October 2014
Tempus fugit! Effectively I have completed three quarters of the year now but in reality I still have to post the rest of September's pictures from the holiday. Oh well... not long to go now before I have to find another challenge.
Day 305. It's Alive! Isn't it amazing what you can do with a couple of old wristwatches and a conch shell? Anyhooooo... it's Hallowe'en but I really didn't want to do anything scary. When I saw the underside of this conch shell, I thought that it looked like a smiley mouth but when I tried to hold it in place, it took to slipping. It was then only a matter of time... well, two old wristwatches worth of time before this shot was born. A touch of post processing to emulate Ilford HPS 800 B&W film and a bit of a vignette and just like Frankenstein's monster... "It's Alive!". So... do you think that I ought to abandon my jolly toy Meerkat profile picture in favour of this one?
Day 304. It's driving me nuts! My OCD medication has just driven me barmy... Actually, I don't have OCD but my blood pressure tablets come in a handy see through blister pack. When I opened up the latest box, I made sure that there were the correct number of blister packs therein. I noticed this one tablet was in the wrong way round. I just want to pop that sucker right out but that would be for the wrong day and I don't want to do that. I want to take my tablets in the correct order. Hang on... maybe I do have OCD after all...
Day 303. Work in Progress. My child bride has asked me to help design a poster to promote a charity event in her office. Basically everyone is encouraged to bring a teddy bear (or other stuffed toy) into the office for the "Bears on the Stairs" get together. Everyone donates a pound and all the toys are gathered together on a large marble staircase where their collective photograph is taken. The proceeds go to "Children in Need" and everyone gets an electronic copy of a photo of the toys. Each year, the B.o.t.S event has had an alternate name as well, such as "The Bears are Back in Town". Recently, because of threats of office closure, there has been "The Final Countdown" but the office struggles on. So this year I suggested '"Still Life" in the Building' and have taken this still life shot as a basis for the poster. This is the result of a seven shot HDR photograph and I have given it a painterly effect using the Photoshop CS6 Mixer Brush Tool. Those of you with a longer memory will remember my teddy "Not Frank" http://365project.org/steampowered/365/2013-03-26 Best viewed large to get the full effect. If you have the time that is.
Day 302. Chop chop! Yes thank you, we had the super storm pass over us last night. The rain hammered down and the wind tore around the eaves of the house. Thankfully the Snapchap household suffered only two victims of this climactic catastrophe. One was the television aerial which snapped in two and bashed around the chimney stack all night before falling deftly into the garden of the neighbours we don't get on with and the other victim was my sleep. The television aerial doesn't count because we don't have a television. but the lack of sleep means you get a rather dubious photograph for the day!
Day 301. Terminal boredom. After the clock change last night (did we all remember that we have reverted to Greenwich Mean Time in the UK?) the light is appalling at this time of day. Plus I couldn't find something that I dearly wanted for a shot. So have a couple of nine volt batteries instead.
Day 300. I'm not that sort of boy... I have spent the most amazing day in the company of two gorgeous, blonde ladies. What more can I say except that I am late posting my picture for the day? I am not very good at photographing people but I bit the bullet and approached Mr Tattoo and asked him if it was OK to take a photo and before I knew it, we were all involved in the most fantastic conversation about a seventy year old lady with pure white skin who came in for a tattoo because she couldn't have one done during the war... This chap was most obliging and loved having his photograph taken as the absolutely delicious Sue Smith found out... Tomorrow, a secret picture of the absolutely divine Linda Corcoran...
Day 299. I spy with my little eye.. I was going to call this shot "Wherever I lay my rat that's my home" but I thought it was a bit too corny. I was just getting things together for my visit to Hastings tomorrow for a mini get together with two gorgeous 365ers ( @suesmith and @happysnapper65 ) when I thought "Which hat shall I wear?" I looked into the dark corner where my hats live and saw this salty looking character peeking out at me. It's my Year of the Rat hat wearing my new leather hat. I thought he looked well shady! Anyway, don't worry ladies. I won't be wearing the rat hat... I will be wearing the penguin hat you can see beneath him :o). BTW the picture might be a wee bit grainy because I had to shoot at ISO 12800 because of the poor light and because I was too darned idle to go upstairs and pick up my flashgun!
