Venice 2011 at Carnivale

On no! Not another one!

Putting my work on public display is not something I am used to. This probably stems from times when as a child I would hand in some long, laboured over piece of work to a teacher only to be told it is rubbish. I now find that is it something I have to do, whether I like it or not.

As I have mentioned earlier in this blog. I have started a photography degree. The first part is called The Art of Photography and (for the purposes of this post at any rate) it is split into two parts: projects and assignments. The projects are the course work of the degree and there are approximately 66 of these in total. Since most of these projects involve taking photographs in some form or another it is impractical to send them all in to be assessed (not unless I’m planning to hire a Royal Mail lorry for the lot anyway), so I have been told to keep a blog with all the photographs on it. And here it is:

 

https://strabecphotos.wordpress.com/

 

The purposes of this blog are as I have outlined: to save money on postage and give something for my tutor to look at. I have nearly completed the first course, but I have only just started putting the projects up here. Once I have finished putting up all the projects, the assignments will go up. I will give more details as to what happens with the assessment at some later stage.

 

For now I shall be concentrating on getting all the projects I have completed on to the other blog, so this blog will not be updated for a while.

Review of 2010

Lets take a moment to think about 2010…

 

 

 

 

Finished? New year is traditionally the time to make new years resolutions. My resolution: never make any more new years resolutions! In my case they are a waste of time.

 

New year is also the time for (let’s whisper it) diets, and don’t the advertisers know it! Weight loss videos and home food delivery (no fresh vegetables included…and you think I’m joking! Look at the small print at the bottom of the screen next time) to help you lose weight. It is January 2^nd, and I am fed up with them already.

 

Next up – television. Although I like the new Doctor Who series it seems to lack something. A certain spark. Other’s close to me (no not my husband) say it lacks David Tennant. But I’m not going into that debate. Sherlock on the hand, written and produced by the same writers, has that spark, and so far it is the only series I am actively looking forward. As a long standing whovian I shall watch the new series out of loyalty, but it has become far too commercial in my opinion.

 

I am entering the last stages of the first bit of my photography course and thanks to my friend I now have lots of reading in that area so no excuses! The freeze provided some excellent opportunities for snowy scenes. My favourite pictures taken in this period were some close-ups of frost. Which I shall share some other time.

 

I am amazed at how hardy purple sprouting broccoli appears to be. Despite being frozen and drowned in snow the plants still appear to be alive and kicking! This year I am going to try companion planting. This means putting plants near each other to ward of pests. Marigolds are good for putting off carrot fly for example and I’ve just found out that a good companion plant for raspberries is ragwort/tansy. So it looks like I shall be looking for ragwort in a verge near me – it is a weed after all. I shall find some and put it in a container to stop it spreading to the rest of the garden that should puzzle the neighbours! I am also going to try and propagate cuttings. I have got a large amount of lavender, a largish rosemary, sage and thyme that I would like to try and take cutting from and see if I can grow them.

 

The bottle gourds are worth a small mention at this point. I first saw bottle gourd bird houses and feeders in Germany. Basically you grow the bottle gourd, dry it, drill a hole in it, tip out the seeds, and bingo! You have a bird house! Need I say this is a vastly simplified version of the instructions? Either way I wanted to have a go. I found out you can get seeds for gourds if you are living anywhere but Britain! I nearly gave up, but luckily my husband found a company that sells them, so I will be starting that off this year as well!

 

I might also try my hand at foraging. I fancy picking wild mushrooms (the edible ones, not the ones that induce projectile vomiting). There is a yearly wild mushroom foraging that takes place in Aberfoyle that I keep missing. I’ll try not to this year! The other three things I fancy foraging for are: Wild garlic, I know some places where this grows but I am not sure about foraging rules. I know you cannot dig up an entire plant as it is a wild flower. Blackberries, raspberries current etc. They seem to grow in abundance around here – so urban hedgerow jam here we come! Finally samphire – poor man’s asparagus as it is called. If you have never tried it do so, it is delicious. You can usually buy it from fishmongers, and waitrose sells it occasionally as well. The last time I had samphire I fried it for a couple of minutes in butter (nom nom nom!). There are other ways you can prepare it though.

Some photo’s

For reasons I am not going into, photography things have been…sparse of late. I have photo’s of France, Warsaw and Berlin I would like to share with you but that is going to take a lot of work and time. So in the meantime here are some photo’s for you to look at! Enjoy!

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P.s. I didn’t know that wordpress came with a ‘slideshow’ option so I thought I would try it.

