Argonaut

The day before yesterday, Kirill found a nice looking shell with what he thought was something dead and slimy inside it on the sand of our favorite beach. He picked it up and carried it to show us; while he was walking, he felt something touching his fingers, and when he looked at it, a sad blue eye popped out to look at him. He started dipping the whole thing in the water as he walked; at which point the shy dweller climbed out of the shell and made bid to escape. The animal abandoned the shell; it looked like a tiny octopus. Kirill released it into water and it swam away, changing the color as it went. It  left the shell with us. According to my limited knowledge of octopuses at that point, they don't have shells, so we decided that the animal was probably carrying someone else's shell around for protection, rather like a hermit crab.

would smell as sweet?

Once setup for "black mirror" photos is set up, so to speak, it's difficult to stop making small still-life images with it.

The rose bud is from our garden, rosebush came with the house. The plant is very old and the trunk base is as thick as a small tree's. Flowers are not particularly pretty, they open too quickly, loosing the central swirl, most attractive feature in a rose flower to me. But they are highly scented, so much so that it seems almost unnatural. The scent is so strong that it reminds me not so much of other flowers, as of a small tube or essential rose oil that we used to have in our house in Moscow, years ago.

I just looked up the rose oil, and think that maybe "our" rose is related to rosa centifolia (cabbage rose) that is apparently one of the two main sources of the oil.  Well, all roses are related, but some more'n others

black mirror images on shutterstock

pomegranate

pomegranate on black mirror

it's difficult to guess what the inside of it will be like once you opened it, but this one proved to be good choice - nice-looking, photogenic, and apparently tasty. I didn't try it - I don't like pomegranate, bought it as a prop :)


black mirror images at shutterstock

Nashi pears (apparently)

Bought those today in Chinese supermarket on Mill road. Lady behind the counter told me that they are thought to be good for lungs. That's news to me, but I like the crunch of them anyways. And the look of them too.

In wikipedia I found that I those round ones are called "Nashi" pears, and that the ones that are more, well, pear-shaped, are called "Ya".

black mirror images at shutterstock

I just like it

no other reason.

Continuing down the nostalgic route - close to my house in Moscow, there used to be "birds' market" - biggish marketplace dedicated to pets or all kinds. As kids we went there to look at cute puppies and kittens. There were also other things - plants and natural objects for home decorations (come to think of it, it was rather like a big pet-shop combined with garden center merchandise-wise).

Anyway, there were couple of traders there selling exotic seashells. I was convinced that they were not real shells - I just couldn't imagine that something so beautiful can just happen, surely cunning artifice came into it at some point.

By now the market was moved beyond the outer ring road of Moscow, apparently - they figured out it was not sanitary enough, or something.

figs

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

scroll

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

spooky beauty

don't know about you, but for me full-face mask are always spooky, even the most beautiful venetian ones.
fortunately, the one I have is small, so it's not so scary. but when pics are taken, the scale becomes unclear, with expected effect.

It was very weird to look at people in full masks and costumes the only time I went to carnival in Venice (years ago). They would chat merrily between themselves, and laugh, and while body language will say "I am happy and relaxed and chatting with my friends", the masks will maintain that slight haughty smile that says "I am so not interested in anyone, I am the most beautiful creature for miles around"

white mask and black mirror on shutterstock

reflective one

I don't know what to write here, really. Pepper was very bright and shiny and my "tabletop" setup suits this type of object very nicely and that's enough reason to make a picture

upd: and it was yummy :)

black and, er, sort of white

It seems that I am slowly but surely going off monochrome images. I used to convert to monochrome a lot, which was not altogether unconnected to the fact that my very first digital camera produced an awful lot of digital noise and incorrectly exposed images (well, the last bit was my fault too). Monochrome conversion was a handy way of hiding those defects.

Sure, there are situations where pictures are asking to be converted, but it happens less and less somehow. Even in where the color is very difficult to handle, it feels a shame to destroy it altogether.