Day 298. Facebook. It was time for a play today. It was either that or clean the bathrooms! This was done using the Displacement filter in Photoshop. I am that rare creature - the person who deleted all of his posts and left Facebook and has never gone back - over eighteen months ago. I can waste more than enough time on 365project.org! Probably best seen large.
Day 297. Had hair day. So I had to give my child bride a hand with some Health and Safety things today which has left me short of time for taking a photograph. Anyway, after what seemed an age doing office style things, we went for a walk in the nearby countryside where I noticed this little klatch of cows lying down in preparation for more rain. I also noticed that one of them had lost a tuft of fur on the barbed wire and that is the best that I have managed to shoot today!
Day 296. Go with the floe... Nooooo! I have just spent yonks on this picture to realise that I have made one teensy error but seeing as I have to dash off to a talk early this afternoon I need to get this shot posted quickly and there is no way for me to Photoshop the mistake out easily! I found the polar bear paperweight in...? A Charity Shop! (well there's a surprise). The fun bit was getting the wording reflected in his back because the glass had a tendency to invert the words and also to make them mirror image. So I built it in Photoshop and did the fiddly bits there before displaying it on my monitor. Then I lay the polar bear on a piece of white photo paper and jiggled him and the paper around until the words were reflected nicely in his back., Then it was just a case of adding a quote, frame and title and Bob's your Uncle! Seriously though, extinction looms for the polar bear. Unless we have a captive breeding program that is (watch this to the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU-CxAFhukU )
Day 295. Kitty lit-up. These two china Egyptian kitties (about eight inches tall) have sat on my shelves looking at me for quite a while now. So I looked right back at them and said "what would happen if I lit you up?" They looked very smugly at me and said "I dare you to try it!" So I did. Once again, I illuminated then from below with my trusty old Epson scanner as a light source. Taking the shot was dead easy but cutting the mask out of cardboard to exclude all the light apart from letting it shine through the kitties was a pig of a job! Anyway, Photoshop obliged in letting me get the background totally black. I think that they have pretty little faces. Best viewed large, I would say.
Day 294. She sells seashells. Today I was stuck for a picture so I do what I often do. Grab something off the shelves and see what I can do with the available light. Given the state of the weather, the light was absolutely shocking but with the aid of my trusty, coloured, reflective card I think I managed to show the spiral of this rather gorgeous seashell by just the light from the window and a small amount of reflection from a piece of paper to bring back a hint of a highlight.
Day 293. I <3 leek. Saturday seems to be turning into vegetable shoot day doesn't it? I mean... a red cabbage a couple of weeks back, Romanescu last week and now this yummy leek this week. I suppose that it is a break from the charity shop finds. Which reminds me, today I found this gorgeous... but that would be giving the game away, wouldn't it?
Day 292. When I grow up... ...I'm going to be as big and clever as my Dad! I was at a bit of a loss for a picture today - lots of ideas (some of them good ones too!) but none of them wanted to work for me; maybe at a later date. So I looked around, spotted this little and large Galileo thermometer on my shelves and thought "Why not?" Dare I say "Best viewed large"? oh... all right then. "Best viewed Large." Have some music from way back in 1974.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP839hV_aBw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP839hV_aBw
Day 291. Reflecting on the day. So despite the stinking, sniffly and dribbly head cold, I went up to London and had an amazing day there with the gorgeous @joa, the delicious @houdiniem and the wickedly amusing @padlock. The weather was kind to us, we spoke of anything and everything, we lunched in a pub and Johanna provided us with some typical Finnish sweets (they are an acquired taste!). Believe it or not, this is the only shot of the day where I managed to get all three together and that was done by sneaking a shot into a shop window for the reflection. If you ever want a good time in town then these three peeps are great at entertaining you! Nice meet up folks, I hope to do it again sometime soon.
