Category: Uncategorized

Today’s photo was again taken at lunchtime. It’s of another tree, in complete contrast with yesterday’s photo though it’s not bleak!

I love the sky behind the photo, and I just thought it was interesting the way the tree was bare even though it’s not yet winter (not by a long way).

I also took another close-up, a leaf photo which I thought came out quite well. Our camera does seem to have a decent macro mode on it. It seems to do distances fairly well too. Unfortunately I haven’t quite worked out how to do mid-range kind of things just yet!

If I do end up getting a new camera that will at least – hopefully – give me a few more options in that regard!

Today’s photo is a bit bleak I’m afraid! It was taken in the middle of a sort of area of scrubland, there was just a single tree standing up in the middle of some nettles and the like. I thought it made quite a good photo, but I must admit – I don’t like the stark kind of photos quite so much!

I like a bit of warmth, me. Anyway. Not much else to report today, so I’ll just leave it there!

Today’s photo was taken in the woods near to my workplace. It’s a wild mushroom, there seem to be a fair few of them around at the moment!

I have no idea what kind of mushroom it is, but I’m guessing it’s probably one of the ones it’s not safe to eat.

Anyway, I should probably fill in the detail about the rest of the weekend! Not much to say really. On Friday evening we had 21, the first one back of the new term! All the kids were pretty lively but seemed to enjoy it.

On Saturday we spent most of the day round at my parents, as I mentioned. In the evening we just chilled and watched some TV. On Sunday we went to Fordham in the morning, and then in the evening we were out at Sunday@6. Anyway, that’s pretty much our weekend… not very exciting!

Today’s picture was taken before church this morning. Phil and I usually arrive at church early as she is usually playing and I am sometimes doing PA. This morning I wasn’t doing anything so I wandered out and took a couple of photos. It was a really stunning morning, a really crisp late summer / autumn day! It virtually was a summer’s day actually – it was very warm when we got out of church, we actually went to the pub with a few people from church and had a nice chat before lunch.

The other thing I wanted to mention was – in our trip to see my parents yesterday, I was clearing out some of my old stuff (as I think I mentioned). I found an old diary of mine, which I kept for a short time while I was going off to uni. I’m not really a diary kind of person – this blog is about the closest I get to a diary! That said, I did keep a diary starting about a week before going to uni and finishing a couple of months in. It’s very interesting reading, even if most of the entries are about staying up ridiculously late (how I managed it I don’t know) and not having very much to do (ah, to be a student again…) Here’s a sample from Friday 19th October, 2001: “The lab this morning was a bit pointless… 20 minutes worth of tasks, 1:40 spent trying to make it look like I was doing something. Playing Java games IS educational!”

As you can see, nothing much has changed. Still, it’s making me feel quite nostalgic, which probably isn’t a good thing but I’m doing it anyway and there’s nothing you can do about it :p

Apologies for another garden related photo! Again, we haven’t had lots of time today. I could take photos inside in the evenings but I’m trying to reserve that for the winter when there won’t be so much opportunity to take outdoor photos!

This is a photo at my parents’ house, which won’t be their house for much longer! They’re moving into a new house, which we saw today. It will be the first time they’ve lived in a house without me living there at some point, i.e. my room will no longer exist! Still, c’est la vie – to be honest, it didn’t really exist much at the last house they lived in, as they moved there shortly after I went to university (as in, about two weeks after I went to university. They didn’t hang about).

So I spent some time sorting out the old stuff of mine – most of which can be thrown away or sent to the charity shop. I now just have a whole big pile of records I need to deal with, I still haven’t decided what I want to do with them! I think I might see what I can do about eBaying them or something like that. I don’t particularly want to get rid of them, but to be honest they’re just going to be taking up space and I unfortunately don’t think I’m going to be using them much 🙁

I had very little time today so this is the best I could do: a picture of a flower from our back garden!

It’s a beautiful little flower which is apparently called “London Pride”.

I know I’ve done a few of these recently, but … well, what can I say?

I’ve also been having thoughts regarding the possibility of a digital SLR. I’ve been saving up some money recently, mainly for the purpose of getting a new guitar amp so that I can use it at church. The problem is, I’m not really playing the guitar much at church these days – I’m usually playing piano. So that means it might be a bit of a waste of money at the current time. So the money might be better spent at the moment on upgrading the camera a bit… I’ve been thinking about an SLR for a while, and my thoughts were particularly put in that direction by this round up of budget SLRs on Reg Hardware.

I don’t know whether I’ll actually get one as yet, but I think it would be a good investment. Anyway, we shall see!

Today’s picture includes a waterfall and a lock, but unfortunately you might have to squint a bit to see them. Unfortunately there isn’t really a good angle to take pictures of them both, unless you go out on a boat in the middle of the river. If you follow the link through and look at my photostream you will see some other pictures of both though.

It was another beautiful day today, quite unlike the greyness of yesterday! Although strangely it did start raining this afternoon. Weird weather at the moment. Anyway, there you have it. I’ll see if I can manage some better pictures of them at some point!

The photo today is of an unfinished road. There are a few of these on the business park I work on. I just think there’s something strangely poignant about them, I don’t really know why! But this, coupled with the grey sky, represents pretty well the way I’ve felt in my life at times before… well, even recently.

Still, I guess photography is about capturing the good things as well as the bad things, so I hope that’s not too depressing! It’s also quite difficult to capture decent outdoor shots with the light like it is today – i.e. grey and drab. Quite how I’ll manage during the winter when we have lots of days like that I don’t know. Still, nature in winter has quite a stark beauty to it so perhaps that will be the case.

I also want to try and capture some night shots – maybe I should invest in a tripod!

Oh, and I just wanted to say, I’ve been doing this now for two weeks! Only another 50 more weeks to go…

I’ve written a new article which is now available on Crossring.

It’s based on Mark 9:33-50 and is part of the second “Mark Marathon”.

Unfortunately this term I won’t have time to do more articles for Crossring (I’m preaching twice, as well as doing three youth group talks this term!) but still, at least I’ve had the chance to do one 🙂

Today’s photo is, once again, taken at lunchtime. Except it doesn’t involve water! I think the field in the picture had been ploughed recently – either way it looks a lot browner than it has done recently. (Might be something to do with the rain as well, I’m not sure).

I’m still trying to learn with the camera to get the best possible shots, but I think I’ve got a heck of a long way to go! This one was taken with the “landscape” preset, which actually seems to have worked pretty well.

I love the sky in this picture, and the contrast between the brown earth and the blue sky.

Anyway, I’m off to see if I can find any good tips on photography. All for now…

Edit: I’ve updated the photo a bit – it’s still the same photo, but just cropped a little. I think it works better as a cropped photo. Let me know what you think 🙂