It’s Been a While Since I’ve Posted …

… blame it on me being kinda cooped up.  I don’t really get out much; this damned bag attached to my belly makes it awkward and inconvenient, to say nothing of a little scary … the possibility of a rupture is always uppermost in my mind. I suppose I’ll get used to it, in time.

Anyway, I’ve been shooting a few shots here in the apartment, and these are the best of the lot.

The chiaroscuro of the lighting effects caught my attention one afternoon, and this is the result … upon examination, I thought “Perhaps a bit darker …”. This is the result:

 I rather liked it.

Another afternoon, and I noticed that someone across the court had put out some small plants on her window ledge, in brightly-coloured pots … here they are:

A little closer …

… and closer yet:

That’s about it, folks … thanks for your patience. Cheers, all!

 

We’ve had a cold snap …

… wind chill today is -5° F. I haven’t been out, so there weren’t too many opportunities to shoot pictures. Indeed, my windows were so frosted up that I literally couldn’t see through them. They were actually natural examples of what is called “frosted glass”; they looked like they could have been used for bathroom windows.

So, seeing that I couldn’t shoot through them, I decided to photograph the windows themselves. Getting the light just right for this kind of work is the tricky bit; it entails a deal of waiting, for something that might not happen at all.

Here are a couple, shot at the same time …

That window screen is not frozen into the frost, it’s actually a fraction of an inch away from it, towards the camera.

The next were the first I’ve taken and used a tint of colour to make them a little more interesting. First, the untinted versions:

And next, the shapes of the frost pattern suggesting a green tint:

A darker green, this time …

I thought the resemblance to an evergreen-covered mountainside was quite striking … couldn’t resist adding the colour.

The last one is just pretty straightforward … just a light blue tint:

Well, that’s what I’ve been doing these past days … it ain’t much, but it’s been a bit of fun for me. I hope you like ’em.

Cheers, all!

 

 

 

Well, we got some snow …

The afternoon and evening of December 4, we finally got a bit of Winter. Snowed for several hours, and actually began to build up on the branches of our flowering crabapple  trees in the court. It has been so long since we’ve actually seen snow, that I hung out by the window, fascinated at the sight, watching the fat flakes drifting down. We had dim light, as is usual in this weather, but there was enough light for me to get a few pictures this morning.

At first, I was interested in shooting though the moisture on my window, using it as a compositional element. Here are two, the first more-or-less straightforward:

And then I noticed that one of my neighbours had lit her lamp in her living room window, and I thought that it might enhance the photograph, so I shot it. It looked rather nice, I thought … here it is:

Strictly by-the-bye, it’s interesting how that spot of warm light forces the colour rendering of the rest of the photograph towards the blue.

After that, I thought I might hazard a shot through the window screen … it turned out rather well … here it is:

And there they are … not bad, I think, considering the conditions.  I hope you enjoy them; I certainly enjoyed shooting them.

Take care, folks … Cheers!

 

 

Another batch of greenery … This is getting to be a habit.

I reckon it’s not as bad as one could surmise; the fact is that the endless variety of ways the light plays on these plants, which are ever-changing, as well as the light, albeit more slowly (naturally; they’re living things, after all, and constantly growing), makes them constantly attention-getting. A quick shot now, another couple later on, then a day or so later and something changes, and demands more shots … it’s endless, and I wind up with many files full of plant pictures.

Well, there’s nothing for it but to put them up for the enjoyment (and perhaps boredom) of my friends on the ‘Net, to say nothing of expressing something (I hardly know what) of my own thoughts and moods … So, here they are:

 And now, just to relieve the boredom, a couple of shots of the bowl of apples on my living room cabinet … the pears are gone (they don’t last all that well), but the apples are still here. These are in different light; not much different, but I can’t decide which I like best …

And that’s the lot … we’re all caught up; there’s nothing more in the files. It’s been a rather closed-in sort of season, and not conducive to roaming about with the camera. Also, not to make a thing of it, but the surgery which left me with a bag on my belly has not behaved itself as well as I’d like, and I’ve got to go in for repairs … trying to do too much, I reckon, and it has gotten pulled and strained from it … I’ll have to be more careful about how I tackle my tasks, in future.

Be that as it may, the photos are actually pretty good, I think … I’d welcome some feedback. I hope you enjoy them … Cheers, all!

 

OK … more Moons … an idée fixe?

Here are some more shots of the moon … it looks as though I’ve been shooting  these for rather longer than I’ve realized. It’s kinda surprising. I think it might be caused by the fact that the little Oly is the first camera I’ve ever had that gave ne a chance at a good-sized image instead of a little dot of light in the frame. It was the idée fixe, if anything was … or is.

