More cold

A few snaps from our walk on Christmas eve. We'd been stuck indoors for a good few days and the children were getting particularly restless, so we just popped along to Alexandra park, (at the end of our street) to burn off a bit of energy. I only took a few photos as my battery was running low and I almost didn't bother as a result. I'm really pleased I did now as all the snow has melted away last night!

One of these three pictures is my first ever truly photoshopped photo where I took part of one shot of a scene and put it onto another shot of the same scene to make it just that little bit better. Can you tell which?

Quack! Honk! Squawk!

Merry Christmas to you all!! I hope you had a good one.

As a family we usually go on a Boxing Day walk, however we were all a little too tired and too cold yesterday to bother to get out of our nice warm room, so we watched numerous family DVDs instead. However, this afternoon we decided to brave the Elements and go our for a walk to Chorlton Water park. The lake was totally frozen over and there were many many hungry and noisy birds....

Run Mary Run!

Dressing up as Mary and running round in circles in the church hall seemed like a great way to enjoy the toddler group Christmas party!

Festive festive festive!

The last day of term today, holidays start tomorrow, snow is falling, decorations are up, most of the presents are wrapped..... I'm feeling festive!

Coffee Gremlin

Meet my coffee gremlin. He is called such because he is made from instant coffee. Earlier today Nathan handed me a little tupperware tub which used to contain instant coffee granules. Clearly, at some point a little bit of moisture got in there and then it was left in the camping cupboard. Over the months the coffee grains merged together and became a putty like substance. And this is the end result. My hands smell of coffee.

Frozen drips

Another macros lens adventure in the garden.... I found a nice little icicle at the back of our house.

Being so close for just a few minutes meant that the icicle began to melt, thus creating another photo opportunity!

Wait for it....

Wait for it....

There! (That took me about 20 shots to get!)

There's a thief in the garden!

This week we put up a fancy bird feeder that we were given as a house warming gift. We'd had another bird table up since we moved in but the only visitors it'd had were a couple of fat wood pigeons and the odd squirrel. After a day or two this new feeder has seen some finches, blue tits, a robin, the fat pigeons and a number of very greedy squirrels!

This squirrel (and possibly one other) ate not only half the ball of peanuts but two whole fat balls and every single nut on the feeding plates, and then came back for more! I think we may need to grease part of the pole so that the birds actually have chance to get something. I do wonder if I had to climb and swing from a height to get my dinner if I'd be ever so slightly fitter....?

Spinning!

One of the funfair rides at the Festival of Lights in Huddersfield.

Ice faeries

An ice fairy (as my children call them) on our car window, about a centimetre in diameter. A handheld shot taken with my macro lens. I should probably use a tripod to stop the whole swaying in and out of focus thing....

Frost on our garden gate.

Tiny little leaves on our berry bush. With these three photos I was wanting to grasp each tiny ice crystal around the leaves and berries and use the red to contrast the white. I love *crisp* colour, it feels like an apple.

I shall try and go out and do a real photo shoot tomorrow, and actually set up my camera and tripod and spend some time on this rather than just taking a few shots on my way in from the car to the house!

Heat

Purple is pretty

Taken in spring. I thought I'd already put it on here but I can't find it, so here is my picture of flowers.

Life by the sea

A close up view of sea weed on the shores of Marazion.

Autumn wedding

A lovely warming shot of my friend's wedding decorations that she had in the church windows. The flowers were beautiful, but what made them so individual and seasonal was the use of Ivy, red berries, concurs and pine cones.

Take Off!

Sitting eating Cornish pasties in Truro involved rather a lot of seagulls. I made the most of being in one place and tried to capture at least one of them flying!

By the fireside.

Enjoying the open log fire in our holiday cottage last week. I used my 50mm lens for this shot which makes focusing really quite difficult. It's a second hand lens and I think it's possibly not as good as it should be but when the photos work they really can be *just right*.

Dracula

Getting in the mood for all things halloween I decided to take my own simple shot of Dracula and his home by the sea.

Boat and beach

Playing in the sand on the beach at Marazion, whilst the little ferry boats taking people to and from St. Michael's mount just across the bay. One of the first of many a snap of Cornwall this week I expect!

Christmas is coming.

Very soon it seems, or at least so the shops and city centres would have us believe. These were the Christmas lights on Regent street, London. They really don't look so exciting when off and in the day light do they? I also couldn't really work out what an umbrella had to do with Christmas or the winter "holiday season"?!

Phone box.

I went to London over the weekend to a conference. By the Sunday afternoon my brain was frazzled and I was beginning to feel rather low sitting in a barely lit conference room listening to intelligent speak. So I left the hotel, hopped on a bus to Oxford Street and made my way back taking some pictures on the way.

I love black and white photography; I find it can add an element of character to an otherwise rather boring and everyday scene, but sometimes a shot works so much better in colour. In this instance I just can't decide which I prefer.

Dunham Deer

Another shot from our trip to Dunham Massey a few weeks ago. This was the only photo of the deer to my liking because my camera is still shooting incorrectly - what I see framed through the view finder is not what the camera actually captures. This is relatively easy enough to rectify with my 18-75mm lens just by intentionally framing the shot *badly* but with my 70-400mm lens the tiniest change makes a huge difference!

Wild Mushrooms anyone?

Fresh from a field in Dunham Massey.

The sculpture in Newcastle...

.. that I don't know the name of but liked the look of. My friend who lives in Gateshead (and has done for many years) also didn't know what it was called!

Basking in the sun

The reason there are two photos is because I couldn't decide which was *best*.

When we were clearing out rubbish from the back of our new house we found three butterflies hidden behind some bin bags in the shed. Initially they couldn't fly so gently lifting them up I placed them on the wall in the sun and within a few minutes they'd warmed and were off. There were still for long enough to get a couple of quick shots though of course.

Fire in the house!

Lovely cosy warm wood fire.

Park puddles

We've had an awful lot of rain over the past few days and yesterday, having been stuck indoors for far too long we decided to brave it in our water proofs and wellingtons. Fortunately we had a brief hour or so where the rain stopped and we were able to appreciate the water for its reflections and splashing properties.....

Manchester has a way of making everything feel rather grey and dismal when it rains, so both these photos have been edited to enhance the colour. Last year I spent most of my time concentrating on the process of setting up and taking the photographs. For the rest of this year I'm going to focus on the various ways I can alter a shot post production. I may have to invest in something like photoshop first though!

On another note entirely, I am beginning to get a little irritated with the format and appearance of my blog page so I may change it at some point over the next weeks or so when (if) I have time.