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

Lucia and Althea

My little niece had a doll with her when she was visiting here. Doll's name is Althea and here she is for you to admire. I am guessing that an extremely pink and frilly skirt that my niece made her mum to buy can be seen as a consequence of an overly prolonged admiration session.

They brought another doll with them - this one was for me. Please welcome Lucia.





Both were hand-made by my sister's neighbour. Labels say that they were made by cтудия "Мама" (Studio "Mum"), but I can't find their site - maybe they don't have one.

PS For Russian readers - name "Лючия" on the label is written in such a way that I read it as "Люша" without any hesitation whatsoever.

UPD - well, what do you know. I misread the name of the studio too! It's actually "студия Тата" (Studio Tata). And all there is at the moment is an email - kyklatata@gmail.com

HOW much did you say?

"... has told me that you also owe Workshop £28-50 for a damaged bow..."

Timur's getting to be a really reluctant model - something Yuri was for ages by now. He probably won't agree to pose today at all if I didn't remind him that he lost 28.50 by fooling around at music workshop, dropping his violin bow and damaging it beyond repair. I suppose I should have made him pay that from his allowance money but - well, I think he agreed to pose only because he thought that I will do precisely that otherwise.

Timur's (mostly) pics at shutterstock

The terms sardine and pilchard are not precise, and the usual meanings vary by region. Britain's Sea Fish Industry Authority for example classifies sardines as young pilchards

Yesterday I bought those and fried them.

Today Universe is grey and smells of sardines

fishy (but not smelly) pics at shutterstock

yellow one

now yellow phalaenopsis is starting to bloom.

Timur is an unusual boy - he quite likes shopping. But his concept of shopping is the most primitive one - if you go shopping, you gotta buy somethings, and that's that. To go and look at what's there and go away empty-handed - that type of shopping he doesn't understand.

Consequently, when we are in the shops, he keeps suggesting things that we can buy. Last time in scotsdales garden center, when we were looking around houseplant section, he said "Mum you do have orchid, don't you? Look - there's orchid food".

I manage to wriggle out of buying it. We have orchid plants, but they bloomed a few times each without any "food", so I figure I shouldn't start spoiling them now. I am not sure how they get whatever they need, but their aerial roots are doing nicely. Maybe they catch an occasional fly with them or something - I don't really want to know

orchid pics at shutterstock

lonely

this time paint-through-water session produced not many useful images, but some that look sort of interesting. very organic.



ink and water images at shutterstock

another one

The pink phalaenopsis was opening more and more flowers for about two months now, and I got tired of photographing it somewhat.

Now the white one fully opened its three flowers. Yellow one formed two flowering spikes, and cattleya is about to open a flower. I think it's yellow one, although not sure.

I just checked and apparently many orchids start blooming in response to dropping temperature. well, temperature inside our house is well and truly dropped what with cold snap and all. Let's see if that's going to be too low for them. So far they are doing great


orchid pics at shutterstock

smoke tornado

Once a method for doing something is perfected (or something close to perfected), it should theoretically get boring, right? Learning curve is in the past, after all.

Somehow, not so. It seems I can annoy my family with burning incense sticks and photographing the smoke endlessly. It's hypnotic, the shape the smoke makes.

When Timur saw this one, he went "Wow! Tornado!"
smoke pics on shutterstock

sparkly stuff

Now, she had a dream about the king of Sweden,
He gave her things that she was needin',
He gave her a home built of gold and steel,
A diamond car with a platinum wheel.
(Cab Calloway, Minnie the Moocher)
I need a King of Sweden to give me things that I am needin'. And I don't even need a diamond car. Cheaper things of sparkly variety will do just as nicely.

I spent a few minutes yesterday in Scotsdales garden center looking though their Christmas decoration things. I like it, I just do. I don't need any of that, But I bought two branches with crystals hanging off them. I wanted to buy one, I really did. I couldn't choose. I asked for help from another shopper. He graciously agreed to choose for me. I took the branch that he choose, wandered off... Returned and took the second one as well.

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

green fractal

I was choosing the most undamaged and photogenic romanesco broccoli at our market, accompanied by the usual trader shouts ("strAAAAWWberrrrYYY! Put a cauli in your trolley!", etc), somebody asked me "What are they?". I explained of course, although was surprised that they didn't know.

Later on I remembered that I didn't know either till a few years ago. First I saw it on photographs and couldn't quite believe that it was a real vegetable. Then I saw it outside a deli in Norfolk somewhere. And now I finally made a picture and have subsequently eaten one

feather

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.

Zelkova serrata

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

backlit one

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.

today's flowers for tomorrow

received two huge bunches of birthday flowers today for tomorrow

I mean yesterday for today :)

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

isolation on white

after going through all the pics from zumba mastercalss with Naomi Mokoena I figured that this one might just be isolate-able. I caught a lucky break there - the tips of the hair were against a relatively light background, and Naomi is dark-haired, otherwise it won't work at all. I did have to spend some time with selection tools and eraser, but not excessive one

However, my predictable conclusion was that maybe I don't want to do that again :) shots for isolation are best done on plain background and with good light to start with. Then it's doable in a couple of clicks, like here. But it was a nice challenge and it worked reasonably well

I can't really explain why the reflection, except the angle was such (Naomi was on podium) that the soles of her trainers are flat and horizontal - necessary condition for half-convincing reflection.

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