Shona Rae's Photo a Day.

Afternoon drinks

2011-11-22T13:17:00.003Z

I met with some of my lovely friends this weekend and we went for drinks in' The Slug and Lettuce', a stroll around the Manchester Christmas markets and then out for a scrumptious meal and 'The Old Wellington' which I highly recommend.

I didn't take many photos, but I was particularly happy with this reflections snap shot I got early on in the afternoon!

Pom-pom

2011-11-20T11:01:00.003Z

My beautiful kittens are growing fast. This is Pomme, she is the pretty little dainty one and is still really quite tiny. She isn't the most cuddly of cats as she's quite timid, so this is a rare shot of her sitting on Nathan's knee. However she is a little escape artist and even though she's only about 16 weeks old she's wanting outside all the time and has already ventured across the street!

Here's a photo with Squishy's 3 year old hand so you can get an idea of how little she still is!

She really is such a soft kitty - little ball of fur.

Halloween Fun

2011-10-31T19:24:00.004Z

We had a little bonfire, fireworks and spooky halloween party over the weekend.

I was too busy running around scaring (aka entertaining) children and feeding people cakes and pumpkin soup that I never got to take many photos other than fun family snaps. So here's the best of a bad, but fun, bunch!

My Cauldron cake and spooky buns.

Fun activities for the children included apple bobbing, doughnut dangling, a skeleton treasure hunt and....

our Autumn leaves lucky dip, which was carefully guarded:

Silhouettes

2011-10-27T15:30:00.006+01:00

Something a little bit different from our half term holiday this week.

I thought I'd make the most of my sister's large windows and have a go at silhouettes with the children. A little more difficult than anticipated but they were actually able to follow a little bit of direction and sit still enough for four or five shots each!

These last two are really partial silhouettes because you can see a lot more detail but that adds to the mood of the shot. I love how alike they look!

Woodland Walk

2011-10-26T13:07:00.003+01:00

Just a few shots from my woodland walk around Barnard castle this week.

Barnard Castle

2011-10-25T09:58:00.010+01:00

Various shots of Barnard castle from our walk through the woods and along the riverside this weekend. I wanted to get a few different angles. I must admit it is times like this where I'd love a *really* good wide angle lens!

The above is my attempt at recreating a very old image that I have on my wall that used to be one of my grandparent's. I'm not sure I was on the right place on the bridge but it's almost the same.

I've walked this same route so many times and in so many different ways since I was a young child that often I forget to look up and see just how impressive a view it is. The river Tees however never ceases to give that sense of peace and tranquility.

Rubbish!

2011-10-18T18:02:00.003+01:00

I don't know why, but I have this desire to make pretty pictures from objects that most would not consider 'pretty'. I've been looking at our compost tub in the kitchen all week thinking about how much colour and texture there is, so I decided to take a few shots this morning. I would have spent more time on it but it is October and I live in Manchester and I started to get quite wet! The rain did make the ground look shiny though...

Obviously with these two photos I've done a little bit of post-editing, but mostly just a little change in saturation and contrast, not much more.

50mm play

2011-10-15T23:07:00.003+01:00

I bought a new 50mm lens the other day and have messed around with it a little bit in the house but today was the first time I went out with it. Unfortunately I've been feeling quite ill so my park trip ended pretty quick. These two photos were the beginnings of me making the most of the aperture!

Piccadilly Gardens

2011-09-30T20:45:00.003+01:00

The unexpected but very welcome sunshine prompted me to take a few photos in Piccadilly gardens this afternoon. The shadows on the sound barrier added a little something extra to the scene.

Of course, because of the beautiful weather, half of Manchester took to the city centre and I had to stand here for about 20 mins just to get a few mediocre shots without humans in the way!! There's a fine line between having people in the background giving an impression of the hustle and bustle and random figures ruining the shot!

Snuggles

2011-09-17T15:37:00.005+01:00

Kitten snuggles.

Almost two weeks ago my beloved cat Brooklyn went missing. We've looked all around the area and put up posters but no sign at all. We had been planning to get a new kitten to add to our little family but when Brooklyn disappeared I decided that I wanted to get two kittens instead.

Pomme...

.... and Hopscotch.

They've been with us just over a week and have settled in nicely. This afternoon there was a rare moment of stillness in decent lighting. On the whole they're either hidden away or running around like maniacs so as soon as they cuddled up in the sun out came the camera!!

N.B Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a picture of a black cat lying next to a black cat?

Sandy dog

2011-09-08T18:45:00.004+01:00

Whilst on the beach in Abersoch I spotted this little dog playing in the water and decided to have a go at some 'action' shots. The sun was really bright which made for lovely colouring but in every shot there was something in shadow that would preferably have been in the light!

