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Sussex County – Page 2 – Bill Swartwout Photography

Category: Sussex County

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Fabricated Unlikelihood Of A Sunflower In Love

Heart-Shaped Sunflower Manipulation

The other day I went out shortly after sunrise to catch two small fields of sunflowers with my camera. I did mange a couple of nice shots and one “interesting” image that I grabbed from an oblique angle. It might have been fine by itself but I imagined a reflected image creating something more. So I fired up Photoshop Elements and flipped the right side over the left and voila – had a heart-shaped sunflower. Had it been red instead of yellow I might have had the makings of a Valentine’s Card. While I don’t mind taking a different view I don’t want to mess with Mother Nature too much (like making a yellow flower into a red flower). 🙂

Sunflower HeartWhile it is somewhat heart-shaped it also has some other possibilities. I posted the image over at Fine Art America and asked for suggestions. Wow! I was both surprised and impressed with the variety of images seen within this sunflower. Some were rather remarkable and insightful – and gave me a new perspective on what I had created.

To read all about it (and to see a larger version of this image in more detail) click on over to my online gallery at US Pictures dot com. Either click the photo above or click: http://www.BillSwartwoutPhotography.com.

BTW, the title for this post was gleaned from a suggestion by RG Kernodle Art.
BTW #2 – Camera used was an Olympus E-M10 (mft) with a 40-150mm m.Zuiko Lens.

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Merry Christmas to Family, Friends and Clients

I usually don’t shoot “holiday decoration” scenes but this year I found an exception. I’ll use it to illustrate this post where I want to wish everyone a…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Rehoboth Beach Lighthouse Holiday Decorations

Downtown Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is beautifully decorated. We drove around the Rehoboth Circle on Friday night, December 20th, and I had to go back the next evening to photograph this scene of the lighthouse which was tastefully decorated and served as a “Welcome to Rehoboth Beach for the Holidays” greeting to visitors entering downtown from Route 1 and “The Outlets.”

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No More Pencils, No More Books…

No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks…From “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper. Unfortunately that also depicts the demise of many revered book stores.

Rehoboth Beach Book StoreWith the preponderance of electronic tablets (iPad or Galaxy Tab, for example) and especially those designed for reading books (Kindle, Nook, etc), the sales of printed books have decreased dramatically over the last decade.  Electronic copies of books today far outsell the printed-on-paper versions. While that may not be a bad thing there are still people who love to read while holding a “real” book in their hands – and actually turning pages manually instead of with a “swipe” on a screen. I happen to be one of those people.

The demise of “real” books has also brought the demise of many once-popular book stores in many areas, such as malls and resort areas. Those of us living at or near the Delaware beaches and even Ocean City, Maryland, have a wonderful resource in downtown Rehoboth Beach. Here is my rendition of the colorful nature of the book store facade.

The inside is just as kitsch – and charming. Books, and plenty of them, along with just about anythig else that you or I may be able to relate to the joy of reading and discovering. Browseabout Books is located downtown at 133 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. My original photograph can be found in my online gallery at USPictures.com – in the Coastal Delaware Gallery.