Scavenger Hunt Sunday...

Water...

Went for a photo walk this morning

in Bradgate Park.

Cold and very sunny, beautiful

to look at but the lighting conditions 

were 'challenging'.

Empty...

Bird cage (strictly for decoration),

it's meant to hold a tea light :O)

Fresh...

Fresh flowers
(Also linking this one to
52 Photos Project.
The theme this week is Tangerine).

Weathered...

Very weathered Old John (a Folly) and rocks

in Bradgate Park.

Ordinary...

Just an ordinary day

with my two extraordinary

guys...

Cats on Tuesday...

In which Charlie and Pepper lurk in the garden after the snow...

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Not been too inspired by the Scavenger Hunt of late - but as I'm bored and can't get out with my camera because of the snow I thought I might as well have a go!

Asian...

One from the archives.

Wavy...

Wavy (and snowy) landscape at 

Bradgate Park on Friday.

Draw...

Well I used the Sketch filter in Elements.

Another from Bradgate Park.

Soft...

Softened and given a bit of a glow

in Lightroom 4.

Soft #2

Some soft twiggy things

and a very soft focus church

in the background.

Texture...

Wood, stone, metal,

glass. I think that's pretty 

much got texture covered :O)

Texture #2

Another bit of stony texture,

this is Cropston Reservoir.

A Bit of Magic... :O)

Decided to do a little bit of magic yesterday and make my friend Helen levitate :O)

Me with my magic kit...

(ok I admit it, the magic kit

actually consisted of a Canon 7D, tripod,

chair, Lightroom, Elements, 

and friend willing to look silly in public).

She hovers beautifully doesn't she?
We got quite a few questions from passers-by

when we were doing this :O)

(That's my newest brolly by the way).

Some of them even wanted to join in...

Light...

Monday night saw me playing with tea lights, a small metal table, a mirror, and my 50mm lens... (it also  saw me trying to keep Pepper from jumping on said table and creating a whole new photo session, possibly involving emergency Vet treatment).

I took these using various apertures - f/1.8 gives beautiful bokeh.  Processed in LR4 - I boosted the clarity and the contrast, and because the colour was very orange, I went into the separate channels, lowering the reds and upping the greens to give more golden tones.

This shot linking to 52 Photos Project - Theme: Light.

And a few variotions...

The Week in Photos...

I've been making a concerted effort to get my camera out every day this week... so here we go.

Monday - I was in the garden with some tea lights,
trying to avoid getting a cat in a shot (ha!).

Tuesday - I was out on my bike before work.

Wednesday - I was forced to resort to me as a subject 

(cats obviously not co-operating - for a change)

Thursday - I bought a truly

fab umbrella on Wednesday, so of course

had to take some kind of pic of it.

Is that handle great or what?

Friday - I don't work on Fridays

so got to take my camera down to

Ambion Woods, plus we had fog!

Excellent!

Saturday - I tried some new tea

(Lavender Earl Grey - very nice).

And today - we have snow again! Am dragging on boots and woolly hat as we speak :O)

Out and About - again...

We made the most of the sunshine today and headed for Stratford upon Avon, as we walked along the River Avon an obliging swan swam over to have his photo taken.  I thought he was going to have a go at my wide-angle lens but he just growled at it!

I've downloaded the free trial version of LightRoom 4 and am enjoying playing with it at the moment - I never thought I'd desert my old version of LR, but I'm loving being able to do curve adjustments for different colour channels, plus LR4 has an amazing ability to rescue blown highlights (not that I ever GET blown highlights of course :O)), so I think I may be swayed.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Settings: 1/320, f7.1, ISO100, 10mm

Settings: 1/100, f7.1, ISO100, 10mm

Out and About...

Happy St David's Day everyone, or Happy 1st March if you're not Welsh or haven't got an inkling who or what St David was!

A cold, grey day today but there were some clouds posing nicely in the background when I took a pic of a tree... oh and we found a witch's hat on sale for 33p so immediately bought it and took its photo :O)