February 2013 picture offerings
I'm into my second month (well, third month, if the truth be told)
Day 60. Corking good shot! It's a quickie today for a variety of reasons. So anyway... I collect things for 365 and I have had a growing collection of corks lying around. I was wondering what to do with them short of making the Australian hat that is so parodied around the world. "Maiden Plunders" I thought (because that's an anagram of "Nil desperandum" and I needed something silly to say) and this little cartoon popped into my head based on a poster I saw for Mother's Day. So it was out with the pens and the camera and here it is. Enjoy (and for all you gents who are wondering what the right answer to the question is... don't ask me. The question is as loaded as the gun!)
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Day 59. Waterloo sunset! I have been planning this shot for a couple of days now (chilli peppers don't freeze easily in a few minutes!); they have been in the deep freeze in a sandwich box for a couple of days. First time around the little beggars floated so I had to add a little more water to cover them once the first load had frozen. Next problem, I extracted them and instantly the ice frosted over so you couldn't see them. So I did my big bad wolf impersonation and I huffed and puffed until the frosting went clear and I went all dizzy (Wow man! A natural high...) Then it was a case of setting up lights and camera and shooting. Now, I wonder if you are all confused as to the title for today? For those of us old enough to remember, this was the title of a song by "The Kinks" and some of the lyrics went "Every day I look at the world from my window,
But chilly, chilly is the evening time, Waterloo sunset's fine" and once I saw these frozen peppers I just knew "I am in paradise" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J3gX47rHGg y 59. |
Day 58. A passing shower. I had to do it. I had to go into the bathroom again after yesterday's filter fiasco but this time I was just setting up the shot when suddenly... there was a passing shower! So I took advantage of it to get today's shot. Actually this was fun. I was experimenting with off camera flash for once (the 7D can trigger a Speedlite flash with no added wireless gizmos). So the set up was a flash mounted on one stand shooting through a white umbrella on a second stand and the camera very firmly mounted on a tripod whilst I stood underneath the shower head with my trouser legs rolled up looking for all the world like a freemason! Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and change my undies and socks cos I got a bit soggy doing this.
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Day 57. Accidents will happen. Two accidents. One cuss-worthy and the other one serendipitous. First of all the cuss-worthy one (damn, blow, knickers and spit!). I was shooting in my other "expensive" studio (the bathroom) on a very messy shot when my camera and tripod toppled over and bashed the front of the lens against a tap. "Crunch!" went yet another Hoya skylight filter. Swearing immensely (and also heaving a sigh of relief that I had put protection on the lens) I went to order another one over the Internet and that is when I had the serendipitous accident. The plastic cover of my mousepad was glowing with all sorts of oozing colours which the polarizer made fabulously rich. So... product placement one... Wacom Graphire 3 Mousepad with gooey colours; product placement two, busted Hoya filter. Lens and camera are doing fine...
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Day 56. Don't play with your food! Yes, it's 'shopped and chopped. It's a little bit of a make weight photograph today but it was fun. Once again it was shot in Raw (raw vegetables are sooo good for you) in my "expensive" studio, raw processing in DxO Optics Pro and then Photoshopped to make the sliced effect and to rotate the pepper off its normal axis. This is part of tonight's dinner - (I'm on an Alternate Day Fasting diet and this is part of my allowed 550 calories on a fasting day) so I didn't want to mangle it in reality... not yet anyway.
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Day 55. Where did you get that 'at? After the fit of the glums yesterday, I had a fit of the sillies today. I knew that today was going to be hectic (I've been installing storage heaters) so I wanted something quick and this is it. When I thought of the idea this morning I dissolved into a fit of the giggles in the middle of town. I was just going to call it "An 'at rack" but I preferred my final choice. All together now... "Grab your coat and get your 'at, leave your worries on the doorstep, Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street!"
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Day54. Hand-Eye Co-Ordination Not the kindest type of selfie but I am feeling a bit... weird and humourless this morning. I wanted to do something similar to, but not quite the same as, href="http://weirdwesterns.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/bug-eyed.gif">the devil in Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece film "Pan's Labyrinth". Sorry for the glumness factor but I have a sense of foreboding that just won't go away today. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
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Day 53. The Photoshop behind the Condiments of the Season picture. OK, OK, it is a blatant cheat for today's picture but I have been saying that I will do this to so many people that I had to put my money where my mouth is (heck, if I could really stash my cash in my gob, I would be as rich as Croesus!). So here it is, warts and all. Sit back with your popcorn or whatever other fast food, high fat snack you would normally nosh on in a cinema and enjoy. Rated PG - not suitable for children. Contains scenes rampant Meerkats.
