The Sunday Fraggle report

Well I missed last Sunday as I only had 4 pictures, and as a result have now got too many, so lots to look at this week 🙂

The weather has not been kind, but I have had some long journeys to see clients, so have come across some quite lovely views, and my little Nikon S1 has been doing a cracking job. Last week I went to North Yorkshire again, and the sun was arguing with the clouds to see who would win out.

North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire~Nikon S1
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire~Nikon S1

On my way back I went through a village called Ravensworth and came across this ruined castle.The remains here date from the 14th Century, although it’s thought there has been a castle there since Norman times. The chap who built this one was Henry Baron FitzHugh. n 1391 he enclosed 200 acres (81 ha) around the castle, creating a park.The castle started to be pulled down in the 16th century, and the stone was used for other buildings in the area.

Ravensworth Castle
Ravensworth Castle~Nikon S1
Ravensworth Castle
Ravensworth Castle~Nikon S1

hmm blew the sky out a bit in t hat 2nd shot but I like the composition so all is not lost.

Last weekend Phil worked on Sunday and I spent a little while trying to get some decent shots of the birds in my garden, through the front window as it was too cold out.

Mrs.Blackbird
Mrs.Blackbird~Nikon S1
Mr.Robin
Sir.RobinZNikon S1
Mr.Robin
Sir.Robin~Nikon S1

I tried to get a decent shot of the Lady Robin too, but she’s a bit more bashful and quicker to jump back into the bushes out of sight as soon as she’s got something from the feeder.

This week I had a 3 hour drive over to the west go the country, visiting clients in Whitehaven on the West coast, Penrith,Dalston,and Kewick. Lots of long driving times, I set off at 7.15am and eventually got home at 6.30pm, but was hugely compensated by seeing the mountains and Lake Bassenthwaite on my travels.  It’s been quite a while since I had to go there, and it was lovely to visit old photo haunts and take new ones with snow in place.

blog124-3-2
duvet cover :)~Nikkon S1
Cloud cover
Cloud cover~Nikkon S1
light and shade
light and shade~Nikkon S1
sheep
black sheep & white~Nikkon S1
Blue sky Mountain
Blue sky Mountain~Nikon S1
Skiddaw & Lake Bassenthwaite
Skiddaw & Lake Bassenthwaite~Nikon S1
Lake Bassenthwaite
Lake Bassenthwaite~Nikkon S1
View from my clients front driveway
View from my clients front driveway~Skiddaw~Nikkon S1

That was the photo highlight of the week really. I am very impressed with what the tiny Nikkon S1 can do, especially with the 11-27mm lens that it comes with which I used for the landscape shots, and I also used the little 300mm zoom I got for it, for taking the bird shots, to the point where I no longer take the big D700 out for work journeys and everyday use. It captures a fair amount of detail, granted that that has to be brought out in Lightroom, but at least it’s in there to begin with.

There are some jobs though that only the D700 can do, and one of those jobs was for me to take some decent photo’s of Phil’s bass guitars. (A commission no less!!) I decided I would shoot each one separately and use a light painting technique. This was a bit of a faff as of course the room has to be completely dark and the room I use is quite small so lots of bumping elbows and knees.  I had a black backdrop specially bought on Amazon,  it came all the way from china,worked really well and a was a bargain. The photo’s have come out really well, and I am going to do some close ups and arty farty shots to go with, here are a couple of the ones I took.

Fender Jazz ( mexican special edition)~Nikon D700
Fender Jazz ( mexican special edition)~Nikon D700
Can't spell this
Rickenbacker

and finally my shot for The Sunday challenge~ theme Gadgets….

:)
🙂

I can’t claim originality, I saw a similar picture way back when, and always fancied doing my own version.

And now it’s Sunday night, I’ve burned my fingers cooking Sunday dinner, spilled boiling milk on myself, sigh, but had a lush roast ham dinner. Shelley and Cal came for a visit and Cal fell over and bumped his head in 2 places at once for heaven’s sakes. I don’t think he will be someone who does things by halves, or even singles!  Now Phil’s practicing bass lines over a C maj 7th chord 🙂 and I am saying goodnight WordPressiverse,

laters gaters 😉

 

 

 

The Sunday Fraggle Report 25/1

Another week of cold temperatures but at last I got to see some snow! Had to go to North Yorkshire to visit a client and the hills were covered, managed to get a shot with a bit of sunshine lighting the landscape, that didn’t last long.

Leyburn North Yorkshire
Leyburn North Yorkshire

But the rest of my work days didn’t have much in the way of snow or views.

On Thursday Phil & I decided to go to Piero’s for our dinner and we had tomato & basil soup and then pasta, really yummy but filled us up too much!

P soup
P soup

We stayed home mostly this weekend, it was sunny for a couple of hours but cold, so stayed in and played with my camera.  Really upset that my new SX70 has stopped working, it got jammed, and won’t eject the photo’s and so will have to send it back for repair 😦 bit fed up as I’ve not even had it 2 months yet and I really like it. My Sunday challenge group this week had us find 3 same/identical items and shoot them so only one item is in focus, so I shot 3 buddha statues, 3 poker dice and 3 of my scale models that I used to paint before I got into photography. We also had to process the shots using past challenge techniques.

3 Buddhas and texture.
3 Buddhas and texture.
3 poker dice and selective colour
3 poker dice and selective colour
scale models & collage
scale models & collage

I saw a tiny little bird hopping around on our back lawn yesterday, I didn’t get a brilliant shot of it, but enough to find out it was a wren, which is new to my garden.

wren
wren

This afternoon mad~Cal and Shelley came for a visit and that was fun he cracks us up. And that’s another week gone by, not much ado,

laters gaters 😉

 

The Sunday Fraggle report..