I set the camera to f/11, 1/400, iso 200 because I wanted to capture the water splashing as well as the dog in action! I probably should have had iso at 100 but I'd read a book recently that suggests a default of 200 and I hadn't changed it.

I'm quite happy with the result considering I was following a random guy and his dog around the beach trying not to look too suspicious and stalker-like. I may have to borrow a man and his dog again one day and take more time over it, because let's face it, doggy photos are cute!

The Jaffa Cake of all Jaffa Cakes.

2011-09-06T19:29:00.005+01:00

When there's a birthday you have cake.

When you're the household baker you have to think up what cake to make.

When you're baking for a 3 year old it's easy to come up with something exciting.

When the birthday boy is 31 it's not so easy.

When you see a good idea you steal it! And this was a fabulous idea! Fabulously delicious.

It really did taste as scrummy as it looks. Possibly more so. It was definitely more-ish and almost flawless. I wish I could claim that it was all my own idea, but alas it was not!

The Giant Jaffa cake is very easy to make though. Bake the sponge in a frying pan.

Make some orange jelly with half the amount of liquid as usual and set it on a plate. Put the jelly onto the sponge.

Melt the chocolate and pour onto the jelly and sponge, et voila!

Fly.

2011-08-31T15:07:00.006+01:00

It's a fly crawling on a window. I took photos with my macro lens and used the manual setting. Not sure there's much more I can say.

I like the wings, so that is what I tend to focus on.

It's fascinating how the wings can have such vibrant colours in one shot, and yet be so translucent and colourless in other shots. It's not photo editing, it's to do with the light I expect.

Henna Tattoos

2011-08-18T10:09:00.003+01:00

My lovely and talented sister (in law) Leah was very kind and gave up part of her evening yesterday to do this henna tattoo.

(I shall just add a disclaimer that this is natural, traditional henna, not that awful black henna with PPD in it! Natural henna is highly unlikely to cause any kind of reaction in your skin, but black henna can burn and even leave permanent scarring so please be careful when getting henna tattoos from street sellers - always ask what kind it is!)

Over the past couple of weeks we'd been having fun with the children doing transfers, face paints and little henna tattoos on their arms, legs and even bellies! I'd really wanted a more traditional type of tattoo on my hand but they take significantly more time and are awkward to allow to dry when looking after young children. So last night we sat the girls in front of a dvd (or two) so that we would be undisturbed....

The finished product having just brushed the dried up henna off late last night:

The tattoo this morning, quite a bit darker and likely to darken even more over the next 24 hours. I'm really pleased with it:

Bacon n egg

2011-08-15T12:50:00.003+01:00

Quail egg to be specific.

Bye bye laptop

2011-08-04T12:33:00.002+01:00

I'm about to go camping and I was going to make one more blog post before leaving the world of the internet for a while. However yesterday my laptop decided to stop working, and then it stopped being able to boot the hard drive, and then it stopped recognising there was a hard drive.... and now even with a new hard drive it won't start. Waaaaaaaa.

Thankfully I have my data and photos backed up but not anywhere that I can upload them to the blog just yet. So today's post is photo-less. Hopefully I'll get lots of fantastic photos over the next couple of weeks!

Froggy Rescue

2011-08-03T13:29:00.004+01:00

Frogs frogs everywhere!!

This little amphibian had a lucky escape this morning. I went out to the garden to find Big Squish holding something in her hand. A jar, one of those really small jam jars that hotels use. "What's that darling?" "It's my pet frog!" "Oh right! Can you give it to me for a second please?!" "I put water and grass in for it mummy." "Yes but no air - it's needs to breath."

Thankfully I had got there in time. I tipped it out into a bigger tub with grass and water and it just sat there for a while, it's little body going up and down significantly more than normal. We had a little chat about breathing and needing holes to let air in. Frog spent a bit more time in this tub until eventually he/she felt ready to try and escape!

Puzzling

2011-08-02T19:02:00.002+01:00

Indoor activities.

Jigsaw puzzles are quite popular in this house - just not with me! I don't have the patience or determination. Jigsaw pieces make quite interesting patterns when they're scattered. I've tried to take some shots of them before but the lighting conditions are usually terrible, and it's not really the kind of situation I'd set up for a photo shoot. Perhaps I should?!

I wanted to get an intimate shot of pushing the pieces into the right place, but the girls are not doing it for my photography they are racing o see who can finish first! If I were to do a jigsaw photo shoot, I'd make sure that they either had unvarnished nails or newly done nails - non of this chipped off unaesthetic nonsense!!