Day 290. Goldilocks... ...and the three beers. Not too big, not too small but just right. I'm still feeling a bit lousy and full of cold but hopefully on the mend so I can go and see @joa in London tomorrow. Blood was suitably extracted this morning for my annual diabetic tests and the results are due back on Monday.
Day 289. Stag party. Let's face it this is the only chap who likes life when he is in a rut! I woke up this morning, after a lousy night's sleep, with a raging sore throat and bunged up with cold again (that's three times in five weeks now). I had wanted to get out to the local bird sanctuary to book a place on a fungi walk but when I got there, all the walks have been oversubscribed. So I took a wander and came across the local deer who are entering the rutting season. You could hear the stags barking and coughing their challenges for quite some distance too. The does weren't impressed however and I realized that I wasn't going to catch any hot stag on doe action today.This was at about the extreme range that my 100-400mm is useful for and I had to crop in close for this shot. Now that I have posted today's pic, I am going to go to bed and feel sorry for myself because I have just started my overnight fast before my diabetic blood tests tomorrow. S**t doesn't just happen to me, it happens in cartloads!
Day 288. Nevermore! Someone told me that I ought to get out of the house a bit more. So having spent the morning inhaling incense fumes and feeling all the more grotty for it, I took that advice and went for a breath or two of fresh air. "Huuuuuuufffffffffffttttt! Aaaaaahhhh! Huuuuuuufffffffffffttttt! Aaaaaahhhh! Huuuuuuufffffffffffttttt! Aaaaaahhhh!" (oooh I feel all dizzy now). I found that Donna had wired this little chap onto a branch of our foxglove tree. He didn't look too happy about being out in the rain but he did stand still long enough for me to take his picture.
Day 287, Incensed! What a busy day. Apart from arranging with @joa to meet in London on Thursday I have had to install yet another set of shelves to take the ever expanding book collection. So today you get a very rapid shot indeed. This little elephant is an incense stick holder and the bowl he drinks from is an incense cone holder and the box they stand on is...? An incense stick box! Can you see why I am incensed?
Day 286. "Coral reef..." is what my dearly beloved said when she spied this Romanescu broccoli and I am tempted to agree with her. It seems to be a mass of Fibonacci spirals so I thought of some of those beautiful fractal pictures you see now and again. Either that or Buddhist mandalas. Whatever! It is a rather gorgeous looking vegetable and will be very tasty with the roast meal tonight!
Day 285. Soggy. Awful blasted weather but I am afraid that Dolly Parton had it right. Sort of a nothing shot today. I had a lightbulb moment but that is going to have to wait for a day or two while I sort out some technical issues.
Here's some Dolly Parton for you. "Steady as the Rain" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQyf2KrhcPU
Here's some Dolly Parton for you. "Steady as the Rain" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQyf2KrhcPU
Day 284. Keeping watch. Many years ago, whilst holidaying near Bentota in Sri Lanka, we were caught in the open when the first of the monsoon rain storms arrived. A kindly gentleman waved us over and offered us shelter from the deluge, He offered us tea and ushered us into his back room which just happened to be his shop full of tourist gifts. Well there's a surprise then! We felt obliged to return the favour of his generosity but there was nothing there that we wanted. However, eagle eyed Donna spied two brass, sun shaped plaques partly wrapped in newspaper. One had an impression of the man in the moon with a rabbit on it (very Chinese - Chang'e and the moon rabbit) and the other had this almost Agamemnon death mask. The chap was ecstatic that we wanted them because he didn't rate them too highly so honour was satisfied. We thanked him for his kindness and tea and he was a significant sum of money better off so he thanked us in return. We wandered off into the mud that had been a road a few minutes earlier.
