26th January Weather more spring like

for once we had several hours of sunshine, and it felt like spring, though obviously this is likely to be a flash in the pan and the cold or wet weather return. We went out for a ride and rapidly realised from the amount of traffic leading to the coast that everyone else had the same idea!

So, we had a quick snack at the McDonalds in Bridlington and a quiet drive down country lanes to come home.

I took quite a few landscape phto's with the intention of dissecting and rebuilding them to gie more attractive compositions, but for the day's Ephotozine I put on a composite of three versions of Ryan next door's face, it only scored a mesly 4 votes.

Oh well, never mind!

25th January Fun with Vista

Been offline due to having to re-install Vista twice after it committed suicide for no known reason, then wouldn't upload updates and voice recognition died a death.. what trash!

Any way put a couple more pictures up on ephotozine.

This is composite of two I took today at the Deep.

22 January and a very different Day's weather

After the heavy rain yesterday we were surprised!
Woke to a frost and sunshine, so off we went for a drive to Whitby.
Many of the fields were flooded and some of the rivers and streams had broken their banks. When we got to Whitby we parked on the Abbey side of the Harbour, and crossed the swing bridge to walk down by the fish dock to the Khyber Pass and the pier. We didn't stay out there long as it was only 1 Deg C, so we came back over the bridge and had a fish and chip lunch in one of the Cafe's (very good too.)
I also enjoyed using both the Digital camera and the Pentax ME round the harbour, and made a composite of two of them to put on Ephotozine
It scored 11 votes.

21 January: Extreme weather again

We were lucky today, the weather was very wet and flooding was forecast, but never happened.
We were out visiting friends today so didn't take any new photo's but I did post a tutorial on the forum on how to combine an image of a tree with a different sky, a tricky tranformation if you want to make a convincing job of it!

20th January Off to the seaside

We decided a bit of see air was just what the doctor ordered, so lunch was packed and we headed for the coast.
To our surprise and delight we spotted these snowdrops on the roadside near Wawne church, and in Bridlington the were actually a couple of Daffodils in full bloom!

We had set of for Flamborough Head, forgetting that if anywhere is going to be foggy, this is!
The picture has uploaded with some very strange artifacts in the sky that can't be seen on the
original.
We drove back via Bridlington and ate our packed lunch on the prom, where at least you could see the sea, even though it was still raining.

Any way, I decided to try a composite on ephotozine of the camera I'd been given, and Brid prom.

Not exactly a huge success, it got 6 votes.
On the way home we could see many fields were badly flooded, it looks like the Lake District out there!

19th January and the weather has turned rather wet!

We had to go out shopping and stopped to eat our packed lunch in Pickering Park, where I spotted a huge puddle in front of the ornamental gate, so this came in handy as the days Ephotozine entry.
And while this was going on I took a couple of shots on the Pentax ME, I'm looking forward to seeing the results in due course.
Over on the Bridge camera user group I compiled and uploaded a lengthy "How To" on Wedding Photography, and was pleased to see that the site was getting busier.
I( shall be adding this to the end of my emails, too.
And the image was called "Reflected Glory" it gained 14
Geoff, the chief admin has suggested a message to invite visitors, so here it is
Hi
Thought you might find this link useful
http://www.89870.forums.motigo.com/
This is a fab forum entitled Bridge digital camera users...long name, I know, but it's really useful.
Regards

18th January off visiting

Spent the day at my sister's near York, she gave me a camera (Pentax ME super) that had been in the loft since her husband died many years ago: It will be interesting to put a film through and see how it performs.
Todays effort for Ephotozine was this.
I had sketched one of the rather good entries from the week earlier and so.......

17th January Still setting up the computer

I have been busy installing OPENSuse
linux 10.3 on one of the drives, and it just keeps getting better and better.
I put a very simple, but I thought rather nice still life on Ephotozine, but only a couple of people liked it!
(May delete it and try another less subtle image later today!0

15th January Wet and windy

The weather was so wet today that the first time I got out for a walk was half past three in the aftrnoon!
I tidied up a shot of Mousehole taken last July for Ephotozine, it got 19 Votes!