Why of course I'll let you take a picture of me with my finished puzzle mum, just don't expect me to smile....

Can you tell what it is yet....?

2011-08-01T16:39:00.006+01:00

It's a *very* over exposed photo of, yup, you've guessed it - cherry pie!

This is a prime example of what happens when you just flick your camera on and take a quick snap without checking the settings first :-) Non of the photos were particularly stunning even once I had changed the settings, but for some reason despite all it's flaws I still quite like this one.

Clearly summertime brings with it yummy food stuffs, because I have yet another pudding orientated post! So far this year we have done cherry picking, black current picking and strawberry picking. Soon we will embark upon tackling the bramble bushes for our yearly blackberry harvest!

I'm never sure what to do with cherries so cherry pie it is. It really was quite delicious - particularly the pastry, even if I do say so myself.

Strawberries and cream

2011-07-31T12:18:00.004+01:00

A summer picnic in the park is not complete without strawberries and cream. This particular cream was Chantilly extra thick (reduced to 48p) and had a hint of vanilla and bourbon. Quite delicious.

The weather was lovely enough to sit on the grass in Wythenshaw park at 7pm!! We went out at around 3pm expecting to have just a couple of hours of warmth when actually the sun shone right up until we left for bedtime - the children's 'bedtime' not ours of course. ;-)

Carrots are scrummy

2011-07-28T11:36:00.005+01:00

and very very small......

We made a little vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden earlier this spring and planted some lettuce and carrot seeds. The lettuce grew very quickly and successfully, so much so that we didn't even eat half of it! The children were excited to see the 'salad' grow but were less keen on eating it.

The carrots however caused significantly more excitement - especially because you can't really see them growing. This morning they rushed in from the garden "the carrots are growing and are really big." I went down to see what all the fuss was about and this was what I found. I pulled it up and before washing and chopping into three teeny chunks for them to taste, I took these shots.

This last one just gives an idea of the size, it's not actually a very good photo.

I used auto focus *sigh* silly me.

Day two of summer holidays

2011-07-26T15:17:00.007+01:00

And today class we focus on developing our fine motor skills, creativity, concentration and determination......

I'm not sure if you've ever done this craft activity (I forget what it's actually called) but it is *really* fiddly and can go wrong very quickly! I sat and did one along with the kids and made a few mistakes myself. It took a good half hour for me to complete mine and one of the children put in an awful lot of effort to get his end product *exactly* as he wanted it.

We learned an unexpected lesson too or at least Big squish did - do not touch an iron when it is hot!

Our finished master pieces:

Water Fun!

2011-07-16T16:58:00.004+01:00

We've been enjoying a fair amount of sunshine this past week, so on Wednesday I decided to take a trip into Manchester City Centre to make the most of it. The fountains in Piccadilly Gardens have become a popular attraction for parents with little toddlers.... and teenagers it seems!

Squishy was being particularly cute and the lighting was just perfect for photography. If only we'd been alone and there weren't so many horrid adverts and eye sores in the way! I got lots of lovely family snaps for our memory albums, but these few are some of my favourites. I was just starting to get into it trying out various compositions and angles when it was time to go.

Squish started off quite apprehensive but by the end of the afternoon she was running not only around the fountains but through them, in them and standing on top of them! she was quite desperate for me to get in there with her but I was quite persistent at staying dry. I did enjoy chasing her around with the camera though :-)

A lovely day was had by the both of us, only to be slightly ruined by the theft of our bike!!!

Windmill

2011-07-05T12:17:00.002+01:00

Another couple of snap shots from our half term break in Bungay.

21st Century pre-schooler

2011-06-09T19:00:00.003+01:00

21st Century motherhood at its best. Taking your 3 year old out for a coffee and giving them the ipod touch to entertain themselves whilst you play with your DSLR.

It's another one of those in focus/out of focus shots where it's hard to decide which works *best*. I like the second one most.

Beautiful Bees

2011-06-07T21:56:00.008+01:00

'Bzzz bzzz bzzzzzz' is the predominant sound in my front garden at the moment. Yesterday whilst the sun shone brightly all afternoon, there was a hive of activity around my pretty little purple flowers. I have no idea what they are called, but they are definitely purple and they are very pretty; they smell nice too. I guess that's why the bees like them so much.

This calls for my camera and most importantly, my macro lens!!

I really love Bumble bees. They are so cute and fuzzy and I have fond memories of them as a child in my grandparents' garden. I recall they lived in the cracks in the dry stone wall rather than the hives that my grandfather cared for. At the time it was a little confusing to understand why only the honey bees made the honey that we ate...

