Amethyst

Tuesday, January 31, 2006


An amethyst macro today, I made it out of the kitchen at least ;)

edit to add - I shoot with a Fuji S7000 so I only have the one lens, but it has a macro and a super macro setting which work really well. I used the super macro for this shot.

4 Comments:

White Petals

Monday, January 30, 2006


Real quickie today as I have been out since early this morning then came home to find we had friends visiting...

1 Comment:

Roundham Head

Sunday, January 29, 2006


This shows the colour of the underlying rock around here, It's all very red sandstone. This of course means that the sand, soil and of course the mud are red too.

The school I went to in Torquay used a white sports kit, which meant that those of us playing rugby or football invariably ended up playing in a rather nice shade of pink. Not really the way to build team spirit ;)

4 Comments:

Orchid Technologies ProDesigner II

Saturday, January 28, 2006


I reached into the box under my desk and pulled out this old "Orchid Technologies ProDesigner II" I think it's a graphics card, but it is so old I'm not entirely sure ;)

0 Comments:

Succulent Leaf

Friday, January 27, 2006


I have no idea what this plant is called :)

1 Comment:

Carnation

Thursday, January 26, 2006


This is from the 26th ;)

3 Comments:

Mini Studio

Wednesday, January 25, 2006


After shooting my challenge entry I left my mini-studio set up and took a shot of it for todays photo. I haven't used it for any of my PAD shots yet 'cos it takes too long to set up and take down.

The lightbox is home made (and for the shots I was taking wasn't quite tall enough, hence the bean cans...) and the flashes are cobra 250s fired by remote from the cobra 210 on my camera. I think it works pretty well for a setup which has cost me less than £50UKP (the stands, brollies & flash heads were bought on ebay)..

Oh, I had to clone out the challenge entry which is why it looks a bit odd below the rear leg of the lightbox :)

Also, please show your appreciation for the picture 'blue dots' by Ethan hanging in the background, another aspiring artist in the family it seems...

5 Comments:

Fancy Chrysanthemum

Tuesday, January 24, 2006


OK, I changed my mind about what to enter in the challenge.

This is a photo I took when I was messing around with the mini-studio on the same night

0 Comments:

A Flock Of Seaguls

Monday, January 23, 2006


They're heading somewhere, probably going to feast on the heads & guts that the trawler crews throw overboard before they come into the harbour or maybe just heading for their nighttime roost. Wherever they are going though there were lots of them, flock after flock heading out to sea.

3 Comments:

Bethany @ The Beach

Sunday, January 22, 2006


Not the brightest of days but we did, at last, get out today and went down to the beach. Since I put a picture of my youngest son in here, my youngest daughter has been bugging me to put in one of her, so here is Bethany.

4 Comments:

Almond Slice

Saturday, January 21, 2006


An horrendously uninspired day (again... :\ ) so more 'product' shots from the kitchen. This is an almond slice, which incidently is one of my favorite things :)

I will however try to get out of the house tomorrow...

1 Comment:

Remote Storage

Friday, January 20, 2006


This is my 150GB remote hard disk drive where I backup all of my important things which aren't on the internal backup drive...

And Mike, you really don't want to see my kitchen. It definately wouldn't feature in any self respecting real estate book ;) I might take a shot of my mini studio/light tent etc sometime in the near future though...

2 Comments:

Fuji Apple

Thursday, January 19, 2006


Still in the kitchen...

4 Comments:

Forks

Wednesday, January 18, 2006


... And onwards into the kitchen where we find these lovely forks...

I would just like to say also, how much I appreciate all the comments that you all leave. I really wish I had more time to reciprocate them. Thank you all :)

3 Comments:

Prayer Plant

Tuesday, January 17, 2006


Now I have started on the houseplants... These are the leaf markings on a prayer plant, so called because it folds its leaves up and together to conserve moisture when it gets too hot or dry.

edit to add - I didn't do any special processing or add any textures to this shot, basic PP steps were,

  • Crop
  • Auto curves
  • Auto contrast
  • Auto levels
  • Cloning (a few dust spots that I hadn't blown off :\ )
  • Very slight Hue/Sat adjustment
  • USM
  • Resize
  • USM (very light)
  • Save for web

Exif details were,

  • 3 sec
  • f8
  • ISO 200

4 Comments:

Phone

Monday, January 16, 2006


Another busy and also rainy day means more household item macros ;)

5 Comments:

Bess

Sunday, January 15, 2006


I dont have a cat, so instead of a stapler I took a shot of Bess, one of my dogs. ;) Of course that's not to say that I won't resort to staplers at some time in the future...