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Day 52. Evolution in action. Survival of the fittest? No. It's called "Evolution" to show you that my ideas can and do change at the merest whim. This picture started off as the punchline to a vulgar joke and then I got the wrench in on the act and took a shot of it with a nut in its jaws. It was going to be called "One good turn" but I realised that it could evolve further than that so I built a nest of matchsticks, put a few "chicks" in and put "Mama" into the shot too. Hey presto and "Shazam!", today's picture. For anyone interested, here is the frightfully complex studio set up for this. http://snapchap.weebly.com/my-studio.html Enjoy! Best viewed large, small or whatever takes your fancy.
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Day 51. Condiments of the season. ...and this is..? Come on... you can do better than this... Hands up? Yes, you at the back? If you must... it's out the door, down the corridor third on the left. Anyone else? That's right! It's salt and pepper. OK. It's two shots. I pre-focussed on the plate and did a couple of seconds exposure on the salt being poured from a pot onto the plate (actually, I had to shake it because it was ever so slightly damp - hence the broad spread of the salt) Second shot was just me holding a pepper and trying to hold it steady for a sixth of a second. Then a bit of Photoshop wizardry with a layer mask and "Kapabooey! Bazinga! Blazzam!" and other explosive noises - one picture. Seeing as that is my hand does this count as a selfie?
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Day 50. Ineptitude. So there I was looking for inspiration for a photograph for my fiftieth picture (yes - being awkward, I started on December 31st last year). I wanted something really special. Thankfully just when I thought I was getting too serious, I thought of the corniest of puns and performed the dastardly deed instead of putting my fertile mind (who said full of sh...sh...brown stuff?) to doing something spectacular. So what is wrong with this picture? This is like vandalising cars in the local multistorey car park... wrong on so many levels. Musically I am inept and photographically likewise and it shows in this corny picture. Not surprisingly no-one else has tried this double pun on 365 and now I have really knocked a nail into its coffin for good. Best viewed "largo" ?
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Day 49. Chanctonbury Ring. No... "Chanctonbury Ring" isn't an obscure and uncomfortable ailment of the rear sphincter. It is an old hill fort nearby and one that we occasionally walk up to (the last time being about fifteen years ago!). I wanted to get away from peeking in obscure shop windows before someone decides that I am a pervert and I wanted to have a go at a landscape for once. We started the day in mist but as we walked up to the top of the South Downs and towards the old fort, the sun suddenly broke through the trees and started to burn the mist away very rapidly. I don't like HDR but this one just begged for it and I am pleased to say, it has come out reasonably well. Anyway, as the old saying has it "it's the fort that counts" Best viewed larger than this, I think...
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Day 48. Going bust? ... I am not really given to looking at young ladies... chests... but I saw this magnificent pair... of mannequins and liked the colours of the party frocks. This shop in Horsham seems to be perpetually on the verge of going under so I thought "Why not grab a couple of shots?" I was somewhat hampered by the lighting, the fact that there was a bit of glare on the window (which my handy, dandy polarizing filter mostly took care of) and that as soon as I get my camera out these days, the hoi-poloi decide that I need the pleasure of their company with their stinky burger in one hand and their cigarettes in the other, asking asinine questions while I am trying hard to be inconspicuous and trying to concentrate on camera settings. "Yes, I am taking photographs and I am sure that your uncle Fred has got a camera that can do ten times the number of things my camera does..." Still, I managed to squeeze off a couple of shots (ooh - I could have worded that better, couldn't I?) and went on my merry way. I'm not sure that the focus is up to what it should be - that would be the result of a greasy burger being forced into my earhole - most off putting!
