Flaming Arrow

FU 2


Another shaft thru what once was my heart, now polymorfd to the above holey bowl...
so yr arrow goes thru & on anon thru multiverses to maybe land on some lifeless alien asteroid & fizzle to extinction.
FU 2 is my response.

Fractal art needs no defense, no apology. It speaks to those with the intelligence to grok its amazement, its wonder, its magic. Those who think it's boring, samesamesame are just dodos. Move on into Anu World. Have some fun.

Full Moon,Tornado & the Laughing Bird of Chaos

Oil crisis, threats of nuclear WW3, the Fire Beast ravages Californian coast, climate change events, interest rates, on & on the litany of horrors goes. The bird of Chaos hatches and we approach dark times.

Let us not lose sight of the Dream, sings some whacko on Rage as I type - images of the Rainbow Bridge to Tomorrow. Can you feeeeeeel it? Oh yeah...I can Feeeeeeel It.
So you jest gotta larf!!!!! Laugh, damn you, laugh.


Laugh at This

The full moon brought a real wotzit of a storm to the east coast which ripened into a tornado when it reached the caldera rim, ripping up Dunoon, destroying houses, the church and the primary school

Tornado ripping thru Dunoon




The Anglican church, or what's left of it. I saw what was coming and fled to my nice neighbors. The tornado of 2002 that ripped my place apart has left me traumatized - I just can't cope with storms like I used to. Fortunately the worst of it deflected along the caldera rim across the the ocean and missed us.



Got any scraps mum?
This over friendly kookaburra is now my regular evening visitor.





Stayed for a session on Apophysis. Ma Muse!


Today however he/she does what kookaburras do best & caught the poor legless lizard that lived in my woodpile. That big beak is not an ornament. Form and function!

This is a very intrusive bird. Sits on my shoulder & watches my every move - with a beak that big beside my face it is a little unnerving!

So that's Full Moon October 2007. Superpowers growling nuclear war, wild destructive weather and the Bird of Chaos has arrived amongst us. Hold on folks...it's a bumpy ride.

I came like Water, and like Wind I go. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXV111.

FRACTAL EXPLORATIONS

Today I did the startup tutorial of Fractal Explorer, took the image to Photoshop, gave it the Mehdi kaleidoscope treatment and came up with 20 beautiful images, all in same color balances, but so different. Here are 3 of them:

Fractal Art

Endless hours of delight as I learn new programs and techniques to create these fractal kaleidoscopes. The Fractal Links on side bar take you to some of my program and tutorial sources.





Mind Blowing Fractals




Comic Capers

Divine Geometry.

More variations from one image, only this time I've discovered Mind Blowing Fractals, created images, taken them to Photoshop, played with colors & put them thru the Mehdi kaleidoscope Photoshop plug-in filter. Come up with hundreds of astounding images, each one a WOW gasp of delight. Next step is to animate them.

These ones are just a few from a set of 30, all from the one original MBFractal.

They take me back to the Alhambra, where the Moorish Divine Geometry and the sounds of water flowing and bubbling in fountains illuminated me at my deepest levels in an experience that still brings thrills in the remembrance.

This last image, part of the same set, is a cut-out mounted on gradient backgrounds.

More Mehdi kaleidoscopes

Indigo

Kaleidoscopes.

A few examples of kaleidoscopes I created today in Photoshop using the Mehdi kaleidoscope plug-in.

The following are variations on a theme, showing how different fx can be achieved from the one image using this plug-in on various settings. Endless fun!







Like them? See more on my Flickr pages.

Sun Ticks.

Can't find any advanced Photoshop courses around here, so bought a good mag - Essential Photoshop Skills - and am teaching myself a few nifty extras.

A session of learning methods for basic kaleidoscopes produced this quickie below.

SUN TICKS

Created with Apophysis 2.06 3D Hack using Sya Paisley Flame and Tomcheck MarbleSpheres Script. Assembled in Photoshop.

O yaaaaas! I'm having FUN!!

Orchid & Iris

Today the garden (read wilderness) gives me flowers, strange flowers with color similarities and contrasting odoriferous differences.

Meet the Creeping Day Iris.

This is a particularly strange iris that blooms 2 days a year in Spring, usually a few weeks apart.
An exotic weed in rainforest understory. Still tracking it's name & place of origin.

