Day 48 I Like Driving in my Car

Day 48 I Like Driving in My Car

We took the long way home today (not realising we'd be getting stuck in M4 traffic for 2 hours!) Anyway we had a lovely drive along the Lakes and through the impressive hills and mountains. I took lots of photos of the lake and although the views were beautiful the photos were boring. I preferred this self portrait taken as we drove along so included this as the last photo of my day of from my Cumbria holiday. .

PS A big thanks to my brother who did all the driving today, all 9 hours!

Day 47 Little Houses Made of Ticky Tacky

Day 47 Little Houses Made of Ticky Tacky

Obligitory board games! I started this game of Monopoly well behind the rest of the players (not even round the board once but had been lapped twice by the others and I had no properties!) but 2 hours later it was down to just me and Mum, Mum ended up winning after making the rest of us go bankrupt!

Day 46 Just Another Brick in the Wall

Day 46 Just Another Brick in the Wall

On Wednesday we went to see part of Hadrian's Wall. Here is a photo of it stretching out into the distance. The remains of the Roman Mile Castle just were behind us (plus a little gift shop selling delicious raspberry curd mmm). It was a grey day with a lot of grey stone and I couldn't get the composition quite right so I'm not that happy with this shot but it was the best shot of the day.

Day 45 Little Houses on the Hillside

 

Day 45 Little Houses on the Hillside

I spent the whole of Tuesday practicing my black and white photography and not getting the photos quite right. I finally got this one where I liked the composition and lighting.

Day 44 Money Makes the World Go Around

 

Day 44 Money Makes the World Go Around

This day's photo was taken at Aira Falls next to Ullswater Lake. Half way round our walk we came across a tree trunk that had money hammered into it. This photo is of my Dad as he rested his feet and examined the tree. He is slightly out of focus as I have focused on the money on the tree.

Day 43 We Are Family

Day 43 We Are Family

Though I'd include one of the family. This is the whole holiday gang at Penrith Castle with the camera set on timer. Its always hard to get the whole family coordinated but I love this one with my brother kissing his 7 week old baby, so cute.

Day 42 Good Day Sunshine

 

Day 42 Good Day Sunshine

I love the colour of this sunset but what I like most of all is the sunlight just catching on the farm gate in the foreground.

Day 41 Green Green Grass of Home

 

Day 41 Green Green Grass of Home

I have just got back from a fabulous week long holiday with the family in Cumbria. The scenery was magnificent and this was the view from my bedroom at our cottage which we called home for the week. The weather was a bit grey but the view was still beautiful.

I didn't get a lot of time for photography over the week but I did get a few hours of practicing in so some of the following 8 photos are holiday snap shots but when I got a chance I practiced with composition, colour and black and white. I also got a few lovely shots of the family, [particularly my new nephew who is absolutely adorable.

Day 40 Father & Son

Day 40 Father & Son

I spent today with my Sister in Law and my beautiful nephew Elliott. He is such a cutie and was so happy today. I took this photo when my brother got home and they were having some father and son time before bed. I like the fact that Elliott is lit but my brother is in shadow and a little out of focus due to the shallow depth of field. This means your eye goes straight to little Elli first then is drawn across the photo to his Dad behind.

F stop 5.6, shutter speed 1/60

Day 39 Green Day

 

Day 39 Green Day

Looking round for inspiration tonight I thought I would do an abstract for a change. This is a close up of the fire grate which I've edited to turn green. I'm not a fan of abstracts usually but I love the colour and pattern of this and it makes a change from my usual photos.

f stop 5.6, shutter speed 0''6

Day 38 I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester

Day 38 I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester

I loved little girls serious expression as she played on the tractor at the farm today. it was hard work shooting today as it was so sunny and to get photos of the kids I seemed to be shooting in to the sun all the time. 

F stop 5.6, shutter speed 1/160

Day 37 Time is Running Out!

 

Day 37 Time is Running Out!

Thought I'd try something a little different today using the clock on my mantelpiece as inspiration.

For this photo I set a slow shutter speed and manually turned the hands from the back of the clock to get this effect.

f stop 13, shutter speed 5 seconds

Day 36 Lady in Red

 

Day 36 Lady in Red

At 22:30 tonight I suddenly realised I hadn't taken today's photo of the day! I'd been so busy crocheting that the time had just flown by. As crochet had made me forget about my photo project I thought it would be a good subject for today. I set up my tripod to take this self portrait of me and my current crochet project. It was tricky to focus properly as it was as elf portrait but I think I managed it well enough here. I like the different textures and patterns of the blanket you can see here.

F stop 5.6 and shutter speed 1/6

Day 35 Birds do it, Bees do it!

Day 35 Birds do it, Bees do it!

3 weeks ago I went to a glass fusion workshop with my Dad. It had been my Father's Day present to him and it was a really enjoyable day. Today I picked up our finished products so I thought I'd use one of the coasters I'd made as the subject fro today's photo.

I had to try a few different compositions to get this right but this one is my favourite

I used a shallow depth of field and back lit with daylight from the window

Day 34 English Country Garden

Day 34 English Country Garden

Photographs of flowers often look so similar so I thought I'd try a slightly different composition or this. I took this one from the back looking through the bunch of flowers that had been picked from my friends garden. I particularly love the colours and the angle.