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Day 47. I've still got the blues for you. After yesterday's success with the smartphone cam and the colour red, I decided to look for something else brilliantly coloured and boy, did I find it in style. I will elucidate (you do, and you'll clean it up, Everest!)... Every day I take my wife to the railway station mega early and then return home for a day of replying to posts and commenting on 365project. On the return journey I have often caught a flash of blue down one of the side streets. So today I turned down New Street in Horsham to investigate, half expecting it to be a Chinese restaurant with one of those fly zapping lights in the window. Imagine my surprise at finding a stained glass artist and this is how he illuminates his window. By 'eck, it's like being in a fishbowl! I was really taken aback with the colour. The only manipulation done was to crop away the brick surround, straighten the shot, a very minor tweak to the contrast and a blatant cheat to whiten the window frame. The blue is just as it is found in the early hours of the morning - eye popping and untouched by software! Best viewed large - with sunglasses on and factor 50 sunblock. Seeing as it is just over two years since that ace guitarist Gary Moore unexpectedly passed away, I am going to dedicate it to his memory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O_YMLDvvnw
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Day 46. Amare - the Italian verb for love. Not for me the hearts and flowers of St Valentines day but true love nonetheless. Now I could say "This is my Ferrari" or "Say 'Hi' to my Lamborghini" but this is just my lovely little Fiat Punto, Marco Rossellini (Bonus points for anyone who can tell me which anime that name came from). We have a love affair that has been going on for six years so far. He (yes, all my cars have been 'male' - don't ask me why because I don't know) was built for sunshine and warmth but he looked spectacular after a drive in the rain this morning. I couldn't even wait to get the DSLR so snapped this on my phone camera. Best viewed large - a bit like me, I suppose.
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Day 45. Pause for reflection. After a couple of days of riotous colour, I decided to do something different today. Basically this means that I was working on another outrageously colourful picture but I just could not get it to work. Take it from me when W C Fields said “Never work with children or animals.” he should have added "or sequins". Be that as it may, I saw this antique silver jug admiring itself in one of his bigger brothers and thought "not a sequin in sight so I will go for it!" It started off as a six picture 32 bit HDR in Photoshop but that wasn't spectacular enough so it got a zap of contrast, a twist of sharpening and just a soupçon of my secret ingredient to improve metallic lustre - et voilà . Best viewed large where you will see all the dents and scratches that these poor old bits of silver have acquired over the decades.
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Day 44. Fly-swat of Oz. "BECAUSE I CAN!" Sorry? What was the question? Ah... "Why has he put a lot of coloured matchsticks in a fly-swat and then photographed it?" I know, I know. I have way too much time on my hands and I ought to get out into the fresh air more. I like colours and this seemed to be a really nice way to display them. What was that? Why the title? Well, sing along with me "Somewhere over the rainbow, swat a fly..." Probably OK if you viewed it large but I haven't tried yet.
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Day 43. Tickling my fancy. "Tickling my fancy what?" you ask. Did you ever have one of those silly ideas that were so simple that you just knew it was going to take you just a couple of minutes to shoot and upload? You did? Well, this one wasn't one of them. I struggled with what I wanted to do (and I won't tell you because I might just get the answer to my problem and save it for a later date.). Finally, I was looking at this handful of brightly coloured feathers and thought "Why not grab a brush and 'paint' with them?" Thus this picture was born and now I have a long time ahead of me, of picking up all the rest of the feathers that have gone absolutely everywhere like my blueberries that were meant to be for my lunch but that is a totally different and unrelated story. Best viewed large.
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Day 42. Get a grip! I've been visiting with my in-laws today which is why I am a bit late with the picture. It's another macro shot and this time it is of two bulldog clips with their jaws intertwined. I thought that it gave a very pleasing Celtic look. The blue lighting was cast by one of the many flashlight apps available for Android phones. I'm going to dedicate this to my Father-in-law, Ben, because despite having terminal cancer, he has the tenacity of a bulldog and is going to go down fighting.
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Day 40. Once again I defeat you, foul adversary! Dorko held aloft the mighty chunk of iron that had fallen from the planet Argos and crashed it down onto the leg of Pantalons du Corduroy, "Have mercy!" squealed his enemy...
Yet another excerpt from the classic "Ironing Mountain Saga" (book seventeen "Dorko does it with starch." ) Yes, today was domestic god day. It is only fair that with Donna at her desk earning our daily crust that I should do the household chores. No time to be that creative today (you wanna see what I have got lined up though!) Shot in mixed daylight and artificial light, Raw processed in DxO Optics to give an HDR effect and then tweaked a tad more in Photoshop. Best viewed large |
Day 39. U2 (think about it...) Wallet, car keys, spectacles and lens caps... What do these things have in common? They are easily put down but finding Wally / Waldo is a piece of doddle compared to finding these little darlings again. Best viewed large.
