More of the Holly leaf.

I had some time to do further shots of the skeleton holly leaf this morning. It was a bit of an exercise in light and lens choice.

Holly Skeleton

Monday Morning

Weather has turned cloudy so just a little time to play indoors this morning.

Sunday Sunshine

Indian Summer

We have been having a bit of an Indian Summer this year and today was another day of almost unbroken sunshine. I managed a trip down to the canal basin in Gravesend then a run out to Northfleet. I saw that the demolition of the old Blue Circle plant has started. As I was thinking of doing a 36 Things with the two chimneys of the plant I had better get a move on !

Loch Rannoch

This summer we spent our holiday in Scotland. As it was the wettest summer for years I did not manage to get as much shooting done as I had hoped.

I did manage a few images that I was happy with so I will post them as entries when time is tight.

Smoke and Metal

Just a few images revisiting some themes from earlier in  the month.

Some sections from my bit of bent metal, and seeing how two joss sticks went together.

Letting go of Old Friends.

I am sure I have said this before but the time has now come to start saying good-bye to some old friends.

We have been together for almost a quarter of a century. Been through all sorts of scrapes together. Shared some bad times and some amazing times, seen things that many people will never have the chance to see. Both of us have come out the other side looking slightly older and with more character, also we are both functioning almost as well as we did 'back in the day'

click on 'Read More'  to meet my old friend.

Banks of the Medway

It is several years since I had a walk down to the Medway near Wouldham, So this morning as the sun was out I had a visit. Got a couple of shots a and scouted out some other locations for  later.

Dew and Water drops

A few quick shots in the garden this afternoon. the dew supplied by a misting hose. The water drop on the leaf is glycerin, it last longer and is easier to put in place.

Holly Leaf

Tidy Up

Every year or so I like to give my desk a good clean up. With all the computer kit I have running, the desk becomes a dust magnet. It is not an easy job as I can only just lift the monitors. This time I have rerun all the cables so I can switch of all non essential bits of kit each night, so all that will stay on are the phones, broadband and the radio network.

The desk is now very much tidier than it was, honest!

After I have finished the desk I will have to tidy the rest f the studio!

36 Things

I was trying to think of something different for a montage and came up with the idea of '36 Things'.

A montage of 36 images laid out in a 6x6 grid, all the images would be linked by a theme. The theme can be anything at all, colour, location, subject, time or whatever.

Also 36 seems to be a reasonable number. Fits in an A4 or A3 print and gives a reasonable size of image, it can be made landscape or portrait format. It also has a resonance back to the days of film with 36 images being the length of 35mm film that was sold.

Rusty Tops

A simple image from the found items from yesterday. The background is a little piece of slate that I found on the beach. Not very large but an interesting texture and it will be ideal for the macro images I am shooting at the moment.

Test Prints

I received back some test prints today. They were produce on an Epson 3800, and run with generic profiles, so in some ways can be taken as the worst case prints form this machine.

The results were fantastic, far better than I had been running from my own very geriatric printer. 

One set was printed on Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. This is a paper I know well as I have been using it for most of the printing I have produced over the past few years. It has a high gloss surface and looks very similar to a traditional gloss RC photographic paper. 

The second printed on Somerset Enhanced Textured paper. This looks like a water colour paper with quite a rough texture. The images printed on this have a better 'feel' than the gloss finish. 

I see that Epson have just announced the 3880 which is the next generation printer in this range. 

With the slightly improved ink set in the x880 printer range, a custom profile, and some experiment with colour space for my images.  I know I will see some fantastic prints from whatever printer I choose to buy.

Later

Dungeness Trip

Had a trip down to Dungeness to try and do some beach close ups. The weather did not clear out as forecast and the wind was so strong that everything was moving. That said I managed to get some images and some bits to play with back at the studio.