14 January 2008 Good old Windows Vista

Last Friday I ordered an 80 Gbyte hard drive off Ebay, and to my amazement it arrived this morning, and was instantly installed in the desktop computer.
I put a new drive into the computer today, initially I installed Freespire to see how much further that Linux distro had got, and was rather disappointed when it couldn't even see my USB connections, no matter what I tried, I never had a problem with Suse 10.2!
Any way I decided that as time was pressing I would have to install Windoze again, quite a lengthy operatotion, as my Vista is an Upgrade , so I have to install XP first just to run the Vista DVD.
Then to make matters worse Vista decided that it couldn't start, and I had to format the drive and start again from the beginning formatting XP.
Even then when it was installed, I had a couple of "Blue screen of Death" crashes over the Nvidia and Soundmax drivers!

13th January

We had intended to go for a decent run out today, but the weather was cloudy and promised rain so we got as far as doing some shopping and having lunch at McDonalds.
I wrote a tutorial for the Bridge Camera forum on combining two images and put the resulting image on Ephotozine as today's submission.
I was pleasantly surprised when it got 15 votes.
The chap who adminsters the forum used the tutorial and produced a very capable first attempt, using the posted images, and we had a friendly debate over the reasons for altering images: we see them as a way to generate images of a type that we don't have the opportunity to catch "in the field", and by creating them learn what makes a good and effective finished result.
During the afternoon I had a short walk, but soon headed back as it was cold and windy.

12th January

Well here's the day's Ephotozine entry, composed of four separate images, the sheep, then a stream off the moors, the bridgeand houses in Hutton Le hole, and a sky from last summer.
We drove as far as Wetwang and had lunch at the local Chippy, but didn't stay out very long as the weather was dull and wet.
This entry scored 14 votes, not too bad

11th January Weather rather damp

Because it was a rather foggy day I decided to look back to last year's images to find something appropriate for Ephotozine, and came up with this one of Haweswater, it had the tones augmented with the LOMO filter in the GIMP and achieved 14 votes, not bad really.
We had a day out to Castleton and though it wasn't exactly sunny, it was pleasant to drive over the moors and meet some old friends at the "Friday Pensioners Special" in the Castleton Tea rooms.
I took something like 15 pictures while out, including some on 35mm on the Dynax, and created a composite of Hutton Le Hole as tomorrow's Ephotozine submission.

10th January A windy day

Since it was too windy and raining too, I had to look back at last week's photo's to find something to submit to ephotozine, and had picked out two: one of a roadside pond on Blakey Ridge, and the other of farms near the end of Fryupdale.
Since I couldn't make my mind up I decided to compromise by combining them into one image, I rather liked the effect, as the warm colours around the cool pond seem to create a feeling of depth, seemingly bringing the farmhouse in the foreground closer.
Good and orginal? heh heh!

9th January :Today's ephotozine entry

Taken yesterday near the Humber Bridge, the weather turned a wee bit nasty!
It didn't do too badly, getting 8 votes.
At this time of year it's hard to take new photo's to put on ephotozine, most of the time you end up looking back through the stuff you took last summer.
I have my desktop computer partitioned so that I can boot either XP or Vista, as I don't trust the latter: I was proved right today when Vista simply refused to startup, and the repair sytem on the DVD failed to resurrect it. Currently I am reinstalling it, but the day when I trust it enough to use it for anything serious has receded further into the future!
It still needed the sound card driver re-installing every couple of day or so.....
Time someone toppled the oh so mighty Microsoft off it's perch and replaced the Windows system with something more reliable!

Curioser and curioser!

I visited a favourite of mine again today, "The Deep" Hull's aquarium: and dicovered that even here the Marketing Executive can't leave your dinner alone....
I went into the cafe and ordered a Pannini (bacon and mozzarella). As I lifted it to take a bite a friend said "Here! what's on the bottom of your sandwich?"
Turning it over I couldn't help but laugh.....
Then I began to wonder how long it would be before they print a message on your butt when you sit down?
A sobering thought no doubt!

Using film in 2008

I had a good look at using a film camera and realised that I didn't really want piles of prints, what I need is images that are good enough for the web. The local Photo processors confirmed that they would provide a developed film and the images on a CD for £2.98, which is very reasonable, and our localAldi superstore sell Koday VR100 135 36 exposure film for 2 films for £1.98, which gives the following cost:
film cost 2.75 pence per frame
Process cost 8.28 ditto
Total 11.03 pence per shot..........pretty cheap!
The other good point is that the processing only takes half an hour; the CD is ready when you come back from shopping, and each CD even has viewing and printing software on it....plus you can order prints over the net from it.
Naturally you an use your image editing software and printer on the stored pictures, and have them already on a permanent storage medium.. by the way you can have up to five films on a single CD at additional cost.
The scanned images are only 2 megapixels, but boy are they sharp! see attached pics: and they print surprisingly well, you only need the negatives for really large (10"*8" or above) prints.
So now I have to carry both digital and film cameras! (must be a glutton for punishment....)

