July
I can't believe that I have stuck this project out for six months already (well, six months and one day if you want to be pernickety). That is half way through the year! Let's see if it gets any easier, shall we?
Day 213. British Summer Time. [Sigh!] Into every life a little rain must fall but why did it have to happen today when I was having an assignation with a tall and elegant woman who isn't my wife? OK, ok, I was having a cup of coffee and a chinwag with our good friend Miranda and I was showing her Brutus, my camera. This was part of a garden parasol outside the café at Nymans Gardens and I thought that the cloth was rather beautiful, particularly with the raindrops on it. Best viewed large.
Day 212. Sucked in. I had to take Mum-in-law back to hospital today for a heart echo scan (a fascinating process but I didn't want to post the picture here). On the way over I stopped off at Tangmere Air Museum and had a couple of hours wandering around, talking to the old guys who fix the aircraft and beating off hordes of snotty nosed kids who were on school holidays, who didn't want to be there. This shot (best viewed large) is the inside view of an English Electric Lightning looking from the nose cone down to the engine. Not a bad result when you consider it was handheld at ISO8000.
Day 211. Come up and see my etchings. Eeeeh! but I had a hard time finding a picture for today. All of my attempts went wide of the mark until I came across this tiny, carved bone pot that we found in a charity shop a week or so back. It was a sitting target in the afternoon sun and then I had the chance to play with one of my new software toys now that the bugs have been worked out of it. It is DxO FilmPack
http://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/dxo-filmpack which allowed me to emulate an analogue film stock and then add and modify effects (the scratches, the texture, the tint, the filter, the frame, the vignette). Yum! I am going to have great fun with this.
http://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/dxo-filmpack which allowed me to emulate an analogue film stock and then add and modify effects (the scratches, the texture, the tint, the filter, the frame, the vignette). Yum! I am going to have great fun with this.
Day 210. Rusty nuts. We took a walk through the beautiful English countryside today and if I had wanted flower shots (or bees, or butterflies) then I could have done dozens. Finally when I had given up hope we came across this huge old water tank in a field. Lots of rust and masses of nuts and I thought... "I bet Chippy Minton would like this."
Day 209. Nach den Glockenblumen. I promised my self that I wouldn't do any flower pictures for my 365 project and I don't think that I have broken that promise quite with this shot. Now that the bluebells are over and done with, their seed pods are starting to burst open and spread their cargo. This means a fair old crop at the top end of our garden. Not that I mind. The more bluebells the better.
Day 208. Fickle! The heart is a fickle organ. When I was a teenager I fell desperately in love at least three times every week and fell in lust three times as often as that. Now I am older, I fall in love every day with my child bride. As for the lust bit? That would be telling!
Day 207. My Sister and I. We don't speak to each other - pure, simple and highly effective at keeping the peace.
Day 206 That which we call a rose... ... by any other name would smell as sweet. Ever have one of those pictures that should work out but didn't quite come out as you wanted? Yup! That is today's shot. I had this old watering can with a battered rose at the end of it so I stuck some cocktail sticks in in, added some butterfly beads and a polystyrene heart but no matter which lens I tried and what ever perspective or background I tried, it just didn't seem to want to work. So I have edited it - with a vengeance!
Day 205. Keep it up! I have just spent the day in QA hospital with Mum-in-Law. She passed out in a shop and had to be ferried to the hospital by ambulance. What was the cause for this? Simple dehydration. She hadn't been drinking enough water. Neither she or my father-in-law are good about this so apart from ferrying her back home, picking up her abandoned car, collecting the abandoned shopping etc. both Donna and I gave them a good stern talking to about drinking enough water (not tea - normal black tea is a diuretic so makes things worse). So... please make sure that all the vulnerable folks around you take heed of Mum-in-Law's mishap and drink plenty of water, particularly during this hot spell - and that goes for you too!
Day 204. "Where heroes could fitly feast". Mrs Snapchap and I have spent the day at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Arundel (http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit/arundel/). As we were wandering and enjoying the sunshine we heard the sound of crisps being crunched in amidst the reeds. Carefully and quietly we searched until we came across a water vole (also known as a water rat) about ten feet away from us. These unassuming creatures are about the size of a small rat or a very plump hamster and they live by cutting reeds and eating them (very noisily!). We sat entranced for long minutes and I blazed away with the 100-400mm lens on. This is a severe crop BTW. Poor little ratty is the most threatened mammal in the UK. Just about everything wants to eat him. The title is a quote from Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows". Best viewed large if you have the time or inclination.
