I very much enjoy featuring images sent to me by my friends on Madang - Ples Bilong Mi.  Unfortunately, few friends send me samples of their work. I’m pestering a few of them to do so, but shyness seems to interfere. If you are a regular reader of this journal and you have images that you think will be appreciated by our audience, then please feel free to email them to me. Work them over until you are happy with them and send 1600 pixel (longest dimension) JPG images that are between 200 and 300 Kilobytes. Include some text describing the images and I will include that also. I’ve featured Trevor Hattersley’s images before here and here. Heidi Majano has also had a guest appearance.

Don’t be shy. Have a try.

We’ll start with a couple of shots from Trevor Hattersley. He’s been a keen amateur as long as I’ve known him, probably about twenty years. He recently purchased from me a spare (ordered two by mistake from Amazon) Olympus SP-590UZ superzoom camera and has been diligently learning to use it feature-by-feature. Up at Blueblood a couple of weeks ago he was playing with macro shots and came up with two very nice fungi:This one of Bracket Fungi has very accurate colours, perfect focus and nice composition. A shot that anyone should be proud to display.

Here’s another fungi shot by Trevor:Again, we have interesting and accurate colours, good composition, fine focus (click to enlarge) and a generally interesting and aesthetic image. Well done, mate! I was happy to see that Trevor resisted the urge to use flash on these shots. They are very natural looking – just the way that your eyes see them.

Now let’s move to another friend a world away. Ron Barrons hails from Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. He’s a very experienced and knowledgeable photographer with a good pair of hiking boots. Since Hamilton is the Waterfall Capital of the World, it’s not surprising that Ron has a plethora of beautiful images of water tumbling over rocks. The Niagara Escarpment is responsible for this cornucopia of waterfalls, something for which local photographers are eternally grateful.

Here is a beautiful shot of Grindstone Falls:

This one is of the cascade below the falls:Ron has the “silky water” technique down pat. This requires a tripod, a neutral density filter to cut down the amount of light coming in through the lens, and long exposure times. The result is that the water takes on a very fluid and smooth look which intensifies the appearance of flow. You can see some of my Hamilton Waterfalls and our adventures in waterfall country here, here and here.

Ron is not a one-trick-pony. He sent several gorgeous Canadian Autumn shots taken from the heights around the Niagara Escarpment. This one is a beaut:

Here is another, looking up at the escarpment itself:

I could not resist the urge to try making a watercolour of one of Ron’s beautiful shots. This one is of Rattlesnake Ridge:You will need to click to enlarge to see the full watercolour effect. Ron was kind enough to allow me to modify his work and publish it here.

I know that many of my readers must be serious hobby photographers. Please send me images that move you and allow me to showcase your work here.

I’m not fooling around. I mean it.

We went up on the “mountain” today, as it is known in Hamilton. It’s not really a mountain at all, but an escarpment, not that it makes much difference. It’s part of the Niagara Escarpment, a very interesting geologic formation. Here’s a nice panorama shot that I got with the Olympus SP-590UZ. It has two modes of stitching together a panorama automatically in the camera. Both work a treat:

The above is a much better panorama than my first attempt a year ago. However, it does have a couple of imperfections in the sky. I’ll probably stick to individual exposures and merging them in Photoshop for serious panoramas.

You can’t miss the fact that Hamilton is a steel town:Though some say it was once hell on earth, today the air is much cleaner. I bet that most of the clean up was not the idea of the steel producers. Ah, well, that’s life:

Some people won’t change their habits unless politely asked to do so.

Hamilton is about 70 kilometres from Toronto. Here’s a beautiful example of the treasures built into the Olympus SP-590UZ 26x optical zoom lens. It’s not the sharpest lens in the world, but it lets an amateur with a good eye take some mind-blowing shots:

That’s the steel mills of Hamilton from the escarpment with Toronto in the far distance.

Here’s another similar shot with a foreground frame that is just pleasantly out of focus:And, here is Eunie practising with her new Canon Powershot A100IS:

She’s having fun with that camera. It’s not overpowering for someone who just wants to take superb snaps for her journal. Check out her latest post here.

Walking through the neighbourhoods of Hamilton is a beautiful experience. The yards are full of flowers and thoughtful landscaping. Here we see the strong Dutch influence in these beautiful tuilps:

If fact, this time of year you would think that you are in Tuliptown.