Anyway, here are the rest of them … enjoy!

That’s about it, folks … there aren’t any more, I promise!

Take care, and Cheers!

 

A Lot of Moon-Talk, Lately …

The recent fuss over the “supermoon” Made me think of some of my old moon shots … I haven’t taken many since acquiring the Nikon, because, frankly, the Nikon isn’t as good at it as my older Olympus Ultra-zoom, which can zoom out to 504 mm. A 500 mm prime lens would cost me a bloody fortune, while the little Oly “compact” only cost me a couple of hundred bucks. I still use it, but not as often, now that I’ve got the Nikon. 

Anyway, that 504 mm lens was absolutely the greatest for moon-shots. Here are a few, gathered from my files:

I seem to have put up quite a few, haven’t I? I’d better quit, at least for now.

Take care, folks, and Cheers! 

 

A Quick Still Life of Little Consequence …

On my last month’s foray to WalMart, my cousin presented me with a small sack of fruit, “just because”, as she said, consisting of apples and a few pears. After dodging around them in my kitchen for a few days, I bethought me of the still life possibilities, so I opened the sack and took them out (they were a touch past their prime), arranging them, ex tempore, as it were, on the top of a shallow cabinet that my wife likes to line up photos on, leaning them against the wall. I took a few frames … this one’s the best.

There are some little figurines that I elected to leave more-or-less in place, figuring they made a nice addition to the composition; a touch of variety, so to speak. They’re odd little things, stamped “made in occupied Japan”, and I understand they are considered valuable. Any road, they seem to add a bit of something to the picture … I’m glad I left ’em in.

Anyway, here it is … a nice departure from my usual subjects … enjoy!

Cheers, all!

 

Some Autumn Colours, Posted on a “Dreich” day, as the Scots would say

Had a rather disappointing day this last weekend … we were slated to go to a local attraction, called “Holy Hill” … a very large basilica, administered by a group of Carmelite friars … it is in the middle of the kettle region of southern Wisconsin, on the peak of a conical kame (a glacial remnant of the Ice Age), in thickly wooded country. We were expecting Fall colours galore, and freedom to move about in order to take pictures.

Well, our hopes evaporated when we found ourselves practically shoulder to shoulder with large numbers of tourists, unable to move about with any degree of ease, and the leaf colours hardly in evidence, probably due to the unseasonably warm weather.

So, I am putting up a few shots of some trees in Autumn finery from right around home, taken the day before our weekend jaunt. Not many, but it’s something, at least … especially on this “dreich” day … cold, rainy, windy, and raw … that is to say, “dreich” as the Scots would say. Living where they do, in the North of the British Isles, and in the midst of a cold sea. So, here they are:

This tree amused me, turning colour in patches.

And that’s about it, folks … sorry there aren’t more, but I was anticipating the trip and the pictures resulting from that.

Cheers, all!

 

A Belated Answer …

Some time ago, last Spring, to be precise, I published a post of the blossoms on the flowering crabtrees outside my windows in the courtyard. In response to the questions from some of you  as to what would be the result of these blossoms, i.e., what fruit would develop from them?

This post is an attempt to answer that question; the only added ingredients being time,  sunlight, and rainwater. These pics are of the resulting fruit, i.e., crabapples. They are the “parents”, as I understand it (don’t put too much credence in the extent of my botanical knowledge, here), of all the marvelous varieties of apples that we find in our markets today. These, however, are basically inedible, being very small (none of these are bigger than ¾ of an inch, and most much smaller than that) and extremely tart and astringent … real mouth-puckerers … requiring large amounts of sugar to even make a decent jelly.

So, here they are … I hope this has been sufficient explanation:

And there they are, folks … not too many, but frankly, that many shots with the camera pointing up at a branch against a featureless blue sky ain’t all that exciting … and the mild stroke I suffered in Hospital last year kinda makes me a little dizzy, like … looking up like that … so I didn’t shoot all that many. Anyhow, these will do, I hope.

Cheers, all … and enjoy!

 

 

A few plants …

Since I’m becoming more interested in photographing the interior of my apartment, I thought it might be interesting to show a few of the plants I have growing ’round my livingroom window. I like plants, and they seem to like me … they call me when there’s some need that’s not being met, and they thank me for my attention to them.

I know that sounds rather daft, but there it is … I believe all sorts of rather queer things, indeed, and I’m fairly open about them.

Being virtually in the window, they present some contrast problems, and they are excellent subjects for playing with the light. That said, there’s nowt to do now but show them …

There they go, a massive quietness, not perceptible here, seems to accompany them. I like to just go near them, and bask in the peace that they seem to radiate. I hope you can sense it, too … enjoy!