Day 203. Buchan Park boat shed. For twenty one years I have driven past the sign to Buchan Park (near Crawley) and hadn't ever thought to go and see what it is all about. Today, Donna and I took a trip up there and took a walk around. Very pleasant and it gave me the opportunity for a couple of shots. I fell in love with the rocky columns on the boat house and their gorgeous reflections - the sepia tint just seemed to add to the atmosphere
Day 202. Puzzle within a puzzle. I never know from one moment to the next what is going to be the sot of the day. I really wanted to use more of my London shots from yesterday but I am trying really hard to not use fillers for my project. So today's shot is a puzzle box and a wooden puzzle. The biggest problem wasn't trying to remember how to open the box but how to close it up afterwards!
Day 201. Move on down the bus please! I have had a splendid day up in London with Brutus (the new camera) and just a couple of lenses. I was up at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue where it meets Giles Street and I came across a set of buildings I had photographed once before, many moons ago (http://goo.gl/maps/sKtJw). They looked pretty much the same but when the No 38 bus came past, they looked a whole lot different in the windscreen. Best viewed large to see the weird bendy effect of the glass on the reflections.
Day 200. I did... ...I still do and still will! Twenty six years ago, I took Donna Veronique Estelle Fordyce to be my lawful wedded wife to have and to hold, from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I love my child bride more than I love my camera - what husband could say more than that, eh? Oh, by the way, the other MILESTONE (no... not MILLSTONE) is that today is day two hundred of my project. I didn't realise that I would stick it out for this long (the project, not the marriage!). I would like to dedicate this photograph to @pasadenarose for liking one of my earlier heart shots.
Best viewed large if you have the time or inclination because then the black background really works.
Best viewed large if you have the time or inclination because then the black background really works.
Day 199. What's wrong with this picture? I'm wearing white socks! That is what is wrong - it's a fashion faux pas. No, I didn't use Photoshop to colour the left hand shoe. I bought a pair of red suede shoes at the same time as the blue ones and I am loving it! I freak people out when they see that I have odd shoes on.
Day 198. Well, it's one for the money...
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.
But don't you step on my blue suede shoes.
Donna persuaded me to buy these shoes a couple of weeks back and they are really bright, comfortable and cool (in the hipster sense, not temperature sense - at least that is what the lad in the shop said)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=T1Ond-OwgU8
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.
But don't you step on my blue suede shoes.
Donna persuaded me to buy these shoes a couple of weeks back and they are really bright, comfortable and cool (in the hipster sense, not temperature sense - at least that is what the lad in the shop said)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=T1Ond-OwgU8
Day 197. What a difference a day makes! Don't ask me because I don't know why! I photographed this donkey right across a field using the new beast of a lens and it is as clear as clear can be! What did I do differently from yesterday? I don't know. I haven't micro adjusted the lens, I just took half a dozen shots from different distances, from 100 mm to 400 mm from f/5.6 to f/22, from ISO 100 to ISO 1600 and they all came out more than acceptably "in focus" and only required the slightest of sharpening. I am at a loss but I will try once more tomorrow and if it is all OK, then I will stop whining!Best viewed large if you like.
Day 196. Hmmm! So I lugged the brute of a camera plus the new lens down to the RSPB bird sanctuary at Pulborough Brooks and caught a few Little Egrets disporting themselves in some of the ponds there. This was taken from a distance of about 150 feet and I must admit to being disappointed with the image quality of the 100-400mm lens considering that it is meant to be L glass. I can see that I will need to put it on my test rig and see if it needs microadjustments or am I expecting too much from the lens?
Day 195. Somewhere... over the rainbow! I have lost it today. No will power, no desire to create anything. So have some rainbow coloured ballpoint pens. On the good news side of things my darling wife bought me a very early birthday present - a Canon EF 100mm - 400mm f/4.5 - f/5.6 L IS USM lens so I am looking forward to having a play with that!
Day 194. Lovey, dovey. Hands up all those of you who thought I had forgotten about today's picture? Right! You are off the Christmas card list then! I had to have my diabetic eye check this morning which meant drops in the eyes to dilate the pupils and that meant I couldn't see anything much all day. This means (a) I am late and (b) a mediocre photograph of one of our garden ornaments. Because of my temporary ocular shortcomings, I switched the camera into a different focus and metering mode. I will be going back to spot metering PDQ I think. The other thing I used here was a "colorchecker passport" by X-rite (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1257). Whilst I made a mess of the exposure, this checker got the white balance spot on and then got the colours just perfect too. I am happy with this new toy and will be using it a lot more in the future.
Day 193. Wallet moths. After a monumental splurge on a holiday and camera and computer upgrades, I opened my wallet this morning to find these little blighters in there again! Quick as a flash, I stuck a bulb out to attract them and then gave them a good squish with some Vapona before they decided to go back into my wallet or hunt out my suits but I was too late. Penniless Paul is back to his state of penury once more.
