Via Flickr:
Daily Shoot assignment: "Make a photograph today that features the use of low contrast to create a mood or feeling"
It’s the time of year where blackberries are coming! There are a few ripe ones around but most of them are still red.
I alway think a shot like this conveys a peaceful sense actually, it’s just easy on the eye and doesn’t grate at all. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me!
Via Flickr:
Daily Shoot assignment: "Make a photo of a stair or ramp that you see today"
Not far from my workplace some kids have made a little skateboard park out of a variety of old bits and pieces. This is a little ramp they’ve made on a hill.
It’s now that mysterious time of the year known as “summer”, which in England generally means it pours with rain and everyone moans how it’s supposed to be sunny and we all have a jolly good laugh about it. Well… suffice it to say that it isn’t sunny. But it does also mean that 21 is now finished for the summer, as I mentioned last week, and in general we have a bit more free time!
So, on Friday evening we went down to Wivenhoe for dinner at the Bengal Spice. As we hadn’t done anything to celebrate our anniversary three weeks earlier, we thought it might be nice to take the opportunity. So we did, and it was good – a very nice meal, as always at the Bengal Spice – although it has been some time since we last went there. I don’t know how long it’s been, it feels like ages.
Afterwards we came back and watched “Blue Valentine”, which was a good film – well written and directed – although quite sad, and in general I don’t think I’d like to watch it again.
On Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning, as it was raining we didn’t do much in the afternoon – I spent the afternoon working on a program which I’ll talk more about in a future blog post. In the evening Anne-Marie and Sarah came round and we had pizza and generally chatted for the evening. It was really nice evening!
On Sunday I went to church in the morning (Phil stayed at home as she was tired from having had so much to do recently – it’s been pretty hectic for her at work). After that I came home for lunch, and then chilled for a bit. In the evening we went to Sunday@6, and then came back and watched Top Gear. It was another good one this week – I think they’ve managed to keep the silliness down slightly to more manageable levels. I did get a bit worried a couple of years ago about the formulaic nature of the show. Although I still feel like the show is somewhat formulaic, I really enjoyed the “cars on rail” segment.
Right, that’s enough for the time being….
Via Flickr:
Daily Shoot assignment: "Craft a photo using strong contrast between very light and very dark areas."
This is a photo of the two valves in my Peavey Valve King 112 guitar amp. I think they look really cool in the dark, although I don’t think I’ve quite managed to do justice to it.
Via Flickr:
Daily Shoot assignment: "Make a photo of something that sparkles in some way"
Sadly the sparkling doesn’t really come out so well in this picture. If it had been more sunny, the water droplets would have sparkled and it would have been beautiful! But as it is I think the photo didn’t come out too badly so not a complete loss 🙂
Via Flickr:
This is similar to the shot I did on day 35 of my project 365 challenge, although I think this is a better photo!
I quite like the symmetry of taking two photos at either end of the project – that’s what it’s all about, improving at photography and getting more creative.
Daily Shoot assignment: “Make a photograph dominated by the color blue”
This is on a local field, not exactly sure what it is!
Something I seem to be seeing more of recently is Skepticism: these days it seems fashionable to call oneself a ‘skeptic’. (I’m using a ‘k’ rather than a ‘c’ just because I can. I don’t think either one is more correct than the other, although I’m open to corrections…) Recently, the StackExchange network launched a Q&A website especially for skeptics. This is a quote about what the site is all about, from their FAQ:
It’s really easy to fool people, and it’s really easy to fool yourself, and if you use these skeptical ideas, you find out what the truth is. The whole idea of skepticism and science is to find out what’s most likely to be true, and what’s most likely not to be true.
That’s the goal: to not fool ourselves, and that’s where the real power of skepticism is. That’s why it bugs me when people think it’s a negative thing — it’s not! It’s the most positive thing we have. It is the search for the real, objective truth.
Now that all seems fair enough, doesn’t it? I get fed up of newspapers like the Daily Mail regularly printing stories which take scientific reports out of context and use them to ‘prove’ things they really shouldn’t. I also applaud the efforts of the site (and others such as Snopes) to debunk various commonly-held (or even less commonly-held) myths or popular beliefs.
It’s been a bit of a busy old weekend once again! On Friday night we had our last ever 21. (Well, the last for the foreseeable future at least). It was a social, we just played games and had some food… in general it was a good evening! We’ll definitely miss all the 21ers, although I will enjoy having my Friday evenings back. Also, I don’t think either Phil or I really feel like youth work is our forte, we both find it quite stressful (well… not really stressful, but it’s not easy for us) so it will be good for a while not to have to worry about it.
Anyway. After 21 we headed down to the pub with AJ and Jen and Lawrence and had a nice chat with them!
On the Saturday we basically spent the entire day at Laura and Pete’s wedding. The wedding itself was great! Mike led really well, and I think Christopher Ash gave a fantastic address. The music went well too – I was playing guitar, and Phil was playing clarinet. Despite the fact that we didn’t have much time to rehearse, they were all fairly well-known songs and the congregation knew them so we didn’t have any problems 🙂
The reception went well too, we had some time to catch up with James and Tash and also had a nice chat with some of the other people on our table. The barn dance in the evening was good too although I didn’t do much dancing – they took a fair old while to get themselves set up, and that didn’t really leave loads of time for dancing.
After Laura and Pete left it was time to clear up: because the wedding and reception had all been at Fordham, it was down to a team of volunteers (which Phil was organising) to clear up. It didn’t take all that long actually, by the end of it you wouldn’t have known there was a wedding reception there!
We were a little bit disappointed with the caterers though. Although the food was good, they didn’t exactly leave the kitchen in a brilliant state (there was some plastic stuff burnt onto one of the hobs which had to be scraped off). And it generally wasn’t quite as clean as you would expect. Also, they refused to wash up any glasses that weren’t theirs (some had been hired from Sainsbury’s). They also didn’t dispose of any of the bottles (which they had sold), leaving them all for the venue to clear up. Now, I can understand the not washing up thing, but the other two things particularly I was a bit disappointed with. (Apparently they also asked for all the money up front, which I think is unusual). I don’t know the name of the company but if you’re having a wedding in the Colchester area and want to know how to maybe avoid, leave a comment and I will find out.
So, after all the clearing up we finally got home at about 12:45AM. We were up again bright and early for the morning service the next day, stopping off on the way to drop off the champagne bottles at the bottle bank. After the service we came back home for lunch and just crashed out a bit for the afternoon! Then went out again for Sunday@6, then back home to watch Top Gear and do some ironing.
All in all, despite it being a busy weekend it was a good weekend. And we’ve got much less to do this week! That’s about it from me for now…
Via Flickr:
Daily Shoot assignment: "Make a photo from ground level"
Well I have no idea what this is, but it’s at ground level. Unfortunately you can’t really see the ground very well so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