Although the bumble bees are adorably cute, they are *very* busy active little things and consequently a complete pain to capture on camera and even harder to get in focus without movement blur. The above two pictures were the absolute best I got in my brief 15 mins. I did get a number of empty flowers with little bee legs sticking in at the corner having just flown off!

These two bees were much more camera friendly and stayed still, but the wind was blowing and I kept getting in the way casting a shadow over them so whilst they were easier to get in focus I still had movement and lighting problems! I absolutely love the intricacy of detail on their wings and legs and furry little bodies. The top picture the bee was just taking off!

Now I'd love to know if this following shot is actually of a bee or a fly pretending to be a wasp/bee or perhaps it is of the wasp family but not a 'bee'? Who knows. It was very different to the others, it buzzed differently and it moved differently and, most importantly, it stayed very still for a long time so was much easier to capture. It was also on the pink flowers not the purple ones....

Bee bottoms are particularly cute don't you think? I couldn't decide which of the following two photos I liked best and thought as I was putting far more on than normal I may as well show both and let you decide.

This last shot is by far my favourite. I know you can't see the bee very clearly but it's the most artistically satisfying for me.

Froggy!

2011-06-05T09:32:00.003+01:00

When we moved into this house last year we had a bit of a wilderness at the bottom of the back garden with all kinds of wildlife living amongst it. Over the year we've cleared out and tidied up the garden and we were just talking about whether or not we'd see any frogs or hedgehogs again this year and what a shame it would be if they'd all moved out.

The next day whilst mowing the lawn Nathan almost ran over this little thing! We popped it into the padding pool to keep it safe whilst cutting the grass and of course I took the opportunity to take pictures....

It seems our fears of having no little creatures at the bottom of the garden was unnecessary!

Woodland Wildlife - Warning, it's a bit grim!

2011-06-02T12:07:00.007+01:00

In our recent woodland walks the children have shown a great fascination not only for live bunnies and birds, but dead ones. On one particular walk they started looking for them and wanted me to take pictures...

Then then endless questions and enthusiasms about death begin:

'How did it die, is it old?'

'Will I die? Will you die? When will we die mummy?..... Not until we're really old?'

'Why's the baby bird dead? Where is its mummy?'

'Who killed it? Did a fox get it, or a dog, or a farmer with a gun!?'

'I bet a fox got it and ripped it's head off!'

'Where is it's head?' *Run off looking*

'Oh I've found it mummy it's here!'

They were particularly excited when they found the dead rambler.....

Buttercups in Bungay

2011-06-01T14:27:00.005+01:00

We've been camping this weekend. The weather was very good to us with only a little rain one night. We stayed in the same field last year and I decided that I wanted to make sure I got at least one nice photo of the girls in the meadow surrounded by buttercups.

Little Squish was rather uncooperative and at one point she was pushing the others out of the way because not only did she not want me to take *her* photo, she didn't want me to take a picture of "nobody" as she put it.

I was very pleased with the first shot of Big squish though. She rather enjoys the attention I believe.

Spring Stroll

2011-05-24T22:41:00.005+01:00

Just a few shots I took whilst out on a family walk over Easter. The River Tees runs right through Barnard castle, the town where I grew up, and I have many fond memories of walking through the trees and listening to the running water.

Look what we found...

2011-05-19T17:21:00.003+01:00

.... in our local pond! (Or boating lake, fake lake thingy in Alexandra park.)

We went to feed the ducks and instead we found a little terrapin. Well actually we found three but the two bigger ones were further away and didn't look so cute. And yes, the water really is that disgusting green colour! In fact it was a little smelly and there appeared to be as many plastic bags, bottles and other random bits of rubbish as there were fish....

Ladybird ladybird...

2011-05-18T21:41:00.004+01:00

Taken with my 50mm lens as I was just out at the play park with the children and happened upon this little ladybug. Had I known there would be a pretty little bug on pretty little flowers then I'd have taken my macro lens and spent a bit more time over it!

I thought I'd play around with the colours today.

Mr. Squirrel's neighbour.

2011-05-15T17:37:00.003+01:00

The children spotted this squirrel high up the tree in our next door neighbour's garden. They wanted me to get a photo of it so they can "put it in a frame on the wall".

I grabbed the zoom lens, told the children to be quiet and popped out the front door. Just as I'd got my settings right with a couple of test shots I heard a click of the door opening behind me and some loud whispering. Unfortunately so did Mr. Squirrel so he ran off!

I don't think Mr. squirrel is quite as pretty as squirrel nutkin who visits our bird feeder in the back garden but he did look very cute with an acorn in his mouth.

What time is it...?

