Sunday, October 31, 2010

Watendlath Beck

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We went for a circular walk that goes along Derwent water, into the woods to Lodore falls, up more or less along the Watendlath Beck (small river that is falling at the falls, so to speak) and then looped back down to the lake. I am reasonably sure we went slightly wrong at some point, but we got there in the end. The diversion didn't really matter, and one fellow walker poiter to us - "you can't go wrong, it's Lake District, it's pretty everywhere".

I agree with her, it's beautiful, and especially in autumn.

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Cumbria pics on shutterstock

Saturday, October 30, 2010

feather

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on our way back from the lakes yesterday we took not the most direct of routes but went for scenic instead, going along the smaller roads for large portion of the journey, including A65, which runs along south border of Yorkshire Dales

It took us past Skipton, where we stopped for some food and drinks. On our way back to the carpark I've noticed a very tasteful flower display in front of BLOEMIST florist, and went in to have a look. Inside the shop was also very nice and unusual - sort of spare and designery, not the more commonly seen chaotic floral abundance.

I bought myself this peacock feather. When I got out, both Kirill and Timur wanted to have one, and got one each. Kirill wanted it to complete a costume when they do samba drumming. Timur went for it in his usual magpie "grab a pretty thing and carry it to the nest" style.

Friday, October 29, 2010

old-fashioned tea

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we are back from Cumbria. Stayed in a cottage close to lake district. Weather weren't that great, but we did have two ok days, so not too bad

Cottage was full of old stuff that just asked to be photographed. Some of it I ended up not photographing due to lack of light and this and that, but this kettle and old tea things asked the loudest

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Zelkova serrata

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Interesting name - the "zelkova" bit, "serrata" is pretty straightforward. I was half-expecting to find that it was named after a botanist (Russian or Bulgarian perhaps) with surname Zelkov. But Wikipedia has this to say on the subject

"The name Zelkova derives from the native name of Z. carpinifolia in one or more of the languages of the Caucasus, as shown by the Georgian name, ძელქვა (dzelkva). ძელ dzel meaning "bar", and ქვა kva meaning "rock". The tree was often used for making rock-hard and durable bars for building."

There is a very nice tree in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, and it is of this interesting yellow-orange-brown color right now.

Zelkova serrata at shutterstock

Thursday, October 21, 2010

what is Cassandra wearing today?

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She's wearing a monkey-head knitted hat and no arms.

In the article below it is explained that one hand went missing last week. When I popped into the shop today, Pamela told me that since then one arm turned up, then another went missing, so the mannequin is guarding its street corner "completely 'armless".

She also told me of her call to the police. She wished to report a theft, she said. Policewoman on the other end of the line, preparing it write it down, asked what was missing. An arm, said Pamela. You can probably imagine that it was not a very straightforward affair, that report.

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

wild grape vine leaves

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at least I am pretty sure they are. They don't give change in the parking meter on Mill road in Cambridge, and we didn't have the right coints, so decided to gain something extra out of the overpriced stay visit - collect some of the turned leaves from the brick wall surrounding the car park.
I had to scrape ice off my car in the morning - hopefully that means that leaves will finally start turning en masse. So far it was only the old reliables that did

Sunday, October 17, 2010

dirty face

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Timur spend whole day doing activities with cubs and scouts. He came home looking like this. I am sure this war paint rendered him perfectly invisible.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

trombone

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continued experimenting with lights. I always wanted to do some pics with strong-contrast side light and now I have the wherewithal. Two lights with umbrella reflectors to the side and back of the model in a darkish room worked nicely.

So here we are. Kirill was the model, and there are a few more pics here but this one is most laconic and I like it the most.

all music-related pics on shutterstock

Monday, October 11, 2010

backlit one

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As one of my birthday presents, two small-ish studio flashes (similar to ones on amazon, but different ones) arrived a few days ago. I never have enough courage to unpack and test things immediately after their arrival, so they stayed for a few days in their box

this is first experiments with them and my still-beautiful birthday flowers.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

today's flowers for tomorrow

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received two huge bunches of birthday flowers today for tomorrow

I mean yesterday for today :)

Monday, October 04, 2010

figs

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I am not great fan of them, I do eat them but I can just as happily eat something else. The colors are beautiful though, especially on black

black mirror images at shutterstock

Sunday, October 03, 2010

scroll

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Keywording processed images sometimes brings me knowledge that I somehow managed to happily avoid before. For example, I never knew that this wooden spiral bit is called scroll.

The violin is on loan from the music workshop, and you might expected, it scratched, dirty and looks like it was used to repeatedly bash someone with. Only partial side view is relatively free of marks. I am not complaining, just stating the fact. I wanted to process the full violin reflection image, but it required such extensive digital repairs that I gave up.


music-related pics at shutterstock

Saturday, October 02, 2010

guitar

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Now it's Timur turn to learn the guitar. He himself seems like playing violin more, but I must say that it's a lot easier to extract ear-torturing sounds out of violin than out of guitar, so I kind of enjoy his guitar more.

Interesting. While I am typing my post, amazon associates panel next to the editor window gives me various suggestions as to what I can link it to. I was overjoyed to find that there is such thing as Guitar For Dummies Acoustic Guitar Starter Pack (Guitar, Book, Audio CD, Gig Bag). I mean, most of the "for dummies" books are excellent, it might actually work :)

music-related pics at shutterstock