Snowy Hanover

What a fantastic snow day! Let's go to the park to enjoy it!

Wheeeee!!!

Have a look at this... the whole road full of cars that haven't moved since yesterday. I wonder if no one has gone to work today?

Looks like pedestrians have re-claimed the streets of Hanover!

Pedestrians.... and two happy dogs. :)

Queen's Park has once again turned into a play ground.

No one has proper toboggans here in the south east of England, so people use pieces of cardboard, bin lids, body boards, recycling boxes, whatever they can find.... These girls here have a ski board.

See that little figure at the bottom right corner?

See him again? ;-)

This scene reminds me of The Simpsons - you know one of those days when it snows and school is out and all the kids are out having fun in the snow.

Couldn't imagine this in Finland... "hey, it snowed, so school is out"! (which would be five months of the year...)

One of the kids couldn't resist playing with Zed. Love the look on her face.

Little walk around the pond area...

...and back to our street.

To tell you the truth, Zebedee jumped into the pond in Queen's Park, straight through the ice, trying to catch some swans that were sitting on the ice... He got soaking wet, obviously, and that was the reason we had to leave swiftly and get back home to keep him warm. See the soaked doggie below...

The silly doggies waiting to get in.

It's a shame I didn't get a photo of Zebedee jumping into the pond, but when it comes to my dogs, if I see that there is a chance of some danger, I can't help but run to see that they are OK without thinking of taking photos. It's probably the only example of me not thinking of taking a photo first!

PS. See what Tigger thinks of the snow: http://thetiggerdiary.blogspot.com/2010/12/snow.html

First boudoir shoot

I had my first boudoir shoot today and I was very excited do start a new project. So excited, in fact, that I forgot to take my strobe trigger with me to the studio! Oh my... really, basically it means that I couldn't use my strobes at all. I didn't even have a flash gun on me to use as a stand-in trigger. All I could do is use the modelling light of my strobes. But hey, not to worry: just make the most of what you have, right? Right. Well, here are a couple of shots I got...

Actually, after I showed Deb a couple of shots in-camera, she kindly said she'd perfectly love to do another shoot with me soon with strobes. :)

So all in all, not all was in vain - I got to do a practice boudoir shoot - and boy, have I learned from the experience - and at least got some half decent shots regardless. I got to know a lovely model who really enjoyed the shoot and all is good. Hopefully, next time, I can come up with a lot more good shots, though!

Dina's portrait shoot

I did a portrait shoot for a beautiful aspiring model today: Dina. We didn't plan anything beforehand so we did a complete "play it by ear" shoot, and worked with whatever Dina had brought along.

Here are some shots...

Dina had this great poncho and came up with various ways to use it, which I thought was brilliant.

I bought some transparent fabrics some time ago and thought I'd see how they look like in portraits.

I wasn't quite sure how to make the most of them...

...and Dina said they weren't that easy to work with. ...hmmm, I think I need to explore the use of these fabrics more before my next shoot.

Sometimes, I find, I might be after lots of vibrant colours, but realise that actually the image looks better in black and white.

Our shoot was good fun and very useful for the both of us. I hadn't taken many portraits for a while (having been travelling for over a month again) and I was a little out of practise, so it was great that Dina came up with many poses and ideas herself. On the other hand I taught her about angles and attitude and other aspects that help make an image - and her in it - look outstanding rather than just good. Can't wait for our next shoot together, as soon as we have found a suitable location for it. Watch this space. ;-)

Wild Park

Rain rain rain... every day rain... Zebedee has been a little restless recently as he has only had one short 30-40 minute walk every day, so I thought I'd do a bit longer walk with the doggies. Luckily it didn't rain much. I had my 100mm macro lense with me...

I wasn't happy with the colours in the above picture so I thought I'd try and see how it looks like in monochrome.

Beech is still my favourite tree...

Then I found this lovely maple leaf lying on the ground and moved it a bit to take some photos of it.

Back in England

We are just back from our four week trip to Fiji, Hong Kong and Japan. It was amazing (will post some photos soon) but I'm glad to be back at home again. For one thing, travelling from place to place for four weeks is actually a little tiring, and another reason is that a few days ago I started missing our dogs quite a bit. Not like me to miss things that I can't have access to at the moment, but I've never been that long away from my/our dog(s) before. Anyhow, we are now reunited and, right now, just back from a lovely walk in Stanmer Park.

And here are the silly doggies enjoying their first "unleashed" walk in a month. Lots of waggy tails and smiles all round. :)

We first thought that Tigger doesn't look like he's grown at all during the past month, but perhaps he has - just a bit.

Fiji Day 5

This morning I found out what creature makes the curious little tracks on the sand during the night. I found out by quietly following this little thing leave our patio when I moved from the bed to the hammock.

Meet Mr. Hermit Crab!

...and these are the tracks that hermit crabs make in the sand! When I saw those tracks all over the beach for the first time a few days ago, I had no idea what had made them.

There were a couple of Fiji Parrotfinch chirping and eating seeds from the ground nearby.

Close-up of the hermit crab...

A Common Mynah! I'd seen a load of these in Bhutan earlier this year and had learned that they are a native species of Asia, so I was surprised to see them here on Fiji, too.

Today's a little cloudy, but the palms still look gorgeous.

Couldn't resist trying a few different edits on this photo.

We had lunch at our favourite table next to our favourite view.

Another obligatory cocktail for desert.... ;-)

In the afternoon it got more and more cloudy...

...but this place is still the perfect paradise.

Fiji Day 4

After the big wedding day yesterday (I will post yesterday's blog soon...), today was mainly for resting. I only took a few photos at sunset - couldn't resist as I saw this wonderful pink-yellow cloud in the middle of the sky.

...and the lovely palm trees in the other direction.