sunrise

end of the tunnel

one of those pics that lay around for a long long time before I finally process them. This one is nearly two years old already, and taken on a journey from Wales, in our then-new Mithubishi outlander. Obviously, the original is all shaky, but a little blur helps the pic in this case

moon grass

collage of my two photos - recent of a full moon and today's of grass against murky sky + favourite scanned old paper texture


another version on flickr

a big square crop of panoramic version can be downloaded from hiero.ru (7.9 M), for approximately one week

dandelion boy

dandelion

I make a few of similar pics each year in dandelion harvest season

big version of this file will be available for approximately one week here

I spy with my little eye something beginning with c

this cat was a resident in our hotel on Fuerteventura. I am not a great fan of cat normally but I liked the color on this one, and the lazy dignity of its movements

pseudo infrared

first, standard photoshop conversion into monochrome IR was applied. To increase glow of highlights typical to IR, I selected the white and similar areas, copied them over to another layer, blurred it, mixed it with the first layer used "soft light" and played with the transparence of the layer till I liked what I saw.

the flowering tree was on the slope of the cathedral hill in Ely

the color original can be found here

Hunstanton, low tide

I first saw a real low tide in Scarborough, on a really hot summer day. Before that my seaside experiences where mostly with Black Sea (no tides as such, warm swimable water), so I naively thought that I would be able to swim there.

Water was relatively high what we came there. I bravely waded in (ankle-high, knee-high) and started walking into (I assumed) deeper water. I walked and I walked and it stayed knee-deep. I turned around. Water edge was moving the same way as me and was close behind. As a bonus, in the distance I saw Kirill, dying of laughter. I never before saw so much sea bottom exposed by low tide.

Low tide on The Wash (above) is even more impressive, but it doesn't cause such surprise as that first even encounter in Scarborough

walking in dunes

still fuerteventura, still hundreds of pics to go

full set on flickr

hibiscus

it seems to me that my canon 5d (mark 1), same as 20d before it, has a problem with red. red "bleeds" into the surrounding colors. not sure if the problem is in the optics of the camera itself

anyway, I am still to make a photo of hibiscus that will satisfy me, this is just one more attempt

blue towel

at the beach on Fuerteventura, just to show the wind. It's strong wind ^)

(lime,linden, basswood, tilia

nio realy reason, except the weather decided to have mercy on poor people who are just back from better climes and is sunny and warm. I need to cut that lawn again one day

I planted some lily-of-the-valley. all the previous attempts failed, I am curious is this time me and plant re both lucky

small video of blowing sand

made by Kirill in dunes of Corralejo

fishy abstarct

there was plenty of fish of different sizes in the harbour of Corralejo. Which made one thing a puzzle : why didn't we see a single one white taking "glass bottom" baot to the Isla de Lobos.

Well, ok, maybe not so surprising, fish doesn't want to hang about quickly moving objects. Still

sparkler

this is first photo taken on Fuertevetura. We arrived quite late in the evening so the only thing to do was to go find some food. We had a nice meal in one of the beachside restaurants and Timur had a chocolate muss to finish off. They bought it to the table with a sparkler, and one of the waiters sang "happy birthday" to very surprised Timur (who actually covered his ears in embarrassment).

I was somewhat less surprised, since they do the same thing to a randomly choosen person in the biggest party of each evening in Efes restaurant in Cambridge

Corralejo sand dunes, Fuerteventura

this is probably the windiest of all Canary Islands, but it has those wonderful dunes on the northern tip, next to village or Corralejo. Every day I was asking the kids what is the top attraction on the island for them and their answer always stayed the same "dunes"

southwold beach huts

went to Southwold today. they did something odd with the beach huts that were there to the left from the pier - some of them were moved to the car park (taking a lot of space) and some of them to the right of the pier. I suspect it means that mean that all sea defense is now installed and to the right of the pier is the proper position for them. Maybe owners of those that ended up in the car park can't be located or something (just a guess, I don't really know).

as a result had to park in the street leading to the car park - which apparently is both legal and free. serendipity or what?

while waiting in the car park

I am not sure what this is - apple? something purely decorative? don't know, but looks good

anemones (anemone blanda)

sorry, I know it's too big, but smaller formats don't look good

anemones are in bloom at the back entrance of Trinity Colledge, Cambridge (UK).

dog violet

clump of dog violet (Viola canina)

there is a bigger clump of those each year, growing just opposite from my front door. but my attempts to separate a part of it and move a section into my own garden were so far unsuccessful, they seems to like the edge of car park better'n a tended flowerbed

spring diagonal

light clouds in the sky make isolation of outdoor objects on white a piece of cake - providing you can find an angle where the object is seen against the sky. up the exposure (maximun +2 is used here), and the background sky will burn. If it doesn't burn completely, call the "levels" dialog in photoshop, pick up the white sampler from the panel and click on the areas that are still not completely white.

link to big version of this on hiero.ru hosting ~2Mbis now gone

wishing for summer

divers alarums

or something

pied piper of hamelin

Timur in "pied piper of hamelin"



I was always puzzled by the "pied" bit. apparently it's quite simply means "multicolored". there goes my nice theory about pies being thrown at the piper at some point

Forsythia

is that a cheerful yellow or what?

muscari

I also have a pot of muscari at home, and those haven't yet even started to open, whoch is another way round from the usual situation

infinity sign

the light is very mixed, and only a feeble attempt is made to rectify the white balance on the jumper - throwing the rest of the pic into blue and creating "stage light" appearance
boys pics on shutterstock

bird scroll

just playing

this guitar has a very nice wood grain to it and color is beautiful, so left most of the color in the guitar intact

large image is now gone

november in Norway

dunno why I processed this pic today, but there you go. That was taken last November in Norway. Name of the lake I can't recall at all

ranunculus

when florists pompously call those guys "Ranunculus", you can hardly guess it means "buttercup", essentially :)

the one grown as cut flower is apparently Ranunculus asiaticus (Persian Buttercup)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranunculus

this morning condensation

more backgroundy type of pics at shutterstock

maybe I should have left that beard on after all

I don't have studio equipment, not even a flashgun, so I make do with sunlight and white paper for reflectors.


other model-released pics on shutterstock

more crocuses

full format of this file is now gone from hiero.ru hosting

lot more flower images for sale at shutterstock

life cycle of umbrella bearers

- Can I hold this umbrella?
- It's better if I do.
- Why?
- 'Cos I am taller than you.
- When I grow up… Well, then you may be old, say, you
will be dead. That means, you go to heaven.
- And?...
- You know, heaven is far above. Higher than sky. But
you can't see nothing because you're, well, dead.
- And?...
- You know, this is a LIFE CYCLE of us. First you are a
baby,then you are a toddler, then a child, then a grown-up.
And after that you go to heaven. And after that you are a baby again.
- Really?!...
- Yes.
- And?!
- And when I am a grown up and you are a baby again, I can hold the umbrella.


This dialog is old, Yuri was about 6 when it happened. It still amazes me, though

crocuses today in Cambridge

there were quite a lot of people around this little lake of blue, snapping away, small cameras, SLRs, mobile phone cameras, you name it.

when I was getting into my car (parked for 20 mins at the Backs), whet looked like a japanese television crew was getting out of a van in the next slot. wondering if they came for crocuses too

multiplayer chess in fourth dimension

a challenge, for sure

snowdrops

Galanthus nivalis, common snowdrop, flowering on a roadside. My jeans' knees are now dirty :)

fractal feather background

free large format of this image will be available for a week at hiero.ru image hosting. Careful, over 6Mb there

other fractals for sale at shutterstock

instant sunshine

today is quite gloomy here, so a pic from costa del sol with (appropriately) sun in it. Btw, when you fully close the aperture in order to take this type of "star sun" image, what does the number of visible rays depend on? )there are eight of them on this one). My guess is the number of "petals" in the lens, but not sure.

btw2 - not dissimilar picture remains my bestseller on istockphoto site, accumulating over 400 dollars by now. There are pictures with lot more sales there, but they belong to other people, alas)

true colors : photovandalism

almost monochrome image of narrow street in Fuengirola. Was too boring in original shape, so played with it in photoshop and quite like the results :)

perching

Spain, Fuengirola beach. Well, you can't see where it is, you have to take my word for is

full frame at lori

fractal "flying notes"

at lori.ru

another one

at shutterstock

lipsticky lips

it's amazing what Apophysis software can do almost with no input from me



at lori.ru

twisted surfaces

big format on flickr

still snowing

still snowing today. as it is a wrong type of snow (as usual), schools opened in the morning but then closed again.

dragon

I've tried to teach Timur "wet-into-wet-on-limited-area" technique (see example here).
He watched with interest, nodded wisely, said that he understood everything and then produced this dragon - that has nothing to do with the technique, but is very pic in his very own style.

catkins

Cape of Good Hope (square format)

today's snow

horizontal crop is here

Puzzleball

Yuri completed his Ravensburger Puzzleball

more pics of the same thing - 1, 2, 3, 4