2011-05-03T12:02:00.004+01:00

...Lets ask our Dandelion clocks!

It took me numerous attempts with various children and dandelions before I finally got one decent shot of one of them blowing a dandelion clock and one decent shot of one of them holding it beforehand.

Moving on from the 50mm lens to the macro...

Stickiness

2011-04-30T22:50:00.003+01:00

My sister-in-law Leah's stick insects had babies recently. The parent stick insects are rather old and looking like they're on deaths door. These new little ones are "particularly" small and about as cute as is possible for a stick insect to be. So Leah asked for some photos - time for the macro lens to come out!

Hot sunshine =

2011-04-25T20:40:00.003+01:00

Yummy ice cream!!

Nathan "looks after" my ice cream so I can take photos. I had one scoop of Baileys and one scoop of Ferrero Rocher flavoured ice cream, both scrummy but the latter was definitely the bestest!

The girls liked chocolate. It took them about half an hour to get through them they were such big ice cream cones....

*Must not waste any of it.*

Headlam Hall

2011-04-22T23:39:00.004+01:00

On Wednesday, a very lovely childhood friend of mine crossed the threshold from Miss. to Mrs. I was delighted and privileged to be her bridesmaid (or matron of honour if we're going to be all specific) and enjoyed getting glammed up. A fabulous day was had by all. She looked beautiful and most importantly, incredibly happy and content beside her new husband!

The wedding reception took place at Headlam Hall near Gainford in Co. Durham - a typically delightful English country house hotel where we stayed over night. The gardens are beautiful and as the weather was behaving itself I decided to make the most of my childfree hour the following morning and wandered around on my own mini photo shoot.

(p.s. Don't forget you can click on the photos to view them properly.)

In the garden

2011-04-11T16:38:00.002+01:00

The sun came out in full shine yesterday and the tulips in my front garden opened up beautifully. I decided to make the most of the opportunity and took some quick shots. I like to use flower photos for desktop pictures on my laptop.

I couldn't quite decide which shots I liked the most so I've shared more than normal with you! I used my 50mm lens to get that soft focus and shallow depth of field (which blurs out the weeds and scruffy background). Then I over exposed them a little to capture the brightness as much as possible.

More Glowing activities

2011-04-06T12:02:00.002+01:00

A few more snap shots of our visit to Glowworld the other week. I was quite tempted to go back again on my own with my tri-pod so I could take some time over these photos and do them *properly*.

The Dancing Lobster show.

These light displays were dotted around the site, but they all had fences around them purely for the sake of spoiling photographs I'm sure....

This is the "superbowl" ride that I went on. I was soon reminded why I never go on such things and had to make a quick visit to the ladies room!

Comforters

2011-04-05T12:48:00.003+01:00

We stayed at the in-laws' this weekend just gone and Squishy never quite settles well at night. After about half an hour of playing "run into the living room, cause havoc and get mummy to put me back to bed" I told her it was definitely bedtime now, popped her in bed, turned the main light off (there was a lamp on) shut the door and left her to it.

About five minutes later I heard banging and found her up against the door on a chair turning the light back on. So I took the chair away, turned the light off again and closed the door. She complained a bit but within a couple of minutes all was silent and I assumed she'd gone back to bed.

I went back in around 20 mins later to find the light on and her cuddling a rather unusual bedtime toy:

I can only assume that she used this to stand on to turn the light back on before going to sleep holding it!

Glowwing

2011-03-26T13:22:00.004Z

Yesterday evening we went to Glowworld aka a fancily dressed up funfair for parents to be manipulated and guilt tripped into spending *cough* wasting lots of money....

As it turns out it was rather good and despite our better judgement we all enjoyed ourselves! We all went on a ride or two, ate some candy floss and managed to avoid the scam amusement arcades. There were also a few fun entertainments with large inflatables with lights inside them.

This shot was taken just at the very end when we were starting to feel cold and achy and tired. We watched the "dance of the lobsters" for a second time before heading to the car park. Had Nathan known I was taking a picture of him it would probably have been much better as he kept moving! *sigh*

Views from the Hilton.

2011-03-23T18:24:00.003Z

This weekend I stayed at The Hilton Hotel for my friend's Hen party. We had an absolutely fantastic time. I'm going to be one of her bridesmaids next month so it's all very exciting!

The Manchester hilton is in Beatham tower which is the tallest building in the city. We were only about a quarter of the way up on the 12th floor but still got some pretty good views.

These are just a variety of my favourite night ones. They were taken at 1am after a reasonably good nights drinking so not the best shots in the world!

