Quick update today. In the woods near where I work they’ve been clearing some of the trees. Most of the dead trees – not many, but a few – are just lying by the side of the path. I thought it made quite an interesting picture, the dead leaf surrounded by a background of live foliage, as it were!
That’s pretty much all from me today anyway…
One of the advantages of rain is that you get to take pictures like this. I love looking at things after the rain, how the droplets glisten! I really like this photo, I think the different levels of leaves works quite well.
Anyway, I said I’d do a quick weekend update. So, on Friday night, it was 21. I was doing the talk, we were watching the first 20 minutes of “Evan Almighty” and then I had to do a talk based on that. I think it went OK although it’s always difficult to tell.
On Saturday we did some shopping in the morning. Then in the afternoon we headed down to see Phil’s parents briefly, then out again to Julz’s birthday party. That was a fun evening, we were able to have a good old dance to some proper 90s classics!
On Sunday morning we went to two services (all age and Eight Ash Green), and then came back for lunch. In the afternoon we went round to see Jo and Evie for a while, which was lovely, and then came back home and had some dinner. After that we watched “Flash Gordon”, which we’d never seen before… it was hilarious! Highly recommend it for a very silly / tongue-in-cheek take on the whole 80s sci-fi kind of film. Brilliant.
And that brings us up to date! I did mention that I wanted to write something about Merlin. I’m not sure I’m enjoying the new series as much as I used to… it seems there’s something missing. I think part of the problem is that they’re running out of ideas a little bit, so in order to get the same kind of tension they’re having to put things in the script which shouldn’t really be there. Case in point: (if you haven’t seen it and don’t want it to be spoiled, this might be a good time to look away) – in the scene where Luthor banishes Gwain after having been attacked by the two imposters, why didn’t Merlin say anything at all? Why did Luthor not at least ask him, as he was apparently a witness? I don’t know, that scene really didn’t work for me, there were so many things that happened which I don’t think should have done. And that was kind of characteristic of the whole episode, and this series in general. They seem to be trying too hard.
Anyway, it’s still entertaining, but perhaps not as much as it was before!
There seems to have been a bit of a watery theme going on in my recent photos, which – as you can probably guess – is due to there being a lot of rain over the past few days! I quite like today’s photo, I think it kind of works although I don’t really know why.
Today we’ve been to church (twice) – although we didn’t go to Sunday@6 this evening. I’ll blog about the weekend in more detail some other time, I’m about to have my annual bath (now that’s humour!) and watch a film. Not at the same time, of course. I have a few things to say, I was going to mention Merlin but I can’t remember any of the other things now. Well, you’ll just have to wait. I’ll leave you in suspense….
Went back to St Botolph’s Priory today to get a few more pictures. It really is an impressive structure (or at least, remains of a structure) – it has some presence even though not much of it remains!
Unfortunately it wasn’t the best day to take photos, the sky was grey (never a good sign), and then there were quite a few people milling around. (I think a lot of people use it as a cut-through into town).
But I think this photo isn’t bad given the constraints I was working under!
Well it seems to have rained a lot today! Particularly this afternoon. I managed to get to the shops and back at lunchtime without getting wet, but not long after that it seemed the deluge started.
Anyway, this picture is of our table outside. You can see the reflection quite clearly in the water laying on top of it!
I was in a bit of a hurry otherwise I would have experimented a bit. Unfortunately being rained on is not very conducive to getting good outdoor shots! Still, c’est la vie…
Today’s photo is of a waterfall – the same waterfall which I have shot before. I was experimenting with longer shutter times, and I think this one worked quite well. Although I’m not too sure about the composition, it’s just a matter of learning at the moment!
I think it manages to capture the movement of the water anyway. I’ve also taken a picture with a fast shutter setting for comparison which you can also find on my photostream.
Afraid all that I’ve got time for today…
I’m afraid it’s a slightly depressing photo today. It seems that autumn is here! It’s been coming for a while, but the leaves have started falling and the trees have started turning brown. Not that I really mind – I think autumn can be one of the most beautiful seasons of the year. It’s just a bit depressing when you think that we now have several months of dark evenings and winter. Still, that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
Anyway, I don’t really have much else to say. So I’ll stop there. How’s that for a nice short blog post? 🙂
Today’s photo is of what I think is basically a weed, with the rest of the field in view (but out of focus) behind. I think it works quite well, but still.
I was reading my camera’s manual today, and I discovered something: what I’ve been trying to do a little bit recently is experiment with higher shutter settings – i.e. trying to capture some motion blur, that sort of thing. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to – for some reason the pictures always kept on coming out dark. Well, reading the manual today, it turns out that what I’ve actually been doing is *increasing* the shutter speed (i.e., making it faster)! This was because the number on the back of the camera looked to me like a millisecond value. I feel really stupid now, but being a programmer – everything time-wise is in milliseconds! Not in fractions of a second.
So, once I’d figured that out, it was pretty simple to capture one or two motion blur shots. You can see one of the results here, although I will admit that it’s not the most exciting shot ever. I’ll try and get some better ones soon, although unfortunately I think I might have missed the window for getting decent ones of the waterfall near me at work – once the wet weather sets in over the winter it gets too muddy to go down there. Maybe not though, we’ll see.
I also learned how to use the exposure compensation on the camera, i.e. if a shot is too bright / too dark, how to use the function built in to the camera to correct that. It actually seems to work pretty well. Although I haven’t uploaded it to Flickr, I took another photo of the tree (the same as the one in the black and white photo I took a couple of weeks ago), and it seemed to work: the tree was much more visible against the sky than it had been before. So, it definitely pays off to read the manual!
I feel like I’m beginning to get there in terms of knowing my way around the camera. Hopefully this will stand me in good stead if I ever do upgrade (by no means a certainty, but still).
… not my own, you will be pleased to know! It’s today’s photo. Well, I assume today’s photo is of a fungal infection. To be honest I’m not completely sure. It looked kind of like one to me, but then I’m not exactly sure what they look like. Interesting colours though.
Aaaanyway. I said I’d do a quick weekend round-up today. Well, here it is: Friday – 21 in the evening. They were pretty rowdy actually that night, probably the worst I’ve seen them. (Lucky for us that the worst the 21ers get just involves lots of talking and not paying attention, but still).
Saturday we met up with Stepheny – a friend from church – for lunch. In the evening AM and Sarah came round and we watched Merlin and spent the rest of the evening watching random stuff and chatting. On Sunday we went to St Anne’s in the morning as part of my observation placement. I spent the afternoon preparing for my talk at Sunday@6 in a few weeks time, and then we went to Sunday@6. After that we watched ‘Evan Almighty’, as I’m going to do a sort of talk on it at this week’s 21.
So, that was our weekend! Not too busy – just the way I like it.
Today’s photo is, admittedly, the same damn thing I did on Friday. Still, I think it actually worked a bit better, even if the photo didn’t quite come out as well as I’d hoped.
Anyway, as I’ve now been doing this project for more than a month (33 days now), I thought I’d do a very quick round-up of some of my favourite photos from the past month or so.
The first photo I edited slightly:
The first photo where I realised the power of cropping:
I don’t know why this one works, but I really like it somehow:
And finally, I love the sky in this photo:
Aaaanyway. Hope you’ve been enjoying looking at these photos as much as I’ve been enjoying taking them. Even if it’s inconvenient sometimes, it’s actually quite fun and forces me to get out and actually use the camera! – so much so that, as you will know if you read this blog, I’m considering upgrading.
I would now post up a round-up of what we’ve been doing for the past couple of days, but I think I’ll leave you in suspense a bit longer, I haven’t done a weekend style update for a while 😉