Arco Iris Samba band Haiti earthquake appeal

today Arco Iris samba band collected money for the Haiti earthquake victims. They did two standing sets around Cambridge Market square and a short procession around it.
There were three kids with collection buckets - two of them ours. People were quite astonishingly generous, and towards the end of the performance the buckets were full to overflowing. I don't yet know how much was raised, but it looked a lot.

Nymphaea

Such a pretty name.

I was browsing through the pictured I took in Venice and Padova in October, hoping to find something I missed when going through the folders first time. I didn't find anything new, but colors on pictures from Padova botanic gardens called for attention, and here is one of them.

The garden is small and mostly geometrically laid out and walled, with some space outside the wall dedicated to more natural layout. Apparently, it is the world's oldest academic botanical garden that is still in its original location (which I didn't really know up till five minutes ago, just knew it's old). Far as I remember, it's not cheap, considering the size - 4 euro, and our kids paid full price. It was worth it, though.

Amaryllis (well, ok, Hippeastrum)

amazingly, it survived our absences over holidays. not that I expected it to become lonely or worried, but I semi-expected it to die because of temperature drop. we did leave the heating on, but on low setting and when we arrived from Lanzarote, the house felt freezing.

anyhow - it did survive, and now it's getting taller and taller and more and more top-heavy by day. it should be stripy when it opens. we'll wait and see.

PS - I think I know why it is misnamed so very frequently (practically always).
Misnomer "Amaryllis" seems to be a self-sufficient word which doesn't fall into two halves, doesn't ask for explanation and doesn't create a conflict in reader's or writer's mind. "Hippeastrum", on the other hand, falls into halves, wants to make sense and begs to be changed into "Hyperastrum". Granted, it's not clear what's so hyper about that astrum, but then - what could possibly be horsey (Hipper) about it? Wikipedia provides an explanation, but it only makes sense if you take into account the biography and occupation by the namer.

I can stop at any time

I finally finished this scarf. it turned out really really long - I should have suspected something when description mentioned that each strip should be 3 m long, but the final result was still a surprise.

The original description called for wool in six different colors (it gives a weave where no color touches the same color), which I didn't have. Some happy time was spent trying to figure out whether you can get away with fewer colors and have a good looking weave. And yes, you can, with two colors you get stripy weave, you just have to figure out how the start should look like. This post, although it's looking like something about science, was prompted by those musings.

pixie hat

well, it didn't all fit in the picture, but it is a pointed hat, believe you me. it's the hat that was bought in edinburgh to fight off the new year eve frost, at the same stand that the previous post show. it does fight the frost and also looks extremely cute on Timur, so it's multifunctional really

see the tip pf the hat here :)

last glow

photographing sunsets is something that everybody does, and it's extremely difficult to produce something even close original in this area. so I didn't even try.

But - I just developed an instant theory why the sunset-y photographs are almost frowned upon by photographers - well, you know, they are generally landscapes, and landscapes are supposed* to have "an interest in the foreground", right? and what sort of foreground can you have in a picture where the main subject is sunset? - well, you can have a silhouette (human, dog, horse, bird, building, boat, standing still, moving whatever), but if foreground subjects are too big or you drag them out of pure outline with a flash, sunset is not a main subject any more. So it's somewhat difficult. Still, it's even more difficult to refrain from snapping away.

Anyway. Matter of fact, there was foreground interest in the original frame, but I choose to cut it off. It's (surprise, surprise) a photographer squatting on the water edge



* - I dunno why, one on these rules.

no such thing as bad weather

about Edinburgh again - it was cold there over the new year, but no that cold (granted, it got colder later, but we were already gone by then). There is a saying which goes something like "there is such thing as bad weather, but there are badly chosen clothes". (I was going to write "russian saying", but I am not sure that it is russian). So, the weather was *good*, but -

we found ourselves somewhat unprepared for cold, especially, unexplicably, Timur. I even had to pull off my over-the-knee socks from under my jeans (it's not easy, I tell you, balancing on one foot on ice) and put them on his legs a few minutes before midnight.

Next day he bought himself a pair of gloves with union jack knitted on them from this stand. He haven't lost them yet, which probably means that he likes them. The stand is a part of little winter fair just under the Scott's monument - check it out if you have a chance, they have some amazingly cheap hand-felted hats too (Kirill got himself one).

yes, it's smoke on the water

Smoky ocean

 

While collecting our stuff for Lanzarote, I forgot to take the tripod (I also forgot to take my driving licence, and a few other bits and bobs) So to make  long-exposure shots, almost an essential seaside activity (well, yes, I might be a bit obsessive about it), I had to make do with some friendly stones, my backpack and my jumper for support

While waiting for one of the fames to expose, I heard a small noise behind me. I don't know whether it was a general feeling of being safe there, or my overall mindset, but I didn't think "mugger", I thought "another photographer". I was right, of course.

Timanfaya

we went to TimanfayaNational Park on Christmas day. It was open, but the day was overcast. I am told we've missed a lot because the light didn't allow to appreciate the colors in volcanoes. True, most of the photos turned up in different shades of black (almost like in the land of Death on Terry Pratchett's books). Some of them do show some of the true colors, and this is one of them. Fantastic place.

check out the geyser demo here http://www.flickr.com/photos/k1r111/4226397586/
they also demonstrated "burning bush" effect - throwing a bundle of sticks into a shallow hole in the ground - it starts burning after a while, because of a magma camber relatively close to the surface. Alas, no video for this one.

