Feline Friday - Cat Videos...

Have been amusing myself with trying to capture the different characters of the cats on little videos. So the short version is:
Pepper loves the camera
Ralph is an imp
Charlie is, well, just Charlie ;-)

Monday Morning...

I haven't actually taken any photos over the weekend - I've been too depressed at the stupidity of our country.  This morning I finally managed to pick up my camera - nothing too complicated or technical but at least I managed to find the will to point it at something and press the shutter button!

Ralph is worried in case the referendum result means he gets sent back over the fence where he came from. 

Pepper is meditating for love, peace and togetherness in our country...

Charlie sees this as a great opportunity to become PM.

I thought it was about time I got out my macro lens again...

My Photo Sunday...

I was meant to be shooting some portraits today but my model had to reschedule, so as I was at a loose end I decided to shoot some still life images. I'm still fascinated by the concept of wabi sabi so decided to incorporate the roses from last weeks shoot in the garden, which were on their last legs to say the least. As Leonard Koren puts it: "Wabi sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete, the antithesis of our classical Western notion of beauty as something perfect, enduring, and monumental".

Speaking of impermanence - Ralph was given a collar with a bell yesterday morning because he brought a female blackbird into the house (unhurt) and let it go in the living room before he then disappeared upstairs to bed. Perhaps he thought it wanted its photo taking?!? The collar lasted less than twelve hours before it was found, sans Ralph, in the garden. He's incorrigible...cute, but incorrigible.

And We're Back!

Helloo, helloo!  Well my indecision was final - after closing this blog down a year ago and trying out Wordpress (can't say I was impressed), I've decided to reopen Words Words Words renamed as The Happy Pumpkin. No particular reason for that name other than that I like pumpkins and I'd rather see a happy one than one drowning in self-pity and misery, and Words Words Words just didn't seem right for a blog so heavily biased towards photography!

So what's new? Well I'm working part time as a photographer, and part time for PetPals who are a pet sitting/dog walking company.  I love my job (well the majority of the time I love it, every job has its days...); I get to go out and play with pooches, then come back to my kitties and be grateful for how quiet and calm they are (usually).

So talking of cats, let us waste no further time before posting some pics:

Pepper: Yes my beautiful little Buddhist is still as fabulous.

It was her 17th birthday on Sunday - she celebrated by lying

around on tulle with some artificial flowers.

Charlie: Charlie is getting on in years now - still irascible,  still a diabetic, 

and still moaning about Ralph.  He has become something

of a lap cat in his old age - although I'm not supposed

to mention that so as not to ruin his 'hard cat' image.

Sorry Charlie ;-)

Ralph: Ahh Ralphie, well he is a total love bug.

He's funny, cuddly, a bit naughty but just

so gorgeous it's untrue.

Photography tip: When shooting portraits of pets or people, always, ALWAYS, focus on the eyes.  This is especially important when using wide apertures as you will only have a narrow depth of field to play with, so it's important to get the focus spot on.

You can view my professional photography websites at www.barbarajacksonphotography.co.uk and www.happypetsphotography.com

Mrs P...

Such a sad day yesterday.  I had to say goodbye to my dearest, sweetest girl Mrs P.  We had eighteen years of friendship (she was at least 20 years old), but she was struggling so much the last week or two that I thought it only fair to let her go whilst she still had some quality of life and dignity.  She loved everybody and was quietly confident (ok, she was insistent) that the affection was returned, which it always was.  She accepted all other cats on friendly terms although never allowed them to take liberties with her food or blanket.  She liked to chat to people, wriggling her paws at them at the same time, and always had an opinion on everything.  She was always there for me and I miss her so much.

Pooch Shoot!

Yesterday I met three bouncy dogs to take some pics of them, it was a bit manic but my camera loves a challenge.  What was funny was how the two Maine Coone cats that live with them came along and completely stole the show by posing in strategically lit places.  Got to love cats…

Matt Edit How To...

I thought it was time I did something constructive and posted a quick 'how-to'.  You see a lot of images with a matt edit on them - some people love them, some hate them.  I think it looks great on the right image.  Like most edits it's very quick and easy to achieve in LightRoom - so here goes.

So here's my original image of Pepper being a diva under a blanket,

and this is how the histogram looks.

NB You don't have to take any notice

of your histogram if you don't want to, I'm only

showing it to illustrate what I'm doing and why.

What we want to do is lessen the contrast and squash the tones together toward the centre of the histogram.

So here's the first edit. 

 On the Tone Curve in RGB mode I've brought the shadow point up (left side) 

and the highlight down (right side).  

Note what it's done to the histogram.

I used the contrast slider to add slightly more contrast than I had...

 The Tone Curve is great for working with different

colour channels too.  I wanted a more 'vintage' feel to the image so

I used the Red channel and took

the shadows very slightly up and the highlights down.

I then used the same technique with the Blue.

To show you can play around with the Tone Curve

to get the effect that best suits your image and the effect you want,

here I've taken the original photo and moved only the

shadows pointer, but also brought the curve down slightly.

The whole thing is now 'punchier' with brighter light tones. 

Here's the same image with the saturation

slider taken right down to the light.

I think the matt effect particularly 

suits black and white.

So play around with it and have fun.

10/365... 'Life's but a walking shadow...'

Pepper has a moment of

nihilistic angst in the hall...

9/365...

Ralph learns about the mysterious and ever elusive red dot...

8/365...

Ralph was being a little bugger again this morning, he annoyed Charlie, accidentally slashed my finger, killed the rug, stole some food, and jumped around on the stairs - and that was all before 7am :-)

4/365...

Ralph is mainly being bored today because it's raining, he has ABSOLUTELY NO TOYS that he wants to play with (!), and the other cats are asleep.  It's a recipe for potential mayhem.

You Know You're Mad When...

You agree to attempt a 365 photo challenge on Flickr...

I Have a New Toy...

New month - new camera... a full frame Canon 6D is now in my grubby little hands and I'm having great fun experimenting with it.  These were a few of the test shots I took yesterday.  Its ability to focus in low light has me stunned - and even at a high ISO there's little noise. Wonderful!