Maiva is one of Lane Cove Creative's five Life members. Maiva and her husband Michael love to travel to far and exotic places as well as exploring the natural beauty around Australia. Here is a selection of images from Maiva's recent work.
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Strange Folk I Have Met
During my travels around the world, I have met many strange folk. Some of them are a bit scary, others merely eccentric. All of them are memorable in one way or another.
These folk have different names in different countries, trolls, will o’ the wisp, fairies and forest spirits to name but a few. In this series, I have placed these folk into their natural habitats to show off their personalities and character for your appreciation.
These images are presented here purely for your enjoyment.
Maiva Smyth 2021
The Clouds Of Jupiter
Sometime earlier this year we watched a documentary that showed new images of Jupiter taken by NASA’s Juno space probe.
I was struck by the incredible patterns and depth to the swirling masses of clouds and decided to make my own versions. As a trip to Jupiter was out of the question, I decided to create my own clouds, using my own images as a basis for colour and texture, then applying various amounts of Liquify in Photoshop to recreate the cyclonic weather patterns seen in the real images.
Jupiter is a Gas Giant and is racked with extreme weather in it’s gaseous surface. The most prominent feature, the Giant Red Spot is a giant cyclone that has been visible since the earliest telescopes in the 16th Century. The most recent probes have revealed these weather systems in even more detail and asked new questions about how this planet has evolved from the formation of the Solar System.
I hope you enjoy these images and take time to ponder the wonders of the night sky.
Some facts about Jupiter:
Jupiter is the largest plant in the Solar System, 318 times more massive than Earth, or 2.5 times the combined mass of all the planets.
Jupiter has no solid surface, it is made up of gases, mainly Hydrogen and Helium
Jupiter is the fastest spinning plant in the Solar System
The clouds we see at the surface are only 50km thick, made up mainly of Ammonia crystals, below which it is all Hydrogen and Helium
The Giant Red Spot is about 24,000 km across and has been observed since 1665, however it is slowly getting smaller.
Jupiter is one of three planets that has rings, although they are very feint
Jupiter’s magnetic field is 14 times as strong as Earth’s
Jupiter has 67 Moons, most of which are less than 10kms across
We have sent 7 probes to Study Jupiter since the first in 1973
You can easily see Jupiter with the naked eye, being the third brightest object in the night sky (after Venus and the Moon), although from Sydney, due to light and atmospheric pollution, it can be quite difficult.
Refractographs
With this series of images, I have been experimenting with the patterns of light generated by projecting a thin beam of light through everyday glass objects. This technique requires working in a fully darkened room, no lens on the camera and almost infinite patience. The refractions through glass are difficult to control and photograph. Colour is added by filtering the light through coloured gels, or by adding colour filters during processing. Some of the images created have been made into mandalas and others are presented as captured.