Shot in daylight (used a silver reflector to suppress and lift some of the shadows), processed in DxO and Photoshop. Music today courtesy of U2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnD6ojjA0OA |
Day 38. The measure of the depth can be deceiving... So warbled that ace guitarist Joe Walsh in his track "The Confessor" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3XSI_xwvss (if you like electric guitar then be prepared for some real pyrotechnics). I was a bit stuck for inspiration this morning (I've tried all sorts of things; light painting, light bulbs, the cats...) but I came across this anamorphosis cup. My first thought was to define the word but that would be cheating and invading someone else's turf. Suffice it to say that the cup is silvered and the curvature of that cup reflects back correctly, the distorted image of Van Gogh's masterpiece "The English Corner" which is painted on the saucer. So I will do my usual trick and tell you my method. Shot in Raw in daylight (for once), processed in DxO Optics where I boosted the colour to imitate Fuji Velvia and did a tweak to make it more HDR like, I then tweaked the contrast, sharpened and cropped it in Photoshop. Best viewed large.
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Day 37. Ballerina, have you seen her? Today I was thinking of that Elton John classic song "Tiny Dancer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP6kSnvEIpM and the lyrics made me want to try the impossible again. In the picture, what you see is what you get. I haven't used any strings, glue, Blu-Tack, wires, sticks or Photoshop or other software trickery whatsoever (do you think I would have left that dreadful wallpaper and those curtains in the shot otherwise?). This is one exposure and one exposure only - as I said, no trickery. It involves one pair of scissors, a large mirror, the camera (obviously... durr!), remote release, tripod, one light bounced off the ceiling, a lot of patience and a sh*t load of very bad language indeed. The only software used was DxO Optics Pro to do the Raw processing (it was very high ISO so lots of noise) and Photoshop for cropping. I promise, there is no trickery in this shot. Best viewed large
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Day 36. That's what caused my heart to bleed. I found this heart shaped potato in our local farm shop a couple of weeks back. I wanted to save it for St V's day but it wasn't going to make it and had started to turn green so needed to be used PDQ. So a quick slice, a stab with a letter opener, a drop or two of red food colouring and "Bingo!. Instant Jimi Hendrix "Bleeding Heart" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COsVgbAJ8B8 Best viewed large. I want to dedicate this picture to my good friend Matheus Jose Maria @matheusjm
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Day 35. Cutting Edge Technology. Well, I trudged through acres of mud on a walk this morning and found nothing worth taking a shot of. Getting prepared for cooking the evening meal and the ring pull came off the top of the tin of tomatoes I was trying to open. There then began the hunt for the ever elusive tin opener. As soon as I clamped it on the edge and there was the satisfying hiss of air entering the punctured can, I just knew that I had to have a photograph... of the tin opener, not the hiss... So it was out with the lighting, out with the "Mwah! I love you so much" 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, camera and tripod and settle down to a shoot. Raw processing was in DxO Optics Pro, tweaked a little in Photoshop (sharpening) and I didn't even have to crop this one. Best viewed large and dinner still needs cooking although the studio lights did heat the tin up quite nicely thanks.
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Day 34. Architecture. Due to time constraints I haven't really been able to concentrate on photography today. Actually, that's a lie. Because I have been busy scouring bookshops I haven't really been able to concentrate on photography today. Yeah... that's better. Thankfully I looked upwards and saw the delicate architectural tracery of the roof of our local shopping centre with a lovely blue sky behind it and took a shot. When I got home it was a bit mediocre but thankfully where I had used a polarizing filter, the sky had darkened dramatically so it took very little processing to turn it into an eye searing monochrome job. Better in Large view.
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Day 33. You can read their address by the moon. After days of riotous colour, I bring you peace and serenity. The title is from Leonard Cohen's song "The Sisters of Mercy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ4jv5mqiHY Best viewed large.
Method... buy three rather exotic (and erotic) black and white flower vases (for that is what they are) ten years ago. Let them gather dust on a shelf. Join 365project.org and want to try light painting. At six in the morning on a winter's day put them on your best dining room table, set the camera to manual everything. Try to light an indoor sparkler, set the camera off, turn the main light off and then rush headlong in the darkness and draw an outline before the sparkler burns your fingers and goes out. Avoid burning table and furnishings. Raw processing in DxO Optics, tweaked and cropped in Photoshop. Coffee by the Pluckley tea and coffee shop Kent. More than enough said. |