Turning the clock back

Having been converted to digital photography for some years, using compacts and bridge cameras, I rather surprised myself just before Christmas when I spotted this camera on Ebay.
A Minolta Dynax 5: and decided I must have it...
The rationale was that I intend to upgrade to a Sony DSLR this year and the lens would fit......
When it arrived I was amazed at the absolutely perfect condition it was in, it looked new. Considering I only paid £63 for it I was very pleased.
compared to my bridge camera?
Like a ferrari to a citroen 2CV!
The first shot I took was of a seagull flying over me, I just raised the camera and fired....I was shocked at the blazing speed of the camera, it stopped the bird smack in the frame where I placed it, and pin sharp too....this would have been impossible with the bridge camera.

January 8th And now for something different!

"An Alcoholics damaged DNA.Shocking evidence from the Electron Microscope of the damage done by the demon drink"
Er no, not really, just me monkeying about with pictues of a full glass using the flash gun with coloured beakers placed over it, then cloned and arranged in patterns.
The story behind this was that when looking on a great site
http://www.diyphotography.net/
at the range of brilliant flash and lighting ideas that can be done for free or very cheaply, I suggested the method I had of slipping a beaker over the flash head, and in response Udi (The clever chap that runs the site) suggested that I try putting different couloured beakers over the flash gun...
This is the first real attempt , I'm sure that it can be improved on... anyway it got 8 votes... It's hard being a trendsetter!

January 7th "Oh I do like to be beside the sea side"

Scarborough, north Yorkshire January 7th...Brr
I liked the number of triangles in this shot, and the feeling of space.
It didn't seem to appeal to many others, however, as it only scored 4 votes...
If I'm going to be famous it looks as if I'll have to cut my ear off!...on second thought, who needs to be famous?

January 6th Of course it couldn't last!

This is Fryupdale in North Yorkshire, one of my favourite places, and at this time of year the low angle of what sunshine you get (if you get it!) really picks out the dry stone walls and the contours of the land...
Where possible I do like to get out and "do" photography right through the winter,but you rarely get days as nice as this one was..
Alas it only scored a measly 5 votes.

January 5th Mounts Bay and reflections

Fame at last... well perhaps not fame exactly, but this did achieve what for me was a very rewarding 40 votes!
Of course as the great W.C. Fields would say it was "Good and Original"
(Meaning that the parts that were original weren't good,
And the parts that were good weren't original!)
I like to think of digitally manipulated photos as
Paintography
There you are, remember you saw it here first!
For the record the manipulations were done in the GIMP . The open source image editor that everyone should have, 'cos it's free!

January 4 2008 A bit of digital fun

This bit of nonsense came about because I had an image of a kite that broke free and crashed, but the sky was empty of detail, and I though it deserved something a bit more spectacular, so the background shot of an oilseed rape field in full bloom at sunset was used.
Simple really, the kite was cut out and copied onto a layer then blended in using the eraser tool.
Anyway, it got a few laughs and 17 votes!

January 3 2008 and the First Snow

What a difference a day makes! I couldn't photograph the same group of fungi, as they were buried under the snow, but this group on the other side of the stump were partially exposed, and I ad taken my own camera with me this time, (Fujifilm S9600)
Using the built in flash and shooting in raw, under-exposing by a stop I was able to capture the full dynamic range of the snow to the deep black shadows.. as you can see the "snow" was mostly composed of large hail particles..
This one only scored 7 on Ephotozine...looks like I'm never going to be famous!

Continuing the update...January 2 upload

While waiting for a bus I spotted this little group on a an old tree stump. so out came the trusty Sony DSCW100 (belong to my wife!) and this was the result ..it achieve a modest 11 votes

Back at last!

After a couple of years absence I remembered this blog and resolved to contribute again, starting with my Ephotozine goings on..
This was my entry for January 1st, to remind us all that hopefully we can expect better weather soon!