By the Riverside

2011-03-02T15:25:00.009Z

Taken on the "bandstand" by the river Tees in Barnard Castle where I grew up. We spent many hours playing here as children and it's quite nostalgic watching our own children play here now.

I used my 50mm lens which is an old German model. I love it, but for some reason it doesn't have a great focal range so there were a couple of shots that I tried out that just couldn't work. I'd taken another of Nathan sitting on the bench, but as soon as I'd moved far enough back to get the whole bench in it was out of focus! Oh well. I'm sticking with this lens for now though as I find the depth of colour and the flexibility of aperture so much better than with my other lenses.

This shot of Squish was taken a couple of minutes after she'd just fallen head first into the river and mummy had to rescue her!

I believe this unhappy face was a result of being told we had to leave early due to her younger sister's unexpected swim. As an aside... the bridge in the background has always been known to me as the 'silver bridge' but it has recently had some work done to it and a fresh coat of a more greeny-blue paint. It will always be "The Silver Bridge" though.

Family shoot - out and about

2011-02-28T20:50:00.004Z

After our mini family shoot indoors with the white seamless and rather forced attempts at getting everyone to co-operate I decided that over the following days I'd make extra effort to capture some good shots whilst having fun out and about on our little holiday break. This involved poking my lens into the children's faces and taking a step back from doing mummy activities and trying to be a photographer instead. It may be a little repetitive, but my next few blog posts will mostly be of my children...

Today's two shots show that if in the right mood and when buttered up by a trip to costa coffee, Little Squish is as good at playing up to the camera as her elder sister!

Family Photo Shoot take 2.

2011-02-26T15:05:00.003Z

Day two of photo shoot pictures. First we have a my littlest squish who really was the total opposite of her sister and generally refused to co-operate for the camera. Not quite sure how we managed to get this little fairy shot but we did!

Daddy and my big girl who was giving her own directions by the end. "Lets do one of me on your knee Daddy, and then one on your shoulders."

A couple with me and the girls. I'm not really a huge fan of the white background photo style but I will admit to liking this second photo of me and Little Squish, so may even print it off and put it on the wall.

Sisters cuddling. I'm certain Little Squish only stayed there because she couldn't wriggle free from her sister's grasp! This little family shoot has been good practice, few tweeks here and there needed but on the whole quite happy!

Family Photo Shoot

2011-02-25T00:22:00.003Z

Nathan bought me a white seamless for Christmas but as my camera has been broken I haven't bothered to get it out and use it. Last week my camera was returned in excellent working order so we decided to use the half term as an opportunity to try out a bit of a family photo shoot. I'm going to post a number of shots over the next few days.

Today we're starting with my Big girl who loves to pose!

Dressing up as a fairy or a princess is one of her favourite pass times and of course everything must be pink and fluffy!

I've no idea where she gets it from but she is quite happy to dress up in pink frills and perform for the camera. I did direct her a little, but on the whole this all came naturally to her!

On the road again

2011-02-08T21:00:00.003Z

My little squish turned three over the weekend. I suddenly feel old.

We went into town on the bus together, I can't remember why or what we did, but on the way home she spent the whole half hour calmly looking out of the window.

I haven't been posting much on my blog because I haven't been taking many pictures, mostly from lack of time and inspiration, but also because my camera is not working very well. I'm going to send it off to get fixed. I shall not post anything more until it comes back which could be anything from a couple of weeks until a month.....

Squirrel Nutkin

2011-01-06T11:44:00.002Z

Remember our garden visitors? The birds disappeared for a while when it was particularly cold, but squirrel nutkin has been a regular on the bird feeder throughout December.

He (or she I should add) struggled to get up the pole when it was cold and icey, but now that it's thawed a little he as been making the most of it!

Winter Trees

2011-01-04T22:14:00.003Z

We went for a bike ride through our local park on New Years Day and I decided to take a few more tree shots. This time I only took black and white pictures as they were looking pretty eerie as it was and I wanted to try and exaggerate that a little.

More cold

2010-12-28T15:18:00.003Z

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!

2010-12-27T22:55:00.004Z

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!

2010-12-18T20:30:00.002Z

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!

2010-12-17T23:48:00.002Z

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

2010-12-15T16:46:00.003Z

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

2010-12-11T14:58:00.003Z

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....

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

There's a thief in the garden!

2010-12-07T00:06:00.006Z

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!

2010-12-05T14:00:00.002Z

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

Ice faeries

2010-12-03T21:35:00.004Z

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

2010-11-19T22:43:00.000Z

Purple is pretty

2010-11-16T11:51:00.003Z

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

2010-11-15T11:56:00.002Z

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

Autumn wedding

2010-11-09T13:50:00.002Z

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!

