Fisheye Lens!

I haven't taken many photos in the past few days, partly because I have tried to get a backlog of Egypt trip posted. But I did get my new fisheye lens delivered and have taken a few shots with it. Will definitely take some more shots with it later today, but here is one for now:



I know - not very inventive... not even with the gimmicky HDR treatment. I'll see what I can do later. Only my imagination is the limit with this great lens!

Last Bluebells

I'd completely forgotten about bluebells... in fact I thought they'd all gone to heaven by now as it's been so warm and summery for the past few days. Decided to go and check whether there are any left in Stanmer park - and there were!







Other scenes in Stanmer Park.



Did I ever mention that I love trees?







In the evening we went to see "Norman", a 90 minute performance where dancer/choreographer Peter Trosztmer interacted with Norman McLaren's films, so to speak. A very inventive, clever and fun piece of art.

This is what it looked like outside the theatre after the performance.

Photoshop Disasters

A break from my own photography into some Photoshop magic. Or not so magic, as it turns out, if you don't know what you are doing. I came across this blog via some obscure route this morning (probably started in Brighton Flickr pool). There are some hilarious blunders there, and quite surprising ones, too. I bet you never noticed what was wrong with the sky in 20th Century Fox logo (widescreen version, presumably "stretched" from a 4:3 aspect image). I hadn't. And what about that Photoshop book "How To Cheat in Photoshop CS3"... looks like it's a testament to crap editing. I mean, don't they see the irony in the image on the cover and the slogan "The art of creating photorealistic montages" over it? Seems to me like the book endorses cheap and nasty shortcut editing. The examples inside the book are as horrendous as the cover.

Now, I have to admit that this subject is my pet peeve at the moment. It makes me angry when I see an impressive image in thumbnail size, then click on it and see that it's been created with bad, sloppy editing. Honestly. I should have some aspirin next to my computer in case a poorly edited photo attacks me through my monitor. What angers me most is Betterphoto.com daily e-mails. (And bear with me here, as most of the time I love seeing the daily photo.) I subscribed to these e-mails a year or two ago, and get one photo sent to my inbox every day. Most of the time the "Photo of the Day" is great, and sometimes simply stunning. But sometimes... well... for example, exactly how realistic did the creator of this image think it would look when you combine a dark, after sunset image of the sky and a harshly side lit daylight image of giraffes? And this is by no means one of the worst examples of bad editing amongst the Betterphoto.com "Photo of the Day" picks. (BTW, just clicking through the giraffe image guy's portfolio on Betterphoto reminded of another editing faux-pas: that awful, completely unrealistic "Photoshop water reflection" that some people seem to adore.) But like I said, most of the time the "Photo of the Day" picks are absolutely stunning images - have a look!

I'm not by any means saying that my own editing skills are great, but at least I strive for - well, if not 'perfection', then at least 'very good'. And when I can't achieve that, I prefer to hide the evidence and go away and practise more before showing the image in public.

Doggy food bowls have arrived

I know this is a bit OTT, but can't help it - I'm excited! I just got a couple of food bowls delivered. They are the bowls that will be attached to the puppy training crate that should arrive later today or tomorrow. I also bought a whole lot of puppy treats, toys, collar and lead, claw clippers, puppy shampoo, a comfy bed etc. on-line yesterday, so should be getting them soon, too. (In the photo also a toy that I bought in Halfords yesterday... I was only going to buy a windscreen reflector to shield out sun while my car is parked, but happened to walk down the isle of dog related items and came back with a few of them.)



To be honest, I don't expect to use the food bowl much for some time. Ian Dunbar recommends not to use a bowl, but rather give the puppy all his food either in a Kong so that he gets to "search" for his food while playing and chewing, or as treats when puppy training. To me it sounds like a good idea. I used to play with my cocker spaniel by sliding her kibble pieces on the floor one by one, and her catching them with her paws. She used to love that game. Or searching for pieces of kibble that I had hidden in the room and getting all excited every time she found one. Must have been more fun than wolfing down her food from a bowl at once, and then having nothing to do all that time that she would otherwise have spent finding her food and having a good time.

Glyndebourne

Today we went to Glyndebourne to see and hear Tokyo String Quartet. The music was beautiful, as was the venue - both inside and out. I never knew about Glyndebourne before, but this is one of those peculiar places in England: it's an opera house, and when you go there to see an opera, you bring a picnic with you so that you can enjoy the surrounding gardens with your friends while getting tipsy on Champagne, dressed in evening dress/dinner jacket. Membership costs more than a year's rent of a smallish flat. It's all very nice, of course. But with my non-millionaire financial status, I think I prefer to listen to operas on the hi-fi at home, and spend my "spare" money on more photography gear.

Anyhow, here is the auditorium (at interval). The acoustics were very good.



One of the older buildings.



Lots of weird and wonderful flowers in the gardens.





And of course I found some blossoms again... Hey, it's spring!

Cheltenham Jazz Festival

Some photos from this year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival. First, went for a little drive after seeing the puppies and before our first booked gig.








Avant garde, free improviser, drummer Han Bennink at Xposed Club at the University of Gloucestershire.



A complete nutter, of course, and a great drummer.



A statue near the Town Hall... A play with flash and long exposure to give the impression that the conductor is moving his hands.



Pianist Stefano Bollani and trumpetist Enrico Rava at The Town Hall.





The next day both our gigs were in The Everyman Theatre where photography was not allowed... so here are a couple of photos I took in between the gigs, at Crickley Hill Country Park.







Minotaur and Hare, a statue near The Everyman Theatre.

Puppy Viewing!

Finally it's 2nd of May; the day when I get to see my new puppy! He is still too little to take home with me, but at least I got to see him with all his siblings and mum Molly. All below photos were taken by Miles, as I was too busy getting to know my puppy.





"Look, I've got teeth!"





The puppies are kept in this crate for the time being. As soon as they can walk about more, they are moved to a bigger crate with separate play and toilet areas (apart from the "nest"), so they should be pretty much paper trained by the time I get mine.



"Pick me next!"





Mum Molly didn't really want to feed the babies for long... And I can't say that I blame her, now that the eager puppies have those little sharp teeth!









After about an hour, it was their feeding time (they have started to eat puppy porridge a week ago, twice a day). Great mayhem ensued.



...after which, within a couple of minutes, everything went quiet all of a sudden while I was talking to the breeder, and when I looked around, they were all asleep in a big pile of puppies in the corner of the den!