Going small

Will you walk into my parlour .....

The well-known words of this poem which was written for children (published 1829) ends with the words -
Unto an evil counsellor
Close heart and ear and eye
And take a lesson from this tale
Of the spider and the fly.

Good advice!

Surprise!

I thought I would take a few pics with the macro lens and chose a small garden flower (no idea of name, but it was about 4 cm in diameter.) Suddenly through the lens I saw this creature! Almost too small to see with the naked eye. What a fantastic world we live in!

..... and some more

This time we travelled 9 hours in the opposite direction for a holiday in NW highlands of Scotland to a small town called Lochinver. Spectacular scenery in all directions and some good places to climb!

Guest flowers

We had to travel for 7 hours for these photos! Not especially, but a visit to one of our sons and family meant I got to see these flowers which will probably never be in my garden! The last one has two of Kim Klassen's textures added. Came home to find the sunflowers struggling in the wind - need to get some bigger canes for them.

Still on course

Many of the houses in the Lake District are made of beautifully coloured slate or stone. As you may imagine, I couldn't resist taking a few (macro) pics of the 'bricks' which are layered horizontally. I'm afraid I got a bit distracted ....

Night life ....

...... in Keswick. Finding out about night light shots on the photography course.

Just back .....

..... from a four day photography course at the Blencathra field studies centre in the Lake District led by Rob Ward.
Learnt a lot of new things, met interesting people and enjoyed great food! Hope to show more images later!

Seeing from a new perspective

Taking something, in this case flowers or weeds, which normally wouldn't be worthy of a second glance, and seeing it from a new perspective reveals details and textures which could be missed.
It opens up a whole new world of possibilities!

Old and new flowers

Two different uses of flowers - the first a macro image of a clematis with one of my textures, the second a small textile piece using dried, pressed hydrangeas, together with embellished cocoon strippings, stitches and beads added. But where has all the warm weather gone! Even the newly-planted sunflowers have taken a battering in the wind - and they are all part of a competition!

Cornflower

Trying out my macro lens!

Displaced!

I created these three images using displacement maps in Paint Shop Pro. Took me ages to work out how to do it as the manual wasn't much help and too complicated but finally got there!

Bluebells

A bank of bluebells at Allen Banks! Well worth a visit with some lovely walks in the area.

Playing with shadows

I took this using my Canon camera and used psp to alter it slightly. I have been using both Paint Shop Pro and Elements 9 and find it useful to have both as each has advantages when it comes to digitally altering an image. I find Photoshop good for layers and layer masks as well as effects, but Paint Shop Pro is much better (in my opinion) for printing out images, accessing folders, photo layouts, frames and borders and using the displacement map effect with two images. It's handy having them (not on the same computer) so I'll continue using them both.
Hope you're all enjoying the great weather we're having here!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Beautiful weather here and enjoying family visiting us!

Something borrowed, something blue

Ok, so it's stretching it a bit! A borrowed hat and sunglasses and lots of fun! A photo of some seedheads altered in the Corel Painter programme. This programme has lots of possibilities but I'm just dipping my toe in at the moment, so to speak. Anyone else used it?

Something old, something new ...

Something old - yew tree, at least 900 years old, planted in Beltingham graveyard, believed to ward off evil spirits. New growth seen on a walk at Allen Banks, which is said to be a good spot for seeing lots of bluebells. I'll put it in the diary!

Variations on a theme

Two altered images from the rose petal photo - one of these two will be printed onto fabric and stitched (at least that's the intention!). Don't know which I prefer. Hmm ...

New rose

Rose

Seems to be a bit of a flower theme at the moment - here's one I took using my new tripod. I took the coward's way out and used it indoors first!