Firstly, for the second week I have a photo left behind from the previous week. I hope this is not the beginning of  mental decline, but much previous similar experiences tell me it probably is. I forget loads of stuff. I console myself with the fact that my lovely hubby is as bad if not slightly worse than me :). And what is this wonderful photo you forgot to post I hear you cry…

Ducking About
Ducking About

well there you have it. A masterpiece no less. Taken with my Iphone 5 and the hipstamatic app. Don’t ask why.

So on to this past week. I have to say the grey and rainy days are not helping me on my travels around my patch of Engerlandland. Dull and dishwatery skies, and everything just blah. But at least on the day I had to visit a client in the windy wilds of North Yorkshire there was an interesting sky that I stopped to take pictures of. My little Nikon S1 compact is no match for my D700, but the wonders of Lightroom, NikFXpro and SmartPhotoEditor more than make up for it, and actually the S1 picks up a lot of detail when you dig for it.

original shot
original shot

This is one of my original shots, not totally inspiring but it really didn’t look like that through my eyes (or why would I have stopped to take the photo’s??).

And this is what it really looked like..

holes in the sky 1
holes in the sky 1
Holes in the sky 2
Holes in the sky 2
Holes in the sky 3
Holes in the sky 3
Holes in the sky 4
Holes in the sky 4

and because the theme for the challenge group today was over processing…

bonkers & OTT
bonkers & OTT

I don’t like it, but it was kinda fun.

Also before I came across the moody weather I drove past Bolton Castle which you can just about see in this next shot, and also you can just see the edge of the dark sky chasing me.

Bolton Castle (it is there really)
Bolton Castle (it is there really)

AND on my way home I turned a corner to be thwarted by sheep, dogs and a motorised shepherd.

it's a modern old world.
it’s a modern old world.

Just after I took this, the dogs jumped away and started herding the sheep to go left up a path, but a few of the idiot~sheep ran through a field on the right, and it was great to watch the dogs round them up and send them back the right way. I don’t think the guy on the trike did anything much, didn’t hear any whistles going on, the dogs just knew what to do.

Mind you, I don’t suppose I would hear a proper dog whistle as I have not got dogs ears.

Not much else to shoot on my travels, but I did find some cool shoots and leaves

shoots and leaves
she shoots and leaves

 

On Thursday morning it was very drab, and I spotted this fellow hunkered down on my front garden fence

Mr.Sad
Mr.Sad

People don’t like pigeons overmuch but I like all birds, they have so much character, even the dim ones are funny, but he just looked so sad. Yet I loved how his feathers looked, like a soft suit of armour against the rain. As I got in the car I took a quick snap of him side on, but didn’t really see what I was looking at only to note it was in focus, but when I got it on my big screen I was quite shocked to see he has a big eye infection. I debated wether to post it or not because it did upset me, but sometimes photography isn’t nicey picey.

:(
😦

He was still about today, and taking advantage of all the seeds that drop to the ground from my bird feeders, and I could see the other side is not affected. He’s nice and plump and is eating, so maybe he will get better, if the neighbours cat doesn’t blindside him. He looks miserable though (not surprisingly) and I had some tears over him today.

On Friday night we had Lorraine and Paul over for a musical soiree, Lorraine cooked some fine curry’s and Phil & Paul played guitars whilst Lorraine & I played percussion (I banged a tambourine more or less in time with the music and Loz had a washboard thingy). Far too much grape and hops were imbibed but hey ho it doesn’t happen THAT often.  I took some cool Polaroids of the guys and gals, there’s more in the Polaroid Page, but this was the best,

Paul and Phil
Paul and Phil

note the tripod music stand 🙂

and from the Hipstamatic…

Lorraine & paul
Lorraine & paul

and I got chocolates & flowers

IMG_3256

so a good night and Saturday was a recovery day 🙂

I did manage to cook a lush dinner on Saturday, Salmon in soy,ginger & garlic sauce, with saffron rice. very yummy.

Salmon in soy ginger garlic sauce
Salmon in soy ginger garlic sauce

Today we have had Shelley and Callum, Carl with Matthew and Livvy for a visit this afternoon, wow our grandkids are noisy. You kind of forget in between visits 😀 It was good to see them all charging about playing and hollering and laughing. I would have taken photo’s but they move too fast 🙂

Phil’s on nights this week, so a quiet time for me anyway 🙂 Keep your fingers crossed for dry weather for me this week as I’m off to some more far flung gorgeous places.

Laters Gaters 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the hills and far away.

I am currently in a hotel room in a place called Warrington, which is near Manchester, and am here on a training course for work.  I travelled down yesterday on a beautifully sunny, if cold, day, and called in on one of my clients who lives in the wilds of Yorkshire on my way.  I haven’t brought my big girl camera as it’s not a photography trip, but I had to capture some of my journey so the little iphone hipstamatic was employed and I am quite pleased with the outcomes.

Waterfall at Bainsbridge
Waterfall at Bainbridge
Middle Earth
Middle Earth
Tree on humps
Trees on humps
River Ure
River Ure
Old Iron bridge
Old Iron bridge
Daffs
Daffs
Snowdrops
Snowdrops

So a very scenic journey to and from my client’s home in Bainbridge, but then A1, then traffic jams on the M62,M60,M56 and eventually arrived at the hotel.  3 nights cost the equivalent of an all inclusive week in Spain, and this is my view!! ……

room with a view
room with a view

🙂 Oh well, only 2 days to go til home again.