It’s been mad bonkers blowy weather here, and yesterday the clouds didn’t have chance to hang around so we had some sunshine in the conservatory and Skye sat in their posing prettily, so I had to take a few shots of her of course. She’s not usually good at having her photo taken but I got away with it 🙂 Also here is my picture for today, last one of the still life month tomorrow! The people in the photo frames are Aunty jean on the left, my Mum at the back,my son Ben on the right, and me and my Nan at the front. The chap over on the right is Sir Henry Coward, a notable orchestra & choir conductor, and Mum and Aunty Jean sang in one of the choirs he ran.
We had our little Liddy for a sleepover last night, first time with her. It didn’t go quite to plan, and we didn’t get much sleep, but we all survived and I got some smiley faces from her to photograph this morning 🙂 She is the spitting image of her brother Cal, who regular readers have seen on this blog many times. First though, my 24th still life shot..
It has been very nice to have a long weekend, and really nice to have the last 2 days with sunshine and blue skies. I haven’t done a lot of photography, but on Thursday I had my lunch parked up in a country lane in Hexam, and had a little company.
Easter Bunnies (nikon S1)
We haven’t really done much this weekend, Easter weekend is bonkers with traffic on the roads, and we like being at home anyway 🙂 but we did go and visit Shelley & Cal for a cup of tea on Saturday, and managed a trip to ASDA today 🙂
My polaroid camera came back from repair and seems to be working OK, although it’s taken a few crap shots before I got the hang of it again, still a bit hit and miss but I think I’m getting there. I’ll add some to the SX70 project up in the menu there if you are interested. But I will post a couple in the main blog as I really like them,
Blossom (sx70}
Thats my blossom tree in the from garden, which is just coming into flower now.
tomato soup to be (SX70)
I’m into making soup at the minute, and today have made a job lot of tomato and basil soup, lush it is too.
Got another shot of our visiting Bluetit
Mr.Bluey (nikon S1)
I took this shot of Phil back in 2014 when he was reading the menu in a chinese restaurant, and as I’m trying to be more B&W at the moment (inspiration from Reinhold and Emanscamera) had a go at this one, I like it quite well.
Looking down (nikon S1)
My big thing this weekend has been cleaning up all my cameras and lenses, as I have decided to part exchange all my Nikon equipment that I’ve amassed over the past 5 years and tread a different path. I’ve been thinking of it for a while, as I’ve had 2 cameras and several lenses sitting on a shelf doing nothing, and my main camera the D700 along with any lenses is really heavy to carry around all day or take on holiday broad, it hurts my shoulder after a while. I mostly use the S1 when out and about in the car at work, which I will keep, but still need something better for outings etc. No doubt when the new stuff arrives there will be a post about it.
Goodbye dear friends (nikon S1)
I have to say I’ve had 2nd thoughts and 3rd & 4th, but I have done my research on what I want next and am quite excited about it now. I know, it’s not the camera but the photographer which makes good or bad shots, but this is a matter of weight and shelved lenses being wasted, more than anything.
So now I must get back in to a work frame of mind, and prepare for tomorrow,
Didn’t take any shots much during the week, and what I did take is on the yawn side of boring, so lets skip right to the good stuff. I worked Monday – Thursday and so on to Friday and my day off. 🙂 I went into South Shields town as they have a junk market on to see if I could find anything photogenic and cheap.
South Shields Market Place
I bought a little wooden inlaid box for £2.50 and 3 glassware candleholders for £1. The best bit was it was full of mature couples looking for things they can take to an Antiques Roadshow at some point, and I heard a market stall holder telling a lady the little pots she was looking at were made in the 1920’s, and she bought them straight away. Also there seemed to be lots of people on mobility scooters. Now these things drive me batshit. Nearly everyone I see on them is capable of getting off and walking, and everyone of them is at best overweight and at worse really really overweight, and I’m like duh?? I am sure there are genuinely immobile people who really need these things, but no-one I’ve seen as yet. Rant over.
South Shields high street was surprisingly full of people (Bargain Hunters!) because when I go on a weekday it’s normally quiet empty. The recession has taken it’s toll on high street shops in lots of places, and empty spaces where shops used to be is a sad sight to see but hey!! good news……..
good news?
A shop full of trainers and tracksuits. Yay. Just the regeneration it needs. Sigh. That lady was rocking her scooter 🙂
I love the old architecture in Shields, the Lloyds Bank Building is quite impressive..
Lloyds Bank
There was also a really nice young chap busking with his guitar, he had a great voice and sang really well, I was going to take a shot of him but this silly old lady person in a bright green dress and pink cardigan started dancing right next to him and in front of him, I was quite annoyed on his behalf, they were romantic songs and not dancy anyway. I mean, how rude! I didn’t want to then encourage her by letting her think she was being photographed, but I suppose if I was more journalistic I should have taken the shot.
