# 39: New shoots

It'll soon be spring.

Lots to explore now the weather is improving.

# 38: Rainbow slick

Enhanced in Ps to bring out the colours.

We can wait...

The cats wait for Jodie to finish her ice cream, hoping to get a lick of the bowl :0)

# 37: Chillin' on a Sunday afternoon?

While my other half was relaxing in front of the football on tv, I was oiling the oak flooring in the hall. Actually, Mark was keeping Jodie occupied while I was busy, and I had taken her out with me earlier while he was busy! (With apologies to Hermione Norris who features on the cover - there isn't a blemish on her cheek, the cover is creased!)

# 36: Concentration

Jodie was so intent on carefully peeling the cake case from the cake.

# 35: Meet the Ancestor

Shot for a themed project, a Kodak Junior from the 1950s alongside a Hue Webcam. An alternative title was 'That was then, this is now'. I was killing two birds with one stone as I needed to set up off camera flash for a practice session - I bought the cable to connect my Canon Speedlite 430EX to my 40D, and borrowed a Lastolite Ezybox, setting the flash up on my tripod to my right. Pleased with the results :0) It's a skill I'll need for when I take images for nilmdts.org clients.

I've used Nik Silver Efex Pro Antique Plate No 2 on the left of the two images.

Jodie: "Sorry am I in your shot?!"

# 34: On the level

Under construction, built in shelves in the dining room. Looking good. A spirit level is an essential tool, however, the irony is that we have a sloping floor in the dining room - place a ball on the floor, it rolls gently towards the kitchen!
Straight shot, no fancy filters, and its level too ;0)

Measure twice, cut once.

# 33: Trees' House

The bright overcast sky provided perfect soft lighting in a wintry wood - nature's softbox. Despite largely leafless trees and a bitter wind the woods were almost glowing green today at Lumsdale. I was struck by how the old trees have grown up amongst even older disused buildings, some are outside, some are inside. There have been various industries at Lumsdale over the centuries, including mining. We went to photograph waterfalls. It was too cold to go as far as the millpond, and we were running out of time as well.

It was great to be out shooting again, after a period of concentrated editing indoors. Painting - Venice is fast becoming a favourite Topaz Adjust 4 filter.

This is a detail of part of the falls, treated a la Johnny Wells' sharpening technique.
{Memo to self, re-name layer with title of filter used so you can use it again another day!}

# 32: Colour in my kitchen

I was inspired by last night's speaker at DCPC, John Wells FRPS, to experiment in my kitchen today, then play more with Topaz filters. His talk was very entertaining and his pictures were pretty amazing - best of all was his sharing of techniques so we can try some things out ourselves. This is another 'Painting - Venice' treatment. One reason why I like a 365 challenge is that it makes me try out new things :0) 

These are SOOC, taken with manual focus set on a long lens (200mm end of a 70-200) of areas of colour in my kitchen - bottom left is actually a Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate canister with a yellow '50% extra free' banner in yellow across the top. Picasa collage - quick and easy. This is fun :0)

# 31: Spicified

  How can I make something more of an everyday scene in my kitchen? (It's not every day actually, we don't drink much!) I've used Topaz Adjust 4 - Spicify on this image.  I took the photograph in the first place because of the shapes and lines in the glass - reflections, refractions, diffractions - and all those details are enhanced by Spicify. Fellow photography geeks with eagle-eyes will also notice a dark shape on the right that looks familiar... I dropped my lens hood at Croots Farm and Mr Croot very kindly retrieved it for me - from the shire horses' field where it had rolled into mud just out of reach! [It got a little muddy, and no, it hasn't properly washed off  :0( ]

This has been treated to a filter called Painting - Venice.

This one has had Dark - Ghostly applied to it twice - I really like the drainer detail in this one. 

And these are the straight shots. Playtime over.

# 30: Here come the girls

I visited Croots Farm this afternoon with Jodie, she likes to fuss the shire horses, I like to take a few photos (really? ...no kidding!) and we both like a cake in the tea shop. I was surprised to see the sheep coming up the track - they had come across the field and I realised they just duck under the lower fence rail - that's why there's lots of wool caught on it, they just ducked under and kept on coming! Then I pointed the camera at them and they stopped - was it the sound of the shutter or were they just waiting for the rest of the girls to catch up?!

# 29: Brightly Coloured

It may have become obvious by now that I like to photograph details; shallow depth of field is my favourite creative device. The light was catching this set of Puffy Paints that Jodie had for Christmas. Once applied to paper or fabric and left a couple of hours to dry, using a hair drier is supposed to make the paint puff up. No doubt a close up shot of the successful results will appear here at some point!