 "most interesting" on flickr for the year ending 2010...and my thoughts.

Ok, Phoebe is really cute and sometimes funny looking, but this was my first "Explored" image and must have also captured others' hearts. I loved that her whiskers were backlit and she looks a little crazy and intense, because she's normally a big fluffy mushball.

 

This was a digital texture I made using manual focus and combination of actions to produce the pale honey color. I like playing around with textures and use them myself, so I thought, I'll just create some and have them on hand.

Phoebe wormed her way into the limelight again with this funny holiday photo I took of her on my bed. I was untangling the lights and laid them down for a while in frustration, then found Phoebes snuggled up practically inside them. She got upset when I took them off her...hehe.

This is a real owl (I know he kind of looks like a stuffed animal, or a toy!) but he's a real Eastern Screech owl I was able to get really close up to during an owl show on Cape Cod in the early fall. I added the sparkly texture for the background because it was white and boring. I love the determined look on his face and the motion of the fluttery wings. I kind of wanted to take him home....

 

This is an older photo taken with an oooold camera that was grainy and a little dark, so I brightened it up by making the out of focus areas into little heart bokeh points of light. My fave part is the full moon which I turned into a heart also...Ok, I went a bit over the top, but flickrers liked it, and Shutter Sisters featured it on their blog. :)

This one above continues to get love on Flickr...when I took it, I was disappointed that the chairs were not real wood (they're plastic adirondacks- the horror!) so I tried to make them look real but I thought I failed at it. I just could not get them to look less plasticky. Maybe I'll be able to catch the same type of scene again with real chairs next year...

So this one I really love. Love the location, the colors, the light flare...:) And I was unsure I could really do anything with this photo at first because the day was fading away and the light was somewhat too bright because the tracks were flat and the sun was shining right where I was going to shoot the picture..and after this day I  began to experiment more with shooting towards the sun and liking the end result more and more.

This one, above was a re-edit. The original sky was too light and the sand was lacking detail. I went back and burned in some of the sand and sky, and selectively colored more of the cyan color in the sky until I had the result I wanted. I wanted a colorful, summery feel but not too warm that I lost the beautiful blues.

Another one of my faves, above, from a large county fair on Cape Cod last summer. It was super hot that day- like in the 90's or something- and I remember they were selling deep fried oreos (I took pictures of the entire frying process)...and I thought "Who would want to eat those today!!?" Due to the sweltering heat, the ferris wheel was the only thing I really wanted to do- at least I could get a nice breeze up there. Later this day I also had my photo taken holding a Barn Owl at the raptor show....the highlight of my day...:)

And finally, this dreamy scene from Florida....the beaches here (off Sarasota) are like powder and the sand sort of squeaks under your feet...much different than our rocky beaches up North. This roped piling I thought was like a little gateway to my very own private beach....since the beaches here aren't crowded, like they are in New England, where your towel is touching some other guy's and you get to listen to other people's radios and conversations. Nope, not here. Just the sound of the sea and seagulls, the way it should be. :)