Treasure Chest

Treasure Hunt: Something beginning with W; Waterdrops Any excuse to get the drip kit out... three flash guns to get the speed right up to freeze the action, this is probably a moment in time close to 1/20,000th of a second!!! A simple technique that requires a little patience and a tabletop studio! Not such a good outcome though, not many usable frames out of the 300 or so that I took

Treasure Hunt: Something pertaining to Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Universe; Typical! A brain the size of the planet and this is what I am expected to do...!?

... I've got a quarter inch to take off my front door! Boom Boom! For Treasure Hunts Cloud theme. Use of a polarising filter here has brought up the blue sky nicely

Treasure Hunt: PP Compose a realistic wall of photos Had some fun here... Each frame was downloaded from stock images, I have mounted each of my images separately into the frames then placed them on to the background image of the wall then applied individual shadows to the frames. I am trying to find the time to put together a tut for this for those who want to know more.

Treasure Hunt: Maia- growth A bit of a twofer this... some of my favourite techniques involve backgrounds :-)

Treasure Hunt: Road Markings; Not exactly right outside my home but still, not that far... Probably not that 'Minimal' either- I was having trouble finding something suitable to capture for this theme but had to go to the east-end of London to pick up some windows and found someone had livened up these double yellow lines on the roadside... I have never seen anyone grafittise roads before :-) love it!

Treasure Hunt: Nets, any sort of nets, sports nets, fishing nets, hair nets! I, like most of you, went with the fishing theme... ;-) This is my good friend lucy who also provided the 'bump' earlier

Treasure Hunt: Shapes Lines and colour; I knew exactly what I wanted for this one... an old faithful - Romanesco Broccoli! Do you think I could get hold of one? Bah! Here's a cabbage instead

Treasure Hunt: Knobs and Knockers; I just discovered that a girlfriend of mine collects these things, and I mean SERIOUSLY collects! This knocker is wrapped in acid free tissue and lives in a unit with many drawers and cubby holes. It is only occasionally brought out and placed in a display cabinet with 3-4 other knockers and this is 'refreshed and rotated' every 6 months or so. This particular example cost close to $2k in New York last year, that's nearly £1200 for a door knocker that will never see a door :-) Her collection is almost 1000 strong and is insured for a small fortune! it has representatives from practically the whole animal kingdom, mythology, tradesmen and human anatomy... some are very rude, some are quite funny. The best one though was not a knocker but resembled a door bell and was retrieved from a toilet wall in the 'gents' of an old pub in Cornwall- it was a beautifully cast bronze lady wearing nothing but a fig leaf with an obvious hinge just above it, you cannot help but lift the fig leaf which then reveals a button for you to push! However, when you push the button it rang a bell in the bar thus informing everyone of your naughty thoughts :-) I will be returning to this collection further methinks

Treasure Hunt: Backgrounds; Backgrounds are really basic composition, you should be looking at every element in the viewfinder and if ever there was a single technique that separates a snap-shooter from a photographer this is it :-)

Treasure Hunt: Diptych Chains; From the shackles of Labour to the life of Luxury

Treasure Hunt: Blue & Yellow only In the garden There's no PP in this image other than prep for uploading, the image in the note is identical but for one difference in exposure :-) it's all about balancing the flash

Treasure Hunt: Still Life three veg; Soon to be stewed

Treasure Hunt: Quaint Bridges; A chance conversation with an old friend brought up our various qualifications, he has a Masters in, of all things, Building and construction which included a portion of civil engineering and he told me that part of his project was to build a bridge using spaghetti! It's a brilliantly unforgiving medium and is great training for engineers :-) he then showed me a recent sample he did with his son... Wow, I gotta have a go at this, it looks like fun! There have been worldwide competitions to find the best spaghetti bridge design and as far as I can work out the latest is a 950 gram bridge that has held (without breaking!) a weight of 456kg. You tube has a selection of record breaking attempts which are all pretty impressive :-)

Treasure Hunt: PP, Changing backgrounds. Rough and ready, bit of rush but I think it looks effective... A friends model boat photographed on two A1 sheets of card screaming out for a decent back-drop :-) there's a 'how to' in my articles for this here www.ipernity.com/blog/313629/1033706

Treasure hunt: Forced perspective

Treasure Hunt: X Xesturgy... Look it up like I did :-)

Treasure Hunt: Take a pic of your phone; Love it and hate it in equal measure! Damn thing keeps ringing!! With my mother still breathing and not far from her 102nd birthday I am incredibly concious of just how advanced we've become in a 100 years :-) as a kid mum saw Electricity, Gas and drainage all come into the home, never mind the gadgets, they were all the realm of Jules Verne! She posed a classic question just the other day that sums it all up.... "Just what is the 'Internet'???" A very difficult answer followed and she is no better off! :-)) Family are giving me some stick for investing in a small amount of lego but it has come in useful for this :-) I bought the Lego characters so that I can at some point parody one or two classic pictures... 'Lunch above New York' for instance with the workmen sitting on a girder eating lunch while building the empire state.