Day 33 Right Said Fred

Day 33 Right Said Fred


My cute nephew Freddie

Day 32 Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend

Day 32 Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend

I used the torch on my iPhone to create this lighting effect. I love the spot light feel to it and the shadows cast in the background

Day 31 You Don't Bring me Flowers

Day 31 You Don't Bring me Flowers

Disappointed at not having any flowers myself I took this photo of my Sister in Law's lovely bunch.

I particularly loved the colour of this flower and wanted to fill the frame with its deep blue hues 

Day 30 The Road is Long!

Day 30 The Road is Long!

This is not technically a good photo and is just a snapshot but I wanted to put it in anyway.

This is my friend Beth as she started off on her charity walk from Kings Cross Station to Edinburgh! Its likely to talk her about a month to walk the 400 or so miles and she's doing it to raise money for two very worthy charities,

Lumos http://wearelumos.org/ helping stop the institutionalisation of children

Anne Rowling Clinic http://annerowlingclinic.com/ a charitable University of Edinburgh research facility focusing on a wide range of neurological conditions

She has a few friends who will be joining her for parts of the journey but she will mostly be on her own!

Good Luck Beth!

Day 29 You're just as sane as I am!

Day 29 You're just as sane as I am!

Day 29 features 3 fabulous friends, 2 of whom I met for the first time last weekend. They are as cool as Luna herself and look fabulous in their matching spectorspecs x

Day 28 Total Eclipse of the Heart

Day 28 Total Eclipse of the Heart

So on Sunday morning my computer crashed and I lost all of the photos I'd taken Saturday daytime! Luckily I still had the photos from the Charity Ball but these were drunken party snap shots rather than planned and prepared photos so I didn't have many suitable to use as my 365 project.

I chose this one as although it's only a snapshot it really captures a moment and emotion in time. I think it would work better if the lighting was slightly different and the arm in the foreground wasn't so lit but as an emergency photo for my project I think it works well.

This also got me thinking about what I'd do if I lost a days photos and had nothing for my 365 project! So I've decided to take at least 1 backup photo on my iphone each day so I'd always have an image for the project.

Day 27 We're Wizards, We'll Party Forever!

Day 27 We're Wizards, We'll Party Forever!

Friday night was the second rock concert of the weekend. Although I am a massive Harry Potter fan I don't know a lot about the rest of the fandom and this was my first introduction to Wizard Wrock. The headlining band consisted of two brother and a drummer who call themselves Harry and the Potters. They were amazing showmen and got the whole crowd dancing and jumping!

It was really hard to get both brothers in focus as they were so energetic and screeching around the stage and I had to use as fast a shutter speed as the low lighting would allow.

I love this photo, and I particularly like the fan in the bottom of the picture looking at the singers adoringly 

Day 26 Leakycon London 2013

Day 26 Leakycon London 2013

I tried a number of different compositions for this photo of the contents of our Leakycon registration packs. I like this one the most as I feel the angle of the Leakycon bracelet draws you eye across the photo (& you can see Dumbledore in the background). I used a shallow depth of field so only the centrally Leakycon bracelet was in focus and the other items are slightly out of focus so as to not overwhelm the photo.

Day 25 Lollipop, lollipop, ooh lolly lollipop

Day 25 Lollipop, lollipop, ooh lolly lollipop 

Well nothing hampers a photographer more than forgetting their camera!!!! Yes, I left my camera on my hotel bed on the first day of my Harry Potter Convention holiday. Still luckily I had my iPhone with me. 

Once I stopped kicking myself for forgetting my camera I took this photos in the Harry Potter Studio Tour gift shop. I chose this as my photo of the day as I loved the colours. The lollies are brightly coloured and sweet looking but the background is dark, mirroring the dark subject of the lollies (a dark mark which is a snake coming out of a skull!)

Not too bad for a phone photo I don't think!

Day 24 Roll up Roll up!

Day 24 Roll up Roll up!

Tomorrow I'm off to a Harry potter convention for 5 days so I thought I'd use that as inspiration for today's photo. This is a close up of one of Minalima's graphic designs from the Potter films. I love the colours, lines and shapes of this piece. I had to use a tripod and long exposure time as the light in the room was very poor and I didn't want to use the on camera flash.

My next few photos are likely to be Potter related so I warn you now!

Day 23 Ghostly Echoes

Day 23 Ghostly Echoes
Today I didn't get a chance to take any photos in natural light so I decided to try out some funky things with my zoom instead. its not the best photo but I liked the effect it had on the wording on the title of the book.

Day 22 Walk On By

Day 22 Walk On By

I completed the intermediate day of my photography course today. It was a lot of information to take in but I learnt so much, I now have to make sure I put it all into practice.

To cement some of the new techniques I learnt today I went for a lovely long walk with my camera.

I'd been wanting to take some silhouettes of trees before so used this time to practice.

I took this in manual mode

f stop 7.1, shutter speed 7.1, ISO 800

Day 21 I am what I am!

Day 21 I am what I am!

Today I went for a long (9 mile) walk with my friend today and stopped off on the way to watch the Brighton pride Parade. I used the time to practice some of the fancy modes on my new compact camera and took this in Toy Camera mode.

Day 20 Stairway to Heaven

Day 20 Stairway to Heaven

I didn't even have my compact camera with me today so had to make use of my Iphone camera.

This one is enough to give my vertigo!

Day 19 Lady in Red

Day 19 Lady in Red

I've not had SLR with me the last few days so have been using my Fujifilm x10 compact.

I took this one as my brother and sister in law went off to to dinner while I babysat!

I usually don't like black and white photos with a splash of colour but I think this one really works.