Creeping Day Iris around the bird bath.

It stays out for a day, then the flowers simply fold up & shows over folks, nothing to see here!

Creeping Day Iris flower fully open.

It spreads prolifically in the rainforest understory and it's amazing to see all these pregnant yellow buds suddenly appear all over like little candles in the evening gloom. After dawn next day they all begin to open simultaneously. By 0730 the forest has a sudden celebration of flowers looking back at you from everywhere.

From bud to fully open flower takes about a half hour.You can watch them moving. Very much living things. I'll time lapse them next time.

Macro CU of Creeping Day Iris flower pongy nectary.

Another interesting thing about them is their stench. Oh yes they smell BAD. Something must love em! But I forgive them, they are just XQZT!

Subject No. 2: A Vulnerable Orchid.

I also found this fragrant orchid in full flower. Below is an extreme macro closeup of the happy Hobbitty face of the 5 mm flower. Now this one has such a divine perfume I just swooned.

Peristeranthus hillii - orchid flower macro CU.

Go to Sydney Botanical Gardens Herbarium site to read all about them.

The palms are all in abundant flower too. Alexandra's, Bangalows, Cane palms, Chinese fan palms - 4 - 5 different species, Walking stick palsm, Royal palms, Date palms...the list goes on..I have so many. The difference this year is that many have come into flower for the first time, after 25 years!

Time to go take more pix!!

Experimental Compilation.

Experimental compilation. Looks like a dog's dinner printed out, but better in dig. Posted it here to gauge fx & see how it works against the black. And for you to see of course. Works for me.

Based on an Apophysis creation. Made it as cover for the chronological list doc of my life events requested by Aunty.
Now.... for the rest of my life.......!

Super Storm Cell

Big hail fell in the latest of the series of storms generated by this slow moving low pressure system we are in. The above shows what fell here this afternoon, not too serious.

BUT......

Lismore and Mullumbimby had huge damage with hailstones like cricket balls cannoning through windscreens and windows, breaking rooves, flooding stores & ruining stock.

This morning's event growled & boomed in the dawn. Must have had 5 big storms in last 2 days so far. There will be more to come.

THE TRIBAL ELDERS and the CYBER ARK.

After my brother and I visited our Aunty and Uncle last weekend I decided I needed to record it for posterity in this Cyber Ark of human experiences. This is my Aunty, today, in her 80's, the eldest of my father's family line. Sorry Uncle but pix I took of you were too blurred - camera shake!

My Aunty

Below, this is my Aunty and Uncle when they were married in 1947, the year my brother was born. The beautiful Australian princess marries her handsome British pilot. They have just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, with congratulatory message from the Queen putting icing on the cake, so to speak.

The fairytale is real

The photo above is from my Nikon Coolpix S6 snappa, taken through glass onto framed tiny snapshot, then Photoshopped to resize & clean up. It isn't great but it hasn't come up too bad.

Charley

This handsome fellow is my father, my aunty's brother who fought to keep us all safe in the Middle East and New Guinea. This is taken after the war in 1955. He died in 1972.

Mama, me & Grandmama - 1940

This is my mother, aka Dawn Gold, carrying newborn me with Ivy, my grandma (my father & my aunty's mother), walking down Pitt St., Sydney in 1940. Caught by one of those prevalent street photographers of the day outside Repins Coffee Shop. Mama died in 2004. See Post below.

These are and/or were my tribal elders. Now my Aunt and Uncle are the sole representatives of their generation in my family. They are strong and hearty and will prove what healthy stock we are in their longevity. I bet they outlive me and my brother, both of us being in less than great shape at present. Stay tooned!

＼（‐＾▽＾‐）／

Had all the best intentions of creating more Apophysis digArt today, but got lost in the Magic Carpet of Memories Room after my aunty asked me to list the chronology of my life events. An interesting exercise that brought me to the Cyber Ark concept.

CYBER ARK

These pages and my Flickr pix are going to be around long after I'm gone (IF we survive the climate change biosphere breakdown crisis and I do mean IF, not when). Here I will be able to be accessed by those who come after, so it's a time capsule event. Hello y'all, just in case you have found me.


STORM SEASON IS HERE

View from studio south side yesterday evening as the first Big One blew in.
Green sky means hail.
It did, not here tho, but further east where it lay like carpets of snow.

