Thought I would start adding some images back in here when I do a series. One or two of my associates

Publish Post

from the Canon Fodder Forums are starting to do it, so I'll refresh the blog... :)

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Flickr Slideshow

Just thought it would be nice o see all my Flickr shots on here.

11788

11788 seems like a better name than "Eggs on a black plate in the kitchen"... lol...

Preston - why my City is famous...

Top ten things that made Preston famous

• The city is home to Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2 in Star Wars, lightweight boxer Paul Burke, Sir Tom Finney, the former England and Preston North End football player, cricketer Andrew Flintoff, ex footballer and commentator Mark Lawrenson and Nick Park, the Oscar-winning animator and creator of Wallace and Gromit.


• Richard Arkwright's Water Frame (invented in Preston) brought cotton mills to many northern English towns.


• St Walburge's Church designed by Joseph Hansom of Hansom Cab fame and which has, at 94 metres, the tallest spire in England on a church that is not a cathedral


• The Preston by-pass, opened 5 December 1958, became the first stretch of motorway in the UK and is now part of the M6 with a short section now forming part of the M55.


• Preston North End is one of the founder members of the Football League.


• The first Kentucky Fried outlet in the UK was opened on Fishergate in Preston.

• The parents of legendary American outlaw Butch Cassidy reportedly emigrated from Preston to escape religious persecution of their Mormon faith. It was said that, unlike Paul Newman's cinematic portrayal, Butch spoke with a thick Lancashire accent.

• Preston has the largest civilian cemetery in Europe.

• The town of 'Coketown' in Charles Dickens' book Hard Times is based on the city of Preston. In order to gain research for an 'industrial' novel, Dickens visited Preston in January 1854 during a strike by cotton workers that had by that stage lasted for 23 weeks.

• Benjamin Franklin (one of the founding fathers of the USA) apparently once owned a property on the site of a coffee bar on the corner of Cheapside and Friargate. A plaque on the wall of the building commemorates the spot.

2nd Place

I finally did OK in the photographic competition in my local camera club - acheiving second place in the Monochrome category with my photo of "The Guardian Trees" which you can see by clicking on the title in the text here highlighted in yellow. :)

It scored 9 marks out of 10 and I was chuffed to get my name read out!

All quiet

I haven't added very much here recently. I don't know why not - I just never seem to get around to it.

I thought I'd best mention though, I have a lot of new photographs on my Flickr page. You could go and have a look and leave a few (complimentary?) comments there if you have a spare few minutes..

Mothers Day Flowers

A posy from my daughter.



A rose from myself.



Flowers on Mothers Day.

For my wife, who I will always love.

Still Life

I was looking around the house for something to put in my new lightbox (£10 from Maplins) and found this balsa wood rose. I chose the subtle coloured one (there were 6 to choose from all told I think) and opted for this one. Frames and matte courtesy of "Bud's Frames" @ Action Central.

Macro photography

Using extensions tubes on your camera is the poor man's way of taking macro photographs. I did these 3 in the lightbox made at home (thanks BB for the link) using natural light and a reflector.

The top one is obviously a child's painting set with brush, the second is a set of toy dominoes, and below that is a syringe for giving medicine to kids who won't take it from a spoon (kindly supplied free with every bottle of Nurofen !) The first two were taken at f/9.0 to keep as much in focus as possible, the last was at f/2.0 to deliberatley blur out most of the subject, to pull the eye onto the 2.5ml measure line.

Enjoy.

Roman Ruins

Old ruins from Ancient Rome, at Ribchester Roman Museum. Not a large museum by any means, but nonetheless an interesting place. These were all dug locally from the area, on the outskirts of Preston.

"I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat !"

This is our cat. Looks soft enough but he is well capable of ripping an inch into your hand if he isn't in the mood to play... Which is usually the case...

As it happens, here, he is intently watching another cat looking to usurp his territory - i.e. his garden poohing spot and moments after this he was off to challenge.. He likes a scrap does our cat..

These are some of the images from our day trip into the Lake District at the weekend. The first is Shap Abbey, a ruin dating back to the 12th century, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. It was closed in 1540 by King Henry VIII.

The next two photographs are of Haweswater Reservoir (as is the last, but more of that later). I made one black and white to give a different feel, but it was a beautiful if maybe "over-sunny" day for taking photos and the setting was magnificent.

The fourth photo is of Ullswater, later in the day on the way home. By now I sensed a little bit of boredom from Gill & Rachel, but they said nothing. I think they were still enjoying the journey, but were sick of me stopping at various places to grab shots.

Anyway, on to the the last, and the other photo from Haweswater. It is actually four images all merged into one panoramic photograph. I moved the camera a little to the right for four consecutive shots and later used the Photomerge option in Photoshop. This is the one that really made the day for me. The colours are rich and vibrant and give a real sense of the beauty that is the Lake District at its best. My favourite of them all.

A Day in the Countryside

I took the car up towards a scenic part of the county and the camera loaded with clean CF cards, and me armed with enthusiasm. It is with thanks the world has supplied digital cameras to the masses, because depite thenumber of photos taken, few make it to the viewing area of most peoples albums, or indeed websites. So after having taken over 100 shots, I was left with maybe six or seven usable images. These are the ones that I processed once back home. Maybe spring is knocking at the door...

Still Life

One of my favourite "Still Life" photo's. I have even entered this in the February comp at the camera club.