5 Comments:

Gulls @ Stover Lake

Saturday, January 14, 2006


It was the first sunny(ish) day of the year today so we went to Stover Lake for a walk around in the fresh air. These little gulls (Terns?) were everywhere enjoying the free meal of bread that kids feed the ducks with, they swoop down and grab it before it even hits the water.

edit to add - Thanks for the comment Matt, this is pretty much as it was shot, only very light post processing has been done. The birds look like thay have been cut and pasted onto the background, I think that this is due to the odd angle that the light is coming from. All I can say is that it looked the same before any PP was done :)

7 Comments:

A Brief Rant

Friday, January 13, 2006


Not content with starting Xmas in October, now we have Valentines in January. This is the kind of thing which is killing all the excitement and enjoyment of these 'special' days. On the other hand, if you don't mind it, you can now get Valentines heart biscuits from Sainsburys a month in advance [UK only ;) ]...

3 Comments:

Ten

Thursday, January 12, 2006


Been playing with the macro settings again, I think that's my fingerprint on the lower left...

1 Comment:

Ethan

Wednesday, January 11, 2006


This is our youngest child Ethan, getting up close and personal with my lense :)

5 Comments:

Cooling Vent

Tuesday, January 10, 2006


Really quick one tonight as I can't think of anything to photograph. this is the 'cooling vent' on a cheap inverter I bought so I could use my laptop in the car.

3 Comments:

Stress, Broken Down Cars & Tube Strikes

Monday, January 09, 2006


OK, I'm back from London and what a stressful time we had. When we arrived at the hotel we discovered that the car had no oil left in the engine, then we found out there was going to be a tube stike the next day, when we needed to go into London to Moorfield eye hospital.

So, we got up extremely early in case we had to catch a bus to the hospital and found that the strike had not affected the tube station we were planning to use (I'm a country boy, I don't do Citys) and proceeded to catch the tube, much too early and right in the middle of rush hour. To be honest it is not an experience I would like to re-live...

We got to the hospital far too early and waited hours for Janes appointment time, only to be told what we already knew, she needs another operation. So we headed wearily back to the hotel to pick up the car, refil the oil and head home. Thirty miles into the journey the oil warning started flashing up again, not good news. We stopped at a service station and found that the oil level had indeed dropped dangerously low again and after much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth (always wanted to use that one) I called the AA, that's Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anon... They came, looked, fiddled about, and called a transporter to take us and our poor car the remaining 200 miles home. Bare in mind that we have only had this car a week after our last cars enging blew up on the day before Xmas eve... Suffice to say, I shall be taking it back to where I bought it tomorrow and insisting that the £1000UKP of engine repairs are paid for under the warranty (AA man said the piston rings need replacing which is quite a big job apparently).

Oh, and through all of this I forgot to take my camera into London, and then didn't get a chance to stop off anywhere pretty to take pictures on the way home, so todays PAD (got there finally) is a silly shot I took through the hotel door spyhole at 2am this morning.

Thanks for listening :)

5 Comments:

Sambuca

Sunday, January 08, 2006


Decided to have a little after dinner drink tonight.

For those that have requested it here is the exif,

  • 10 sec
  • f2.8
  • ISO 200

The shot was taken on a black background with no lighting except the flame, post processing consisted of,

  • rotate
  • auto curves
  • auto contrast
  • auto levels
  • cloning to hide a bit where the background was missing :\
  • USM
  • resize
  • USM (very light)
  • save for web

Then my favorite part, blow out flame and drink :)

9 Comments:

Fairy Cakes To Appease The Pixies

Saturday, January 07, 2006


Mmmmm, chocolate fairy cake with vanilla cream... Have to get todays in early so I can do tomorrows before I go to bed. I won't have time otherwise as I will be away then until Monday night. Oh, and in case your wondering about the title, I found a string of Xmas lights this morning which I had forgotten to take down D:

7 Comments:

Twelfth Night, The Mother-In-Law & Those Damn Pixies

Friday, January 06, 2006


Well, it's twelfth night and my mother-in-law is coming to look after the kids over the weekend while I take wifey up to London to Moorfields eye hospital. Have to make sure that the house is all spick'n'span (WTF does that actually mean???) and that all the decorations are put away. Not that I'm superstitious or anything, but I can really do without pixies running riot around the house for the next twelve months :)

6 Comments:

By Monitor Light

Thursday, January 05, 2006


Inspired by Konador's 'by monitor light' shots, this is a stack of CDRs in front of a rainbow gradient.

5 Comments:

Bell Peppers

Wednesday, January 04, 2006


OK, so I was taking some photos in the kitchen... At some point I stuck my camera inside a bag of bell peppers and this was the result.

8 Comments:

Simvastatin 40mg...

Tuesday, January 03, 2006


My Doctor has decided that my cholesterol is too high and has given me a course of tablets which I start today. I hate popping pills, but if the choice is pills or multiple heart bypass like my dad had to have, I guess I will take the pills...

7 Comments:

Alpha (well not quite)...

Monday, January 02, 2006



Decided to put up a photo of myself here near the beginning, and if I remeber I will do one at the end of the year also. Might be interesting :)

4 Comments:

First PAD shot - 001/365

Sunday, January 01, 2006


Just made it in time. My Venus Flytrap flowered on New Years Eve, I don't know if it is unusual for them to flower, but I haven't seen it before. So, here it is for anyone else who has never seen one. The stalk that the flower and buds are on is 13 inches long.

9 Comments: