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

more sunlight

Cumbria again.

St. John's-in-the-Vale view, from lay-by on A66

Cumbria pics on 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.

rays

when you go along A66 to the west, not long before you come to Keswick, the road goes up and then along one side of a pretty valley for a while. I don't know the name, although I am sure it's perfectly findable. Most of my photos from this visit were taken from a lay-by somewhere, because it seems the the best light of each day was gone by the moment we came wherever our destination was. This photo is no exception - roadside one, from that section of A66

btw, in our family those slanted visible rays of sun are called, strangely, "death rays". The origins lay in a comic seen somewhere decades ago. Drawing was showing a little boy pointing some sort of toy at his dad's back, saying "Daddy, do you feel anything?". Open box with inscription "Death Rays" was beside him on the floor

PS: Apparently what we see here is a view of glacial valley "St. John's-in-the-Vale"

Cumbria pics on 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

Watendlath Beck

We went for a circular walk that goes along Derwent water, into the woods to Lodore falls, up more or less along the Watendlath Beck (small river that is falling at the falls, so to speak) and then looped back down to the lake. I am reasonably sure we went slightly wrong at some point, but we got there in the end. The diversion didn't really matter, and one fellow walker poiter to us - "you can't go wrong, it's Lake District, it's pretty everywhere".

I agree with her, it's beautiful, and especially in autumn.





Cumbria pics on shutterstock

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.

old-fashioned tea

we are back from Cumbria. Stayed in a cottage close to lake district. Weather weren't that great, but we did have two ok days, so not too bad

Cottage was full of old stuff that just asked to be photographed. Some of it I ended up not photographing due to lack of light and this and that, but this kettle and old tea things asked the loudest

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

what is Cassandra wearing today?

She's wearing a monkey-head knitted hat and no arms.

In the article below it is explained that one hand went missing last week. When I popped into the shop today, Pamela told me that since then one arm turned up, then another went missing, so the mannequin is guarding its street corner "completely 'armless".

She also told me of her call to the police. She wished to report a theft, she said. Policewoman on the other end of the line, preparing it write it down, asked what was missing. An arm, said Pamela. You can probably imagine that it was not a very straightforward affair, that report.

wild grape vine leaves

at least I am pretty sure they are. They don't give change in the parking meter on Mill road in Cambridge, and we didn't have the right coints, so decided to gain something extra out of the overpriced stay visit - collect some of the turned leaves from the brick wall surrounding the car park.
I had to scrape ice off my car in the morning - hopefully that means that leaves will finally start turning en masse. So far it was only the old reliables that did

dirty face

Timur spend whole day doing activities with cubs and scouts. He came home looking like this. I am sure this war paint rendered him perfectly invisible.

trombone

continued experimenting with lights. I always wanted to do some pics with strong-contrast side light and now I have the wherewithal. Two lights with umbrella reflectors to the side and back of the model in a darkish room worked nicely.

So here we are. Kirill was the model, and there are a few more pics here but this one is most laconic and I like it the most.

all music-related pics on 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

guitar

Now it's Timur turn to learn the guitar. He himself seems like playing violin more, but I must say that it's a lot easier to extract ear-torturing sounds out of violin than out of guitar, so I kind of enjoy his guitar more.

Interesting. While I am typing my post, amazon associates panel next to the editor window gives me various suggestions as to what I can link it to. I was overjoyed to find that there is such thing as Guitar For Dummies Acoustic Guitar Starter Pack (Guitar, Book, Audio CD, Gig Bag). I mean, most of the "for dummies" books are excellent, it might actually work :)

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

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.

zumba masterclass

some pictures from zumba masterclass yesterday in Chilford Hall with Naomi Mokoena (lady in grey above with her back to the camera) hosted by Natalia Bull (heading the dancing line in the next picture). Participants enjoyed it :)

It was interesting to see how my old cannon 5d will perform in these rather extreme conditions - the hall is quite large with high ceiling (bounced flash useless) and lit with not very bright (to put it mildly) and mixed light. I had to push ISO up to the maximum in some cases (1600, may the god of photography forgive me), and have the diaphragm open to the maximum (also not ideal on my lens, but lesser crime in comparison with that ISO). Pictures came out extremely noisy and colors are off and seem unfixable, short of converting to black and white (mixed light!). Pics had to be reduced dramatically and are only good for the web, but I like them anyway.

I still have, oh, I dunno, half a thousand of them to look through :)

it is doing it again

our oldest orchid plant is starting to bloom again. it's one of those objects in our house that paid for itself many times over - I just checked how many images of it I have for sale and it's quite a few(there are some different plants in that search result, but still a few)

well, hope it'll turn up as photogenic this time and will sell just as nicely or better again

zumba demo in Saffron Walden - ahead only

There was zumba demonstration on Saffron Walden market square. It was by my zumba instructor Luisa Curbelo (lady in blue belly dancing scarf), and she was joined by another instructor, Natalia Bull (one in bright yellow trousers).

It was sort of chilly today, but the workout is so energetic, everybody who took part looked hot, not cold.

A few very young girls joined, (one in pink tutu!), which looked very sweet, but I didn't take any pictures, so as not to upset parents by accident.

I must say I myself find zumba excellent fun- considering I never liked really liked fitness, it's saying something I guess.

All the dancing, skipping and jumping was done on the big white letters on the road spelling "ahead only", which seems oddly appropriate

spring lake

Somehow this summer passed without us renting a summer house in Scandinavia. I loved it last year in Denmark, but this year it didn't happen. And we missed mushroom-picking this year, too. Blogs of my Russian friends are full of mushroom-hunting reports and pictures now, after the heat and smog of summer went away and beautiful autumn arrived.

Never mind, there is always next year.

This is not summer or autumn in Denmark, this is spring in Norway, but still.

Healing mud of Nin

I was hesitating somewhat before placing this picture, since I don't know those guys, but decided that their privacy is protected enough by their poses and mud layer. Plus, I turned lady's head away. Plus it is a public beach, of course, it's just I am always very hesitant with photos of strangers.

Anyway, what you see in front of you is one of the beaches of Nin. On the map below is the one to the left from the Nin bay entrance (upper left corner). The dark blue shallow lagoon below it on the map is filled with this black sticky stuff, and as you come to the beach, you see plenty of people smeared with it. It's relatively quiet place at the moment, but I strongly suspect that once this large-ish project I just found about is underway, it'll be lot less accessible and a lot busier.

I don't quite understand what the mud is supposed to be healing, but well. Looks like good fun anyway.

Beaches of Nin are nice, though, mud or not. Visually, they not as striking as ones on Fuerteventura, and not at all as clean, but they have shallow sand access to calm water, and that' a definite plus on most beaches in Croatia I've seen so far.



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Bridge The Gap

Arco Iris was drumming today at the finish of Bridge the Gap charity walk.

I must say that I didn't really read the walk website before we went, at least I didn't read it thoroughly. For some reason I assumed that we will be there for both start and finish, so I though - well, maybe, if the weather will be nice, I might join myself, etc. It turned out that we came to the right place (start and finish being at the same spot), but the wrong time, walk starting at 9.30 and us turning up at 11.

Anyway, if we are still here next year, I might join. It appears to be an excellent value for money, as it were (if such thing can be said about charity event) - the route goes through a few colleges, and it's great photographically, plus at least one of them is normally charging for admission. And the walk is good for you. And you have satisfaction of knowing that your money go to a good cause, of course.

And incomparable Arco Iris expects you at the finish. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, surely.

forest elf

Not sure if the results are to everyone's liking, but I had fun with this picture. Hair proved to be a bit of a challenge, with only Photoshop Elements at my disposal (if I understand correctly, it's a lot easier to make custom intelligent brush in fully fledged Photoshop, but I don't have that)
Actually, I know that results are not to everyone's liking - the model made a face when he saw it. He graciously agreed that it's ok since nobody should be able