Actually, no moths were harmed in the making of this picture. I picked up some cheap, battery driven lights in "Poundland" yesterday (for only £1) and stuck them to a photoflood bulb using sticky tape. Photoshop was responsible for adding the glow!
Actually, no moths were harmed in the making of this picture. I picked up some cheap, battery driven lights in "Poundland" yesterday (for only £1) and stuck them to a photoflood bulb using sticky tape. Photoshop was responsible for adding the glow!
Day 192. Russian roulette. In amidst all of the placebos there is one real love drug so you need to be careful (especially of the blue one...) It's a bit of a hit and miss pic today as I have been trying to knock the bugs out of webcam drivers for Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) amongst other things.
Day 191. Flare with flair. Early morning West Sussex and too good a chance to miss for a bit of gratuitous lens flare. My Samsung smartphone does a rather good job even if I say so myself! Tweaked in Photoshop to straighten the shot and enhance the contrast. I'm entering it for this week's CSC competition even though I helped @taffy to create it (I will not be winning it. I promise!).
Day 190. The glass is half full of pegs. Tesco do some nice cheap coloured glass tumblers. They also do some nice cheap coloured clothes pegs which just happen to be in the same bright colours. Shot at ISO 50 in the really early morning sunshine and tweaked for sharpness
Day 189. Let's go fly a kite. I was at the Wiston Steam Rally today and although I took lots of shots of steaming and smoking chunks of industrial hardware, it was these huge kites that caught my fancy. To give you some idea of the size, the frogman under the middle kite is about six foot long.
Day 188. Mistake! First day with the new "toy". I have really fallen in love with this brute of a camera. In combination with the 17-40mm lens I have been making it work hard, trying to give it challenging conditions. In today's shot, this is my child bride walking down a corridor at Bignor Roman villa. Can you spot the mistake? I shot it at ISO1000 (I forgot to change it back to ISO100 after playing last night.) and noise is at a minimum! Best viewed large if you have the time or inclination.
Day 187. Gross indulgence. Well what do you know? Penniless Paul came up trumps with an unexpected lump sum of cash and he went and did two rash things. First of all, he booked a nice holiday for himself and his child bride in Madeira (yes, we are going back again!) and then he went and treated himself to a Canon 1D-X, a 600EX-RT flash, an EF17-40 f/4 L USM lens and an EF24-105 f/4 L IS USM lens (but I couldn't fit the box in the shot!). Yes, I waved goodbye to the EOS7D without a tear in my eye because we had a love hate relationship. I'm hoping the big boy's toy will provide a better standard of imagery. So the battery is charging up, I've inserted the strap and cards and now I have to read the user manual upside down, inside out and back to front to come up to speed. I'm sorry if it is an uninspiring camera phone shot but as you can imagine, I am riding on a high today.
Day 186. The hallmark of a good find. If I find old nails, screws, sharp bits of metal, glass or whatever in the road, I pick them up and throw them away. This is because the next set of tyres that run over them and get punctured might be mine (you see, I am not being that altruistic!). You can imagine my surprise on picking up this piece of metal in my local town's streets, to find that it is hallmarked sterling silver. It is (minus the handle) a beautiful, little engraved fruit knife. For the record, this is a piece of sterling silver, assayed in Sheffield in 1887 in the reign of Queen Victoria and manufactured by John Newton Mappin (of Mappin and Webb fame) at the Royal Cutlery Works, Norfolk Street, Sheffield.
Day 185. And they all lived happily ever after... I picked up some lettered beads in my local craft shop a while back and I have been wondering what I should do with them. So I started tinkering and in seconds I had a thread of a story. The castle is one that I bought in Oberammergau, Bavaria, many years back. I photographed it, cut the castle from the background using Photoshop, turned it white and then gave it a drop shadow (hold on... you didn't think I cut it out of paper did you? I'm not that patient or skilful!). I photographed the beads on the thread, and then bolted everything together using Photoshop. View large for the details in the castle (if you want to).
Day 184. OK dokey? I was experimenting with bokeh this morning. I've got these magnificent parcel labels that are celluloid bows with small fibre-optic arrays and LEDs in them which change colour regularly. On went the 100mm macro lens and about four hundred shots later, I couldn't decide which of the varieties I liked. So you have got a sample of some of the shots, as displayed in DxO Optics Pro, superimposed on just one of the original shots. View large for the best (or worst!) of all worlds.
Day 183. Out for the count! 183 / 365 Not brilliant but I wanted to have a go at creating some shadow boxing. Perhaps I should have taken my specs off first!