2010-11-08T21:08:00.003Z

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.

2010-11-02T20:27:00.002Z

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

2010-10-29T21:46:00.002+01:00

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

2010-10-27T11:40:00.003+01:00

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.

2010-10-22T09:24:00.002+01:00

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.

2010-10-19T16:00:00.003+01:00

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

2010-10-15T10:00:00.003+01:00

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?

2010-10-14T21:26:00.001+01:00

Fresh from a field in Dunham Massey.

The sculpture in Newcastle...

2010-10-13T11:46:00.002+01:00

.. 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

2010-10-01T09:05:00.003+01:00

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!

2010-09-28T15:48:00.002+01:00

Lovely cosy warm wood fire.

Park puddles

2010-09-20T10:39:00.004+01:00

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.

Capturing the moment

2010-09-15T09:01:00.006+01:00

The fact that I take a lot of photographs of my children means that I have become reasonable at *capturing moments*. I have also become quite ruthless at deleting photos that I'm not happy with so as not to clog up my harddrive. However this has not always been the case. What must seem like basic photography skill to many, was not obvious to me when I started taking family snaps of my little newborn! I'd often have 10-15 of exactly the same shot with minuscule differences and only one that I was happy with. I've now got that down to about 3 or 4, I'm not sure if I'll ever get it down to first time!

One of the hardest things to capture is a child while playing, especially if doing physical activities! They move too much, they rarely perform for the camera when you want them to and even if they do the shot has a slightly unnatural look about it. Add to that the varying lighting conditions, the fact that you need to get your camera out in time, focus and frame it well and take it at the exact moment, the chances are that you will end up with something you're slightly less than satisfied with.

The trick that works for me is to get myself in a position where it's easy to frame and capture the child's face, without them noticing too much, so usually crouched down a few metres away and using a zoom. I frame the shot so that it's close enough to appreciate their expression but with a fair amount of background so you can see what they're doing and put them into context. Then I focus it on their face or head (if they're turned away) and wait until they look up or smile or do *something* that I want to capture. If they're on a swing, like in this shot, you have to time it so it's more about them swinging into focus and *click*!

A huge benefit of digital cameras is that you can edit the photo afterwards. So whilst your lighting and composition may not be perfect, the thing to concentrate on is having it in focus and timing it right. As long as the point that matters most is clear and you wait for that moment that you want to grasp you can crop it down a little and alter the colouring slightly later as I did here.

Bobbing Along

2010-09-04T21:10:00.002+01:00

A moorhen on the pond in the local park near our new home :-)

Look what we found...

2010-08-16T21:23:00.004+01:00

Having just got the keys to our new home today we decided to go take another look around and start the whole moving malarkey. In the upstairs rooms my mum and I noticed an unusually large amount of dead wasps. After picking up about 30 off the floors and surfaces I became a little wary. I *knew* that the house had been vacant for a good few months and all the windows had been closed tight so the logical conclusion was that they were coming from somewhere *in* the house not outside.

Nathan didn't seem too concerned and was carrying on looking about the place when I suddenly heard a shout from the attic. He'd been checking out the amount of storage space up there, moving a few boxes and discovered a little kiwi sized empty wasps' nest, "aha the route of our problem" he thought, then as he turned around he found THIS:

*shudder* After a hasty exit we made a call to the estate agents and pest control shall be paying the house a call tomorrow afternoon!!!

Anniversary Hearts

2010-08-15T10:58:00.003+01:00

Last week I celebrated 10 years of marriage with Nathan!

Chalk

2010-07-22T23:32:00.004+01:00

I'm afraid I won't be adding many photos for a while because my camera seems to be broken :-( Unsure how or why as there's no exterior evidence of damage, so will be taking it to the shop to be looked at and hopefully repaired.

Bobby

2010-07-14T22:43:00.003+01:00

Another shot from Edinburgh. I really wish I'd had more time to wander the city and take photos.

Hair dressers

2010-07-09T13:44:00.002+01:00

Aunty Leah is a very versatile Aunty, she can make clothes, toys, cut hair and do various other exciting things, to find out more go here.

Taking shots of a young child having their hair cut is more difficult than you'd think because of all the movement but I thought these two were reasonable, and the second one is rather amusing too!

Strawberry Shoot

2010-07-08T23:07:00.005+01:00

Our second punnet of home grown strawberries and there's more to be had :-)

Freshly baked scones, jam, clotted cream and strawberries straight from the garden - yum!

As I'm sure you've worked out by now, being a child in the Rae household can sometimes get quite tiresome, especially where cameras are involved.

"Hold that there for a second Matix."

"Don't bite just yet."

