Other Stuff

Hopefully, this qualifies on both counts. The sauce is courtesy of the tomato ketchup, whilst the saucy looks come from the young lady in the newspaper cone.

What you might call a blood orange!

Some people say when they go shopping that time flies. If you go to Barkers in Northallerton, it literally does ... well almost!

Austin-Healey cars were produced from 1952 through until 1972, when the 20-year agreement between Healey and Austin came to an end marking the end of an era. This shot was chosen specifically with the challenge in mind. However, I've added a few from the autofantasia archives into the notes that might have made the grade had I elected to use an image I'd previously uploaded.

If you're lucky enough to find the magic mirror and you look closely you just might catch a glimpse of the Nerfuls! Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering, it is a photograph ... only the frame has been added in Paint Shop Pro. The rest was carefully staged ... hopefully it all works? The Nerfuls were a range of toys produced back in the Eighties by toy manufacturer Parker Brothers. Not sure how many individual characters there were, but I have 5 so who knows they might appear again in some forthcoming Sunday Challenge! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerful

So this week's challenge was Negative Space: with the emphasis on the color blue, but not sky . I must admit I struggled with it for a while, if only because I found so few settings that included blue (but not sky) without resorting to other perhaps equally obvious choices such as denim or blue doors. In the end I decided to create a scene where the background could be inverted so as to create negative space using a negative image. In this case that background is a gravel border that goes around our front lawn. I simply sat Mr Smiley in place, took the photo and then did some processing. That involved creating a duplicate layer which I then turned into a negative image and sat this over the original image before erasing the 'negative' Mr Smiley to reveal his more positive alter-ego. Some subtle tweaking of levels followed before I finished it off with a foggy dark border. So, job done, here you have Mr Smiley remaining positive in negative surroundings!

One that got away you might say, well almost. I created two versions of this for a recent Sunday Challenge entitled: Car Badge or Logo: Macro(ish) . This one with the flames and another, which I'll upload shortly where I'd tried working with some textures I'd got off the internet. Hope you like them? P.S. This is a PNG file ... not sure that'll display any better than a JPEG?

Here's the other one that nearly got away. I created two versions of this for a recent Sunday Challenge entitled: Car Badge or Logo: Macro(ish) . The one with the flames uploaded earlier and this one, where I've tried using texture I'd pulled off the internet. Hope you like it?

I found this week's challenge pretty difficult as although the D90 is a pretty cool camera it does seem light on functions. No panorama or fish-eye options here I'm afraid. I did fancy perhaps trying a night shot or a slow exposure waterfall, but by the time I thought about that I'd ran out of opportunities to try and pull either effect off. Things got so bad I'd accepted I was going to fail and not have anything to post. However, with a few words of encouragement from fellow challengers I suddenly realised there were options tight under my nose via the Mode dial. So I decided to try and use the Close Up automatic settings mode. I've done a few macro shots before, but never used this particular setting so it seemed worth a go ... all I had to do was find something to shoot! Let's see if anyone can guess what I finally ended up shooting? ;)

I have to say I really enjoyed this week's challenge as it encouraged me to try various post processing techniques I'd not used before. It was amazing to see how different photos would react to the same processing and in the end it wasn't so much which one will I post, as which ones do I leave out. In the end I elected to post an abstract created from a shot of the rear tail light on an Eighties Porsche 944. Perhaps an obvious choice for me, but I think the end result will surprise a few. It certainly did me as when I used the Kaleidoscope tool in Paint Shop Pro it created an image that instantly made me think of those fabulous stained glass windows you find in old churches.

So, this week's challenge was to shoot or use something from your prop box. To be honest, I don't have one as such yet, but I do have a collection of bits and bobs that I've either used or was going to use for creating photos. Here, I've combined a vortex I created in Microsoft Publisher and then printed out along with a character called "Stress Paul". I think it makes for a striking image, although perhaps a little disturbing for some.

Had a lot of fun with this week's challenge which was shadows although maybe staying up until nearly 2.00 this morning testing out ideas was a little excessive! Anyway, it's been fun and I got quite a few images that I'm happy with, each one a little bit different. However, you can only submit one photo per challenge these days and you can't upload it before Sunday. So, as I'm desperate to add something new to my photostream here we have the first in a series of shots entitled: Not The Sunday Challenge !

So here's the second in the series of shots entitled: Not The Sunday Challenge ! Like I said, it really has been a fun week learning about shadows and experimenting with ideas ... I just hope some of you like what I've come up with.

Now I'm putting this one up too under the banner Not The Sunday Challenge , but to be honest it nearly was the one for the group. However, in the end I decided to go with ... well you'll just need to wait until Sunday!

Yes, this one really is for The Sunday Challenge . Maybe not as colourful as some of the ones I kept back, but I was happiest with the overall feel of this one. Hope you guys like it? You might also like to check out the 'nearly rans' which I've added into notes in the top left corner!

For those that don't know, this year's Tour de France started in Yorkshire ... yes I know, that's what I thought! Anyway, despite being a keen cyclist I didn't make it along to the start today, but I did manage to shoot this beautifully carved tree in Harrogate a few weeks ago. So, ooh la la, ee by gum! letour.yorkshire.com

For those that don't know, this year's Tour de France started in Yorkshire ... yes I know, that's what I thought! Anyway, despite being a keen cyclist I didn't make it along to the start today, but I did manage to shoot this beautifully carved tree in Harrogate a few weeks ago. So, ooh la la, ee by gum! letour.yorkshire.com

For those that don't know, this year's Tour de France started in Yorkshire ... yes I know, that's what I thought! Anyway, despite being a keen cyclist I didn't make it along to the start today, but I did manage to shoot this beautifully carved tree in Harrogate a few weeks ago. So, ooh la la, ee by gum! letour.yorkshire.com