Fireworks

I have been waiting for an opportunity to take some half decent firework photo’s. This happened on New Years Eve whilst I and a few others were celebrating New Years at the Lodge on Loch Lomond. To be honest I was not very impressed with the interior. Being a vegetarian it means that we had to warn the place in advance to have a veggie option. Not only that but as there was a vegan in the party we asked whether the wine supplied with the meal was veggie, which they assured it was. I can not fault the Lodge in this respect, they were very helpful, they had a veggie and vegan meals prepared. But the food was a little boring.

It was the exterior that made the evening for me. The Lodge on Loch Lomond is situated you’ll be surprised to learn on the edge on Loch Lomond (no really ). The full moon was reflected in the water. There was snow laying about (which made it slippery, but you have to take the rough with the smooth). After the meal was the firework display. They were setting the fireworks off on the beach. So my husband and I slipped out of the hotel into the carpark to watch the display. I had read a few books on how to take pictures of firworks, so I decided to put theory into practice. The following pictures are taken hand held and I would say the results are not unpleasant. Next time the tripod will come out. Right for those with DSLR’s, the rule of thumb (well this is what I did anyway) is to underexpose the picture (fastish shutter speed) and use a wideish angle lens. It doesn’t need to be a fisheye, just wide enough to encompass the bit of sky the display is happening in. For those without, again as wide angle as your camera will allow (zoom out), and if you can adjust the shutter speed make it slightly faster than you would normally use for a night shot. You don’t want to make the shutter speed really fast, otherwise you’ll just get little dots of light. You need to get the timing of the photo right as well, this comes with practice. This worked for me. You might find other methods work for you better. Anyway the pictures.

Click on the thumbnails for larger versions

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

These was taken Christmas Eve, and as the snow had not vanished by Christmas Day we had what you might call a White Christmas!

So Merry Christmas everyone!

Playing with the GIMP

…and Ufraw which is the programme you need to convert RAW files into other sorts of files like JPEG and things. To put it really simply JPEG squish things to take up less room in memory storage and RAW doesn’t. And I am NOT going into the RAW v’s Jpeg debate!

Anyway today I thought I would do some tentative exploration of GIMP and Ufraw. Firstly to edit a photo in GIMP you have to go through UFRAW, (well I do because I shoot in RAW.)The very first time I saw GIMP I got completely lost and I swore I would not touch it again. However as I have previously stated I am getting fed up with elements, so I thought I would give it another go. My initial observations are GIMP and UFRAW are not for complete beginners. I have completed the OU course in digital photography ( did I mention I got 93 in that? Not that I would dream of showing off…) which amongst other things tells you how to use Elements. As I know Elements and I have been studying photography for a while I now understand some of the terms used in these photo editing programmes, which means the Ufraw does not appear to be in gobledegook…only some of it is!

My second observation is wow! Some things appear to be so much easier in Ufraw! You seem to have much more control in the initial editing than you do in Elements!

I can’t wait to figure out some more of it!

Here are before and after pictures!

Before:

After:

I know they are not the best photos I’ve ever taken but I am not going to use one of my best for experiment purposes am I?

Frosty Day

Here are two pictures I took this morning, and fiddled with in photoshop elements 5 this afternoon.

I have to admit I am getting rapidly fed up with Photoshop elements five, but I also find myself unwilling to fork out a fortune for Photoshop. I have had a look at GIMP and it looks quite good, although not as ‘user friendly’ as the adobe franchise. So I have decided I am going to learn how to use which means…I have to read the manual! AARGH! I’ll let you know how it goes ladies and gentlemen!

I felt like playing with a different font…though I will probably get moans that’s it not readable or something.

The Final Collection

Well actually there’s only 2 pictures that didn’t make it in, the picture of the mirror, and the picture of the reflected tree. They were replaced by these two:

My tutor liked it! He said that my photography had ‘reached a new level of maturity’! Preen preen.

My next assignment is due on January 8th and it is the penultimate assignment for this course (Before I start the next course, this is a degree after all!). Although I am on the penultimate assignment (or will be) I am actually quite far behind with the coursework. I don’t think it is totally impossible for me to catch up. Not ‘totally impossible’, maybe just ‘quite unlikely’.

I am enjoying this course. I am still not quite used to the way of working, and after nearly a year that could be seen as a disadvantage. I am used to being able to study at home. Yes I know photography requires an outside element! I am not used to course with a ‘practical’ side.

Assignment 3

I thought I would share the photos that are probably going to make up assignment 3. The trouble is that even though I have agonised over them I can’t help but feel they are all rubbish! That is what to expect when you have a very low self esteem I suppose…

I will try and update with what pictures do make up the final set…once I get down off the ceiling.