It's not enough to be cute and say cheese for the camera, you have to follow directions, hold a pose and even disrupt your meal times for the sake of your parents' arty whims. I thought that our little strawberry pickings photo shoot would be a good demonstration of this....

"Right take another bite but slowly."

"Perfect!"

Family memories

2010-07-07T10:16:00.003+01:00

When I was in Edinburgh I had a look through some old family photos and decided that because I couldn't take them all and scanning takes forever it'd be fun to take photos of the photos. I realised that if composed well and in the right lighting they could become quite interesting and a new photo in themselves. Most of them were quite rushed but a few worked out. I may take some time to do the same with my own photos from when I was a teen and see what I come up with.

Edinburgh Old Town

2010-07-06T09:36:00.002+01:00

I went to Edinburgh this weekend for a little break. I visited family went out with some girl friends and wandered the city centre shopping and taking photographs.

These two shots are my favourite. I have decided that I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to start taking my tripod out with me and setting up shots more intentionally if I want to improve at all.

Blue sky and clouds

2010-06-29T17:47:00.003+01:00

I went for a walk and stopped in a little meadow for a drink. Having decided that it was impossible to take a nice landscape photo due to the unpleasant pylons in every shot I opted for the sky. The clouds were pretty fantastic.

Jumping

2010-06-25T22:22:00.002+01:00

Yesterday Squishy and I went to Brookdale park. We climbed trees, jumped off logs and swung from branches. She jumped from this mound of earth at least 10 times!

Swings

2010-06-23T17:11:00.002+01:00

After yesterday's post I thought I'd try some more park photos but that are ever so slightly different. They're not the best shots ever, and they would have been better if I'd planned in advance and taken my tripod or at the very least had someone else to push the swing! But I still like them and like the idea.

Play park

2010-06-22T12:50:00.003+01:00

Just a few family album type shots of the girls playing in the park when I was visiting family up in Teesdale during the half term holidays. I always find that black and white photos work much better in these settings, possibly because the colours of play grounds tend to be rather miss match, worn out and awful looking!

For this last shot I decided to edit it and use sepia because it adds a bit more depth, the other photo's were taken in black and white rather than edited afterwards.

The Priory Church

2010-06-21T17:50:00.006+01:00

Wandering around the church in Cartmel, Cumbria I took a few snap shots of interest to me.

Juggling

2010-06-20T13:12:00.003+01:00

Two shots from the BBU show where we spent our holiday a few weeks ago. Again, a tripod would have really aided this photo experience, as would have being stood up and not sat down in the crowd :-)

Creepy Crawlies

2010-06-19T18:28:00.003+01:00

An afternoon at the Manchester Museum. The stick insect was not the most co-operative of models but the spider was fantastic, apparently she hadn't moved for hours! However, the lighting wasn't fantastic and the photos came out really quite orange so I've had to play with things a bit more to get them to look right. I'm still not happy with Mrs. Spider's appearance but she'll have to do.

Drip drip drip

2010-06-17T21:36:00.003+01:00

This would have been a lot easier had I been using a tripod and not doing it hand held! Water is one of the most fantastic objects for photography.

Shetland Pony

2010-06-16T15:05:00.004+01:00

More little fluffy things

2010-06-14T23:08:00.002+01:00

Or should that be feathery things? Mummy swan and her cygnets.

I know these aren't the best photos ever but they are cute and we had some goslings yesterday so it felt fitting to have the swans today.

Sibling goslings.

2010-06-13T23:32:00.002+01:00

Weekend break for Nathan and I involved chasing little goslings around Grange-over-sands with my camera!

Aviation museum

2010-06-10T18:43:00.002+01:00

I took quite a few photos of small details on engine parts but I'm obviously struggling to focus correctly as many of them are blurred. These two worked just fine. They're brakes from something but I'm not actually sure what!

Don't want to!!

2010-06-09T13:36:00.003+01:00

Squishy at my cousin's wedding, having to move from one place to another, the first place being an interesting castle, the second being a field where the photographs were being taken. Once she got to the field she was happy running around (well most of the time) but had more moments of refusal....

Under the pier

2010-06-08T22:30:00.003+01:00

(at the beach from a previous photo not so long ago...)

What you can see of the pier was pretty much all that was left, we certainly couldn't have gone for a walk down it!

I was quite impressed with my bottle find. We also discovered a number of deceased crabs, a star fish, those little red sea anemones and various other beach type items.

Thirst

2010-06-07T21:51:00.002+01:00

Sunlight and water always a pleasant picture make.

Bigod models

2010-05-28T22:29:00.002+01:00

The girls model for us at Bigod Castle, Suffolk.