Photos of the Week - Week 36

Critique Group Challenge: 

Week 36, Smoke Mirror

Photo by Wendy Browne

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Wendy says:

Smoke and Mirrors
I have spent hours playing with Photoshop, Lightroom, and Topaz Studio this week.
Firstly, I finally treated myself to a Speedlight to help take the smoke images.
I took multiple smoke images and then made them into brushes in Photoshop.
The mirror was made by my youngest son in Woodwork classes at school. I took the picture and then selected the mirror and made a layer mask. I altered the wooden surrounds in Camera Raw to be darker with more texture.
In photoshop I made a fill layer that was dark grey and used several of the smoke stamps. I then flipped this horizontally to make a mirror montage. This level was placed below the mirror mask to become the background.
Then I added another fill layer in the same grey and different smoke stamps and did another mirror montage. This scale of this was then transformed to fit the hole in the mirror.
This produced my submitted image.
Next into Topaz Studio for some filter fun. I also played with some of the original smoke images in Topaz with some great results.
My fun can be seen here.

52-Week Photo Challenge Class
Week 36 - Radial Symetry

Week 52 Photo Challenge:

Week 36, Radial Symetry

Photo by Joyce Edmunds

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Joyce says: 

This is a tightly cropped image of a gazania flower in my garden. I tried many other plants but I loved the tightly packed radial symetry of the centre of the flower. Is it a Fibonacci spiral? Apart from the crop, the edits are basic LR adjustments.

Smart Phone Photo Challenges
Week 36 - Abandoned 

Smart Phone Challenge:

Week 36, Abandoned 

Photo by Warren Lee

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Warren says:

With weeks above 108 degrees, vitality has been abandoned. This weekend finally has high temperatures under the century mark. These roses and other flowering plants will be revitalized within a few weeks.

Critique Group Challenge:

Week 36, Smoke Mirror

Photo by Ricky Tims
from the 2022 Critique Group

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Ricky says:

This was incense smoke photographed with the smoke and the reflection in a mirror. That one image was then blended with a color gradient to add color. That image was then mirrored. The mirror image was rotated 90˚ and blended. That image was then rotated 45˚ and blended.