On Saturday we had Cal come to stay over, and he is a ball of energy (which we are not haha). We decided to take him out to Saltwell Park for the afternoon and he had a great time, and I took some nice pictures of him and Grandad. Cal can’t say Grandad, so calls Phil ‘Dawdaw’ which amuses me greatly.
First stop play area,
Slide
then bouncy castles, £2 for 10 mins across 3 castles, not bad value, Cal loved it.
Bouncehappyness is a bouncy castle
Then onto the lake and a trip in a dinosaur peddle boat, £5 for 30 minutes, best bit of the day for me, love being in boats 🙂
to infinity…
next up a trip on Thomas The Tank engine
and beyond
then we went home
homeward bound
and after tea we baked cakes.
alien cakes
today we entertained his Lordship til Mum and Dad came to get him, and then have just been toodling around preparing for work tomorrow and cooking a sunday lunch. I was supposed to take a shot for the sunday challenge group, but am too worn out! There’s a reason we have kids in our 20’s and not in our 50’s 🙂
Am a day late for the weekly, blog, no doubt I saw sorely missed :). A lot to get through this week as it’s been particularly full. Am going to blast through Monday,Tuesday & Wednesday as they were just work days and therefore no fun. But I kept to my daily photo regimen so they must appear.
Monday I worked north of the River and had to come home in the crappy traffic in rush hour, so took a shot of the Tyne Bridge while I was stationary. Well almost stationary :).
The Tyne Bridge
Tuesday was a day mostly working in Sunderland, and this is my fave road to visit.
Park Place East Sunderland
I love how the sunlight plays through the trees in this road.
Hmm where did I go Wednesday. Can’t remember but it’s of little consequence, I took this shot of my visiting blue tit with my little compact S1 when I got home from work, sneakily taken through the car window.
Bluey
And then it was Thursday and 5 days off time 😀 happy days. It was my birthday on the Friday but was going away for the weekend to visit family and friends down South. Phil was working some of the weekend so couldn’t come along 😦 but took me out for a birthday dinner at a Chinese restaurant in South Shields that had good reviews, but we hadn’t been before.
My Luvvly HubbyLei Ho Leng Restaurant
Very nice decor and good service, the food was OK but I wouldn’t say outstanding in it’s field , however the Birthday Cake they gave me was worth going for, it was delicious!
Phil’s dinnerThe Awesome Birthday Cake
I set off Friday morning for a 5 hour drive to visit my boy Ben and his girlfriend Charlotte. When I got there I had a lovely bunch of roses waiting for me and a cool birthday card. Ben and his pal spent the afternoon waterproofing the shed roof, and I sat with the dog and had a giggle at the lads. In the evening yet another Birthday dinner out, this time with Charlotte & Ben, and we went to Milton Keynes to a World food Buffet restaurant called Red Hot (I think). This place serves food from all over the place, there’s Chinese,Indian, a Sushi Bar, Italian etc etc, and I was very adventurous, haha not! Had Chinese again 🙂
Birthday flowers & Card
doing the roofLola in the sunRed Hotme and BenBen & Charlotte
After yummy dinner we went back to Bens and watched a movie, HAnsel & Gretal for grown ups, it wasn’t much cop but the hero was rather handsome. 🙂
Saturday Ben and I went to pick up my gandson Lewis and we took him out to Milton Keynes Burger King for lunch, then to Willen Lake play centre and Lewis had a grand time. Poor little sod has just had chicken pox so he was a bit blotchy.
LewisIce cream dayMilton Keynes
Pilotmotorbikingwhat next?
We went back to Ben’s for a couple of hours and they played racing games on the Playstation. I am no good at them and was quickly put in the spectators gallery.
Racing CArs
that’s my favourite shot of them, and it’s a phone camera!
After we took Lewis back to his Mum’s I set off to go and visit with my good friend Helen who lives in Biggleswade. She is the one who inspired me to take up photography and after a cup of tea we got in her car and went chasing the sunset, which was pretty lush.
Helen in the landscapewindfarmSunset
Helen keeps chickens, this one ate all her runner beans.
green bean
and it’s really funny that in the mornings they come and shout at the window to be fed.
feed me now Seymour!Koudar
Saturday night we went to see a band, BuBounce who are a ska and skiffle band, they were really good, but the pub was heaving with people who quite frankly had no manners and kept pushing me out of the way (I’m so not good in crowds!) and also very jumpy-up and-down-and-sideways-dancers, so we went outside round the back to the smoking area where there were seats and you could see the band through the window. Helen knows the saxophone player of the band, Johnny and his girlfriend Jess (who gave us a lift to the pub), so we sat with Jess. It was a good night out, and after Helen, Stu (her hubby) and I walked home and stayed up chatting til 2.30am. Can’t remember what we chatted about as I had some wine. 😀
Jess & JohnnyIn the smoking areaA dedicated follower of fashion. (and Johnny’s ex)
On Sunday morning we had intended to go to a boot sale, but we stayed up far too late for that so Helen & I went out to shoot some sunflowers in a field we’d spotted the previous evening. A bit of trespassing involved, but only a little bit. 🙂
Sunflowermore sunflowers
they are quite glorious really.