Here's a bit of classic Alan Parsons to accompany the picture: "Eye in the Sky" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBQalkIeE7s
Alternate shot for today here:
http://365project.org/steampowered/something-diffe/2013-10-10
Here's a bit of classic Alan Parsons to accompany the picture: "Eye in the Sky" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBQalkIeE7s
Alternate shot for today here:
http://365project.org/steampowered/something-diffe/2013-10-10
Day 283. Fruity booty! Yet another charity shop prop. This bowl of wooden fruits, made in the Philippines, was languishing on a shelf in the charity shop looking very much the worse for wear. Mrs Snapchap took one look at it, set her jaw very firmly and scooped it up, she beat the price down and with that triumphant grin that she always get, like she has just singlehandedly fought off marauding bandits, we took her prize home. On getting back, it was given a vinegar and water wash, dried and then followed by a light oiling and it has come up a treat. This is a five photo focus stack (although I couldn't focus close enough to get the front of the bowl in).
Day 282. Om nom nom! I found this glorious, rugged oyster shell while walking on the beach the other day and it looked for all the world like an alligators jaws. One string of baroque pearls later and the photograph was born! This is two shots, focus stacked to get the focus depth I craved, converted into B&W in DxO Filmpack v4 and cropped in Photoshop. Simples!
Day 281. Swizzle sticks. Another triumphal purchase from a charity shop! Four brightly coloured swizzle sticks. I plonked them on my scanner, put one of the supplied film surrounds on it (that's the black bit) and scanned them as if they were a colour positive film. That was the easy part. My scanner's platen is covered in minute scratches on the outside and dust on the inside (!) with all of the hard work it has done over the years so I had to spend an age in Photoshop de-speckling it all.
Day 280. The most friendly animal in the world. Not a lot of time for photography today because I have been down with my in-laws, gardening my bits off and keeping their local amenity refuse disposal centre in business. We did manage a quick walk on the beach first though and the weather was lovely. Lots of folks walking their dogs. So the dreaded smartphone camera was pressed into service again.
Day 279. This is what happens... If you don't eat your vegetables! What is it? It's the inside of a red cabbage, converted to B&W. Enough said.
Day 278. How do you like them apples? Everyone is doing such nice apple shots at the moment ( @ksyu @mariyakey) so I thought that I would pop out into the garden and grab a couple of mine and give it a go. However, you know me... the one bad apple that spoils the bunch... so I picked up a couple of rotten ones for fun. This is four shots, lit from the side with a studio light, focus stacked in Photoshop and a tad of sharpening and "Pooof!" a creation you wouldn't touch with a bargepole if you were presented with it. I really wanted a slug in there as well but this morning they were nowhere to be found (normally there are loads of the little beggars around)! You can view it large if you like but it doesn't make them look more appetising.
Day 277. Well; that's the end of them. I'm afraid the salad servers are no more. Did I take @kaesebiscuit at his word and use them as a sex toy? Is Uri Geller making a comeback? No, they had a close shave with a hot air paint stripper followed by a Salvador Dali moment. Then it was just a case of ETSOOI and "Bazinga!" - the end of the salad servers has happened.
Day 276. My cup runneth over. I really want to dedicate this to three special people who need all the love they can get at the moment. Paul King ( @paul2782 ) who is still seriously unwell in hospital following a horrendous accident, Annie D ( @annied ) who is giving Paul a lot of care and attention and Karin Hirsch ( @khirsch ) whose Mother was rushed to hospital following a stroke. This one is for you guys and gals.
Day 275. Anything goes. I couldn't resist a second helping of the salad servers and remembering @kaesebiscuit saying that they were "some kind of weird sex toy" when I posted the first photograph, I thought that I would have them spooning this time. Oh, I used a polarising filter and my monitor for the light source. Best seen enlarged and against black