Lanzarote sunset

I don't expect that any of the stocks will take this type of sunset image, reason for rejection being "over-filtered". It's true that it didn't come like that out of the camera. However, I strongly suspect that the almost untouched version, if accepted and sold, will eventually appear in about this state, i.e. overprocessing will be done by the designers. Well, never mind

New Year Edinburgh

it took us over seven hours to get there and approximately the same time to come back. It would have taken less, but it was snowing on both occasions, and one-lane portions of A1 were moving with the speed of most cautious driver (which is fair enough, I tend to choose life too).

It's a lively city to visit at this time of year, and a lot of stuff is going on. Some of it gets canceled due to severe weather, but there is always plenty left.

Some words of caution - "New Year street party" (the one on Princess street) is NOT suitable for kids, honestly. We got a contradictory advice from 1) Tourist information center ("it's a lovely atmosphere!") and 2) Tickets Scotland, or whatever it was called ("it's not recommended for under 16's, but if you are happy with it, they can come in"). In the second case the lady, while her info was correct one, was not emphatic enough, I feel, maybe because they sell the entrance tickets for tenner a pop. The position of the party did provide the best view of the firework display, so it wasn't entirely bad, but generally, if you need to watch over somebody, especially kids, do take into account the fact that it is a relatively dense crowd of very merry and mostly very young guys and gals, and it is not the best choice. You'd be much better off on the Royal mile close-ish to the castle, where the main firework display happens.

sunset dip

the sunset on our very last day on Lanzarote was not as spectacular as the others - there were practically no clouds. but we happened to be in the right place to catch the palm trees against the glow. the bathing couple was a definite bonus. It looked very romantic, although I must say, it probably wasn't all the warm at this time of the evening. on the other hand, maybe those guys were scandinavians, used to jumping into ice-cold lakes.

Lanzarote seemed to be quite popular with northern eauropeans. and I can't blame them, when we came back to just-above-freezing-point UK, I couldn't help thinking "we should have stayed there". It must feel a lot worse coming to below-freezing temperatures.

fake autumn in Scotland

This year I haven't been to scotland in autumn, which is a shame.

I stumbled across tutorial that show how to make an autumn pic out of summer one, and given the right type of picture, it looked easy, so I gave it a go using a picture taken in late spring pic on loch lubnaig. Basically, it's just selectively adjusting the hue for different colors (mostly touching yellows and greens), plus a few more tweaks



(Interesting, it looks to me that photobucket hosting site eats into the color somewhat)

here is the original version (click on a magnifying glass on the top left of the preview to see full size)

Not every type of pic seems suitable, though. This pic from Glenfinnan immediately starts falling into a mosaic on obviously spring (water, distant mountains and sky) and fake autumn

spinning top

I occasionally ask kids to throw away or give to me to give to charity or recycle a certain amount or objects from their rooms, just to decrease the clutter.

As in "find and bring here any N objects that are broken, useless or not needed any more".

Timur brought downstairs this spinning top, and said that he doesn't want it. I couldn't bring myself to give it away without taking a few pictures first.

Side note : I's much more difficult to spin it when somebody is watching, camera at the ready

bauble and s.

I bought a bunch of those twigs at Saffron Walden market yesterday. The price tag gave their name, which I read and promptly forgotten. The only thing that I did remember was that it started with "s". I had glimpses of this word all day yesterday and today up till an hour ago. I was just making this when I slapped myself on the forehead and said "salix!". To which Kirill immediately said "or course, you know - willow, salicylic acid, aspirin... you know."

And yes, I did know. Why the connection didn't occur to me before that moment, though?

Salix in medicine

party wig

today Timur wanted to pose (which happens extremely rarely). He specifically wanted to pose in this wig, normally used by Kirill for samba gigs. Well, who am I to say no :)

yellow freesia

Mill Road Winter Fair

we went to Mill Road Winter Fair today. The weather wasn't that great and it started raining in the late afternoon, but there were some very colorful guys around, like those. I didn't quite get who they were. They danced a weird dance, and then walked off to another location to dance some more. Loved the tights

mask

finall, onmy I don't know which trip to Venice, I managed to buy a small _white_ mask. On the previous visits I saw them almost the first thing I came there, and always though - I will buy later, closer to the departure, I don't want to carry it around.

Problem is, Venice is very much like Borges' book of sand - you saw something in it once, you might never see it again, and I as never able to find white mask for the second time before.

This time I made a grab for it. The shape is not quite what I wanted (the classic mask are much closer to real human face), but at least I have something

at shutterstock

sunflower tree

this pic - all glorious 6 mpix* of it - were sold today by lori.ru photobank for "external ad". dunno what exactly they are going to advertise with it, but it is one more completely unexpected large-ish sales of my pictures there - first being a very old picture of leaning tower of Pisa of all things. Needless to say, I am pleased :)

picture at lori.ru


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* - well, it was over two years back, 6 mpix seemed plenty at that point