After, we went for a walk by the River Ouze which was pretty.
River Ouze
Bit of a boring blown out sky there, never mind.
Some of the Ouze is diverted to the nearby Millfinished floweringdragonfly, blue.path by the river
In the afternoon we went to one of the roads near Little Gransden Airfield, as they were having an airshow and the Canadian Lancaster Bomber is touring Britain this summer with the British Lancaster and we knew we’d get to see them. It was grand viewing, we got there early to make sure we didn’t miss them, parked up on the verge next to the little road, along with a lot of other people who had the same idea, and were treated to some stunning aerial displays whilst we waited for the Lancasters.
waiting for the Lancastersand more waiters
and then they came 🙂
The Lancasters
So that was a lot to get through, and after the airshow I drove home and had a reunion with my hubby. Today I’ve been sorting out the photo’s, there are quite a few more than I’ve posted here (yes really!) and I’ve put them all in my smugmug galleries, facebooked some for the family, and now finished up on the blog. And my photo for today….
Ah my poor long suffering hubby Phil is always my target when I’m in need of doing some portrait photography. This year someone at his workplace gave him a Reindeer Snood for a Christmas present. He is such a good sport to model it for me as I wanted to practice with my new camera, a vintage Polaroid land camera. Unfortunatley I hadn’t got the hang of the exposure setting so the picture I took with it was blown out, as you can see :).
I’m not giving up though and my polaroid successes will be added to my Adventures In Film page in the menu above, 2 in there already 🙂
Since work life made a 365 practically impossible, I’ve only been doing drive-by shootings in the Lake District, and have had an occasional outing with Sophie to take some shots, so have not been pushing myself really. I figured I need a kick up the proverbial to do something different now and then photographically speaking, so I joined The Sunday Challenge group on the Ipernity photo site. For anyone who uses Flickr, Ipernity is a lot like Flickr used to be before Yahoo cocked it up. Anyway, I digress, this last weeks challenge was to shoot something that represented ‘girly’. In spite of ‘selfies’ being the ‘in’ thing to do,(camera phones have a lot to answer for- not all good!) I have never relished the thought of splattering my ugly mug across the world wide web, but thought I’d have a bash at a non~descript one. What a palaver to get the focus right. I didn’t realise that to do a selfie you place yourself where you are going to be sitting/standing, and then focus the camera on the tripod, so spent ages adjusting the camera while it was on the tripod with guesswork as to where I’d be sitting!! Damn fool. I finally got the shot I was after and then wrangled it in LR and PSE and came up with 2 different versions. I can’t choose which one I like best, each has it’s merits, but a good exercise for me, and a learning curve upwards.
Colour version
and mono version with selective colour
Taken in my bedroom with natural light from a window to the left of the pic, used a pink quilt cover as a backdrop and then in photoshop added texture and bokeh layers to the background. Took it to LR to add mono shading for the 2nd shot and then back to PS to do selective colour. A fun edit.
Every Halloween I get a pumpkin hung up outside the door, a bag of sweeties inside by the door, and don my witches hat to answer it when the kids come round trick or treating. My ‘price’ for the sweets is they have to have their photo’s taken, and I love seeing all the costumes nd smiley faces. I was a bit late home from work this year to get many, but here are the ones I got, plus my pumpkin 🙂
Life’s been hectic of late, last weekend we were in Belgium for a model show, where Phil won some medals and a trophy. We stayed in a really swish B&B with donkey’s in our view (see pic) and also visited Brugges, which is a really pretty place.
This weekend Phil’s daughter got married, and Ben and Charlotte came to stay for that, and family from fara and wide, a grand day and all went well, Shelley looked gorgeous.
and it’s not over yet as next weekend we’re off to another model show in Folkestone! Phil’s got a bad cold, and I’m now getting a sore throat so all this gadding about isn’t doing us any good 🙂 need a holiday!
Had a lovely few days off with my son Ben and grandson Lewis, took lots of pictures which I’ll get round to sorting one day, but for now am back to work full on. Thought I’d post this though, and also have been revamping my smugmug photo site as they’ve modernised and changed things up a bit, thankfully not like flickr, which I’ve more or less left! Anyway, anyone who is interested can visit the link under the ‘website’ heading in the menu.
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
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