Poinsettia monogatari

Once upon a time there was a beautiful poinsettia in a B&Q on the south east coast of the land of Britannia; waiting to be picked up by a loving, caring human being. It was waiting there with dozens of other poinsettias for days and days in a cold warehouse full of paint, power drills, skirting boards, smelly men and ridiculous drawer knobs. And then, one day, a female human being came and bought the poinsettia that was so pretty, so very very pretty with its many red centres and beautiful, strong leaves. One could almost say that it was the perfect poinsettia for floral photography. The female human gently carried it out of the B&Q store and carefully placed it behind her seat in the car so as to not damage it in any way during the transport to the human's new, beautiful home. "Ah, finally I am going to be in a home lovingly cared for, and I'm going to see a Christmas with kind people who will admire me!" the poinsettia thought.

The car stops and the female human gets out of the car, picks ALL the many things that she has bought - various draught excluders, a sandwich, another big plant - AND last, the poinsettia, clutching everything in her arms so that all the things JUST avoid slipping and falling on the concrete pavement. She gets to the door of her house, adjusts her arms to reach the key hole, and S N A P ! breaks the poinsettia's spine. Arrrrgh! So much for a loving, warm home. So much for Christmas. So much for. Life.

Oh dear. "Well", thinks the female human, her heart weeping, "I better take some photos of the poinsettia before it wither and dies..."



She placed the poinsettia next to a window to use natural light for the photos. A springy springer called Mr Zebedee came over to the window to check whether there was something interesting going on.



But no, there was nothing happening out in the garden. It was just the female human taking photos again, this time of a plant. "Really? Is that all you were doing here?"



"Well, if you are taking photos of the plant, take a photo of me next to it."



One last look at the poor poinsettia....



(Tomorrow I'll go and buy a new one... shhhhh!)

Moody

Another walk by the sea today. Strangely our walks have been to the harbour recently... can't resist going out there in this high wind we've been having lately and watching the stormy sea. The sea looks calm in this one, but it's only because I took the photo from the safe side of the wave breaker, plus it was low tide.



Started packing for my house move today. Lots to do!

More spray

High tide was quite late today and it was already getting dark, but I went back to the harbour to take some more shots of the stormy sea. Sadly the photos don't do much justice to the experience of standing in the heavy sea breeze, trying to steady yourself with the long, heavy lense while watching this beautiful, powerful sea. Here are a couple of shots, nevertheless.

You can click on the photos and see them bigger!

Newhaven lighthouse gets a battering

Quite windy again today... sadly I missed the highest winds at the harbour the other day. Perhaps there is still hope for getting high winds before I move....?

Pin-up shoot with Charlotte

We had a fun photo shoot with Charlotte today recreating some classic pin-up poses for her portfolio. Here are some samples.

It gives you wings

Okay, if it was stormy yesterday, it sure was stormy today, too. In fact, it seemed like the sea had wings!

Stormy

It was so stormy by the sea today that I couldn't help but giggle while watching the waves and trying to walk against the wind. What a shame it was low tide - otherwise I would have been able to capture some seriously high spray against the lighthouse.


















I thought I'd try something extra for one of the photos above... this is the second time I've decided to try using a texture! Some people create wonderful imagery with textures, so I'm thinking I should experiment more with overlaying multiple images. Anyway, here's today's little experiment:



Feel free to let me know what you think. Both negative and positive impressions equally welcome!