Hail, lightning strobes, big sudden storms moving through quickly, not much rain. Suddenly the season has changed and it all feels dangerous. Memories of the 2002 tornado that wrecked the studio & garden. Another brewing, time to disconnect everything & put up storm blinds.

Julian's Visit

The last few days has been very busy with visit from dearest bro Julian.

He showed me his pix of Charley, the beautiful sports boat he designed and built himself.

It gave me the idea to put it on Flickr, which grew into a bigger, better, idea of creating a sports boat group, mainly to showcase Australian Sports Boat competition racing. Australia has a slim showing on Flickr all round, so I thought I'd up the ante.

So I created a Flickr group for Sports Boats and put his best pix into it. Build it and they will come!

Julian and crew on Charley at Airlie Beach, 2006.

Next, on a trip up into Koala Mountain Sanctuary's upland regenerating old banana lands we had a wee car problem when the overgrown verge of the invisible track we were inching along gave way under right back wheel & it slid, tipped & came within a whisker of rolling down the steep slope. Not a scratch on it or us, but we had a long toddle back down mountain to get help as no mobile reception. Fortunately my good neighbor, Craig, Betty's son, came to rescue & towed it out easy peasy. Thanks Craig, you are such a good friend.

Craig attaching the tow chains to the Suzuki.

Following day was off to Brisbane early to visit our paternal aunty and uncle, both in their 80's. Had a feast of forbidden cholesterol fancy cakes with tea and looked at the family photos. Then I showed them this blog and my Flickr pages and gave them easy access links from their Favorites, so they can read all about their strange niece at their leisure.

Aunt and nephew reminiscing over the 60th Anniversary photos.

Hello Thea and Allen! Isn't the www just the most wonderful thing!

After that visit we made our way to Manly and the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron where the last boats were coming in from the day's race in the St. Helena Cup regatta. Julian caught up with his sailing mates while I took a lot of pix for the Sports Boat Flickr group. It was blowing a 25 knot black nor-easter and the boats had had wild rides, so there were lots of torrid tales being exchanged in the debriefs.

The view from Darling Point across Brisbane River mouth in hard 25 knot wind.

I have never seen so many masts, so many expensive sleek craft, all in one small marina. Talk about clusters.

This is a cluster of......?.......(finish this sentence).

There were capsizes, including RIP It Up loading on ute trailer above, and one, Vivace, owned by Julian's mate Sorensen, was demasted.

Vivace loading onto trailer after demasting.

I posted the bulk of the pix to Flickr Sports Boats group, then put a notice in the Forum of the Anarchy page Julian contributes to, where sailing news is exchanged. I think they are already responding with lots of visitors to the pix, altho no new members to the group yet. But I'm hoping they'll see the merits of the exercise and join Flickr & get their pix up in the group soon.

So an eventful few days with Julian. He's off driving back south now and life gets back to "normal", for whatever that means.

HELLO THE ENEMY

Meanwhile I've seen the reason most of my native animals have disappeared this year. I had thought it was cane toads, but there are hardly any of them now. No, this was a CAT.

It actually came into house while I was sitting quietly reading one night. It killed a large antichinus in the kitchen and left it on the back doorstep, uneaten. But I saw it again when driving down track and realized how huge it is. Size of a Bobcat. E-NORM-OUS!

So it's goodbye possums, koalas, quoll, snakes, skinks, echidnas, bandicoots, just to name a few of the now not present species that used to be here in healthy numbers.

They say there is one wild ex-domestic cat to every square kilometre of Australia. I have found the enemy has now arrived here and done what cats do. Hunt and kill native wildlife. Tell that to all those people who simper over pretty pussies.

Remembering Diana

Paris Ritz Ring

A friend made this for me in the 70's from an old spoon found in an op shop.

I put it away for over fifteen years.

One day I got it out and mused over the memories of those days and put it on my table.

Imagine my shock when I turned on the TV and in a NewsFlash cutting thru the afternoon programs came the news of Diana's death after leaving the Paris Ritz on that fateful day.

I picked up that ring and held it tight. I swear I tingled all over!!

I wear it all the time now. It is something of a knuckle duster.
Every old lady needs one !

I'm posting this here on to mark the anniversary of her death.

I'm not a royal fan, but I couldn't help be drawn into her mythos after that curious bit of synchronicity.