Candlelight

Cold and the short winter days have driven me inside where I can work comfortably close to the wood burner. Annette had some floral visitors, so I grabbed some low cost lighting (candles) and started to experiment:

Candles are a very weak light source so they have to be positioned close and the light drops off rapidly. It's this shallow 'depth of light' coupled with the warmth that gives candlelight its characteristic 'look'. The necessary long exposures (about 30 seconds) also tend to provide well saturated colours. 

I'm quite pleased with these first experiments and suspect the candles may come out a few more times during the winter.

It's all about INTENT

An inspirational TED talk by John Hockenberry:

Life on a snowball

After yesterday's large dump of snow, we awoke to a fine morning with the moon handing over lighting duty to the sun.

Venturing outside we found ourselves living on a giant snowball:

In a world that looked almost infra-red (at least to the camera):

I do love how snow makes even the familiar and mundane things look strangely alien.

Of course, few people seem to be working around here today as the roads are barely passable; that seems to have made the majority of people smile though there are a few 'grumpy's' around. Me, I'm a smilin'.

First snow of winter ...

Am I going out with the camera in this? No I am not! Shot through the kitchen window :-)

Guzzi and the cat

Guzzis have always made me smile, ever since one went flying past my office window. (The clutch cable broke, the front came up and dumped the rider before doing a riderless wheelie past the window :-) Anyway, I found this Guzzi on my morning walk today ...

... and a cat; watching me, watching you: