blue towel

this is an old image, taken on Fuerteventura in april. we've just booked a christmas break o Lanzarote and I am really loking forward to it. Hope the weather doesn't let us down - darkness of late autumn is getting at me lately

salsa photo

this photo of Juan and Rosi was taken back in June. Unfortunately, they don't teach in Cambridge any more (to the best of my knowledge, anyway, and not in the same place in any case). the club where the photo was taken weren't a great place for photography - it's a basement location, with mirror ceiling to the dance floor and partially mirrored walls. While you can bounce the flash off those surfaces (which I did), it doesn't really diffuse the flash much, but rather makes a squiggly light patterns all over the place. Even so, I think the results of the session were quite good, and of course those guys are very photogenic, which helped

Juan teaches classes in a couple of locations in east anglia, check his website if interested http://www.salsa-son-cuba.com/index.html

one of a kind

I can't figure out what tree it was. the leaves were maple-like, but it had the fruit like a prickly sphere, similar to plane tree, but smaller.

update : it's a sweetgum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua. was identified by collective effort :)

Timur gets a haircut

as you can plainly see, he doesn't really like to pose, but well, I wanted both "before" and "after" pictures and here they are

False Bay

sometimes, when the weather is bad and light is poor, I look through my folders from sunny places and pull out pics that are not new, but nice to look at. This one is from South Africa last December - False Bay

silly stripes

this picture (taken a goodish while ago) now found its way into one of the featured lightboxes on shutterstock - "silly /offbeat". Fine by me, it sells again, after sale-silent months.

seeker

wild strawberry gives such beautiful runners

chilli

no reason,no reason at all

fox

this fractal looked to me like a fox from Pom Poko

broken glass

I made this fractal on white first



then I inverted it accidentally. it proved to be one of those where once you have it inverted it's a different picture altogether

Lighthouse in Grenen

pseudo IR image, toned into fake "old film" colors

Cambridge (Fen Ditton, stricktly speaking) dragon boat festival

festival website - http://www.dragonboatfestivals.co.uk/cambridge/
a few more photos at http://tamara-k.livejournal.com/324898.html
Cambridge pics at shuttersock

in-camera blur

looking up through the leaves, zooming in while exposing

red arrows again

samw shhow. shame they don't do flybys for private occasions, or so it appears

red arrows

red arrows were performing yesterday at Duxford. they are spectacular.
I just checked out their website and you can kinda follow them around if you wish http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/displayinfo/september09.cfm
I am thinking hard about it

jump

either Yuri or Timur (how did they grow, my little boys, I can't tell them apart from the reflection) is jumping over a pool on Aarhus pier.

Last day there it was sunny one minute and rained heavily the next

postcard from Lavenham

the village is ever so pretty.

incidentally, this is a village where I first saw (and promptly misinterpreted) a mention of "Odd Fellows Lodge". It was (and still is) n a little plaque on one of the public benches. I couldn't photograph the plaque, because both times we went past there was a cheerful group of old ladies sitting on the bench having a chat. I did photograph is before, though - have a look, if you wish

Anyway, the Oddfellows (written together, apparently) are not "strange fellows", but rather "assorted fellows", meaning that society is formed across trades and occupation - here is what wikipedia has to say about it

flax in blue

we happened to be at a pick-your-own farm nearby when a field of flax was in bloom. I spotted pretty blue flowers, made a few pics and then asked the lady in the farm shop "are those linen?". the word "flax" escaped me at that point, but we quickly arrived on it. She said that she had no idea what these plants were, and asked a guy who was passing by "Listen, are those flax plants?". He scratched his head and said - "what, those blue ones? Naah, they are linseed".
We didn't argue, although it is the same thing.
Now this field is almost ripe, but I like the blue version better

widow cleaner

smoke

incense stick smoke, isolated on black, inverted and colored.

redcurrant

I never really liked to eat it, but when I was a kid, I really liked the look of redcurrant bushes. transparency, bright reds and greens, the roundness - it seemed perfection to me. I was always very annoyed when it was time for picking.

lashes

 

Pictures of the same model on shutterstock - here

bilberry

I could hardly tear myself from this bilberry place, but somebody to pick us up and was waiting by the car, plus insect repellent was wearing off. Otherwise I would probably still be there

forest

in-camera motion blur. it was late and a normal picture won't have worked anyways

waiting

waiting on Suomenlinna pier for a ferry that would (and did) bring over Kirill, who forgot his passport a day before and had to come over a day later than planned. Maybe we were just lucky, but we had a beautiful slice of finnish summer

you should always have your camera handy

Saffron Walden fire station was having a findraising carwash today and I turned in (I was going to get kids to wash my car, but I was going to do it for such a long time that, well, you know). I think it was something to do with next carnival, at least some of the guys have t-shirts with carnival logo on. to be fair, everything was probably written on the board they were holding by the entrance, but I didn't get to read it really.

my car is very, very clean, unusually so.

I have a few nice snaps from inside the car. I am thinking that when I am back from the hols, I will pop into the station and give them a CD.

californian bluebells

I knew the name Brodiaea and clusterlily, but this time I bought those guys under the name "califirnian bluebells". Not sure if this is a real common name or an invention of whoever gives names to the goods in the shop

Inachis io

apparently it means "daughter of Inachus". well, I never.

our butterfly bush (buddleja) is at the moment full of these and "painted ladies", few red admirals etc. I guess summer is really n the middle now

Llandudno in SA

from time to time I dip into my "old" picture folders, to see if there is something there that I missed when doing the first processing. this pic featured almost blown flat pale blue sky, so I swapped it to something more exciting (and taken in Hunstanton, Norfolk, of all places)

braids and beads

it's difficult to say why this wig was originally bought, but now Kirill is using it when playing with Arco Iris samba group. It looks good, the only problem is, when it's hot, it's very hot to wear. meybe the next wig needs to be crocheted out of cotton thread, that should be nice and cool.

landscape

water drops and shooting by Kirill, my idea and processing (and modelling)

sweet kisses

today at the french market in Cambridge (yes, I know, it's a contradiction in terms. still, there you go). there were all sorts of sweets, and U was hoping for Timur to go for a thick marshmallow "rope", but he didn't - he got himself a bag of small sweets instead

being cool

same picture of Timur making "cool" face - one almost with no processing, secod one processed in "urban decay" style.

field scabious

field scabious

common knapweed

those are field scabious (nasty name, nice flower, coming up tomorrow, watch this space) are making very nice roadside display this year. Funny, I did plant some wild flowers next to my garden fence, none (none at all) came up, and roadsides are full of them.

beads

it took me over a year to decide what to do with those sponge coral beads, and then the necklace was done within thirty minutes when I needed to liven up a dull grey dress. It would have taken less, but the lacey metal beads are difficult for getting the leather cord through. I am quite pleased with the result - the beads are light, quite long, and move around my er chest in most intriguing way, even is I say so myself

greater bindweed (Convolvulus sepium)

I photographed this bindweed over back wall of one of the gardens surrounding the short stay car park on Mill Road, Cambridgem while waiting for Arco Iris Samba Band to start towards Harston and Newton Primary School Fête. While I was finding the best angle, a woman and her child arrived on their bikes and got through the back door of a garden. I turned and found her looking at me, smiling. We had a short chat, her saying that "it's so nice somebody notices how beautiful those white flowers are" and that "Ipomoea (the type of bindweed with large blue-purple flowers) is a weed in my country". Unfortunately, I didn't have time to establish what her country actually was, but the conversation made me remember that Ipomoea is also weed in Portugal, where we were on holidays last year. Porto, especially old town, seems to be pretty much covered in it in august.

fearless one

I would be terrified, but Timur jumps off those things like a little kangaroo

kite

taken on the same day wjen I finally discovered that there is a shipwreck in Hunstanton

hammock

this bindweed certainly took its time before it finally decided to open the first flower.

one of those things

this old shipwreck is right under the cliffs in Hunstanton. Now, I've been to Hunstanton many times, and I never, ever seen it till this thursday, when we went there with my friend and turned the OTHER way when we came down to the beach, Amazing, really, It was always there and I always went in a different direction

poppy planet

pink poppies

those pink poppies, unlike the red ones, refused to raise their heads altogether, and dropped all the petals ithin few hours of opening.

view over Firth of Clyde towards Arran

I dunno where the rule about necessity of foreground interest in landscape arisen from. you don't need foreground interest in something as beautiful as this

poppy

I listened to advise by Vasilij Cesenov(check him out, amazing pics of flowers) and picked not fully-opened poppies this time, but the buds. Fully opened ones always drop half of the petals before you get them into water. Buds first went limp, but started to raise their heads in very snake-like manner next day. And today a first flower started to open

Solomon's seal

I can't quite see why exactly it is called Solomon's seal, but it is a pretty name for sure


big image of the same plant will be available for about a week at hiero.ru hosting here (over 4Mb)

Return of the Unpronounceables

I found it rather sweet that the B&B owner couldn't say the name of this castle (Caerlaverock) either, and she lives there all her life.

Admittedly, she lives about half a kilometer away from the border of England and Scotland, on English side. But still

swordplay

Timur, cameo appearance from Yuri, video taken by Kirill