Bird Silhouette

It’s Sunday as I write this post and, some of you know  I try to take my week’s photos and post my blogs on a Sunday.  I’m going to keep going with the 5 posts until the end of the year and then, next year I think it’s time for me to concentrate on quality, rather than quantity. So, from next year I’m going to reduce down to at least one post per week, but, better posts.  I don’t have much interest in taking photos of nature and landscapes, my interest lies in creating photos and capturing what the eye can’t normally see, i.e. high speed photography, macro photography, light painting etc… Any suggestions, themes, tips etc… are very welcome either via comment or email (greysqrl@gmail.com) and I would sure be grateful for them from photographers and non-photographers alike. Anything from anyone

This week I’ve not taken any photos. Boo Regretfully I didn’t get to take any photos at the amazing Legoland Fireworks show last night but, it was stunning, as always. If you did see some fireworks, I hope you enjoyed them. This week I’ve taken some of my favourite monochrome images from my secret (ever decreasing) stash.

I like this one purely and simply because it’s a cool photo of a bird having a good scratch. The original was a little dark, so, I made it darker to turn the bird into a silhouette, and then changed it to monochrome. If all else fails, monochrome improves

The Curve

When I go to Legoland, I never take my SLR. When I’m there, my reason for being there is purely and simply to have fun with the kids, so, I don’t want the distraction of the SLR. Generally I don’t have a camera but, I knew I needed to get photos for this week’s blogs so I took my pocket sized Canon IXUS 120. Whilst waiting for Elliot and Joshua to come past on the Duplo train, I thought this photo of the train tracks might make an interesting picture.

Sharp

During our forest walk, Elliot and I went looking for conkers so that I could reshoot my sharp and smooth photo. The conkers aren’t quite ready yet though but the shells are fine for clicking.

DS317 – Plug

This is strange one. I looked at last week’s daily shoot themes and picked out a few. Strangely, on Friday, a guy at work discovered my friend’s iPhone plug and was amazed by it. I figured, that fits well for this theme and tried to get it. I’m a firm believer that mundane objects can be made to look beautiful, although, to be fair, the iPhone plug strangely does that job very well on its own. I really like this photo, I think it turned out well, although, if I’d cleaned the plug first, I think it would have turned out better. Oh well..

Go into the Light

I’m totally whacked this week, work has been not stop for 4 weeks and my brain is fried. I tried to get some new photos but, it wasn’t working for me. I did get a couple of new photos but it looks like Thursday and Friday will see me dipping into my buffer pile. Hopefully next week I’ll be full of ideas!

So, you’re looking at the photo below and thinking, ‘he just reposted what he had last week’. Not true, but, pretty close. This is ‘that’ staircase from below. Right at the bottom of the stair case is a locked wine cellar and not much else. It’s also a little spooky down there.

Forgot to add the photo! Big thanks to herby for the comment!

Abandoned

Actually, I’m not sure if this building is abandoned, but, it looked to me as though it was. I loved the way the sun was bathing it in light from one side creating a great light at the top right and strong darkness at the bottom left. Last day of the month, last black and white photo.

The Door

In the part of Lviv in which we stayed, a few minutes walk from the grandness of The Citadel Inn there were lots of buildings that looked to be abandoned. It’s quite sad really. Lviv is the cultural capital of Ukraine, yet, the airport consists of a few small rooms. It’s very small and not really built for carrying huge amounts of passengers.  So, when you find out that it is due to host Euro 2012 (football) you should realise that that will result in massive development. A lot of Western companies are finding the skills and costs of Ukraine quite attractive but, over the next few years, as the skills quickly increase, the costs will as well and soon, Ukraine will become a much wealthier nation I believe. Sadly, I fear that the cultural values which I saw on display will start to become eroded.

Stairs to Nowhere

The Citadel Inn has lots of winding staircases. This was my favourite one… lots of lines to follow.

The Window

I’m now back in the UK. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ukraine, but I figured it’d be cold. I was wrong, it was beautifully warm and sunny. The people were good to us, the food was great, in the place we stayed the service was fantastic and, the only downer.. I never took my SLR. So, this week’s photos are all from Ukraine and all taken with my Canon IXUS 120IS. A black and white week, this week. I stayed in a place in Lviv,  called the Citadel Inn. The place used to be used by the military but has now been converted. At night, it can be a bit creepy but, it’s good for photos.

c5 – Rectangles – Keys

Here’s one of my submissions for this week’s collective 5 theme. Not really much to say about this, it’s piano (or keyboard in this case) keys. Hmmm, what can I tell you? It’s a few of the keys from my beloved keyboard. I love music, started learning the violin at aged 4, reached grade 8, completed 5 grades on the piano and, if I had the guts (and wanted to be humiliated), I’d get up there and audition for the X Factor as a singer. (If you’re American or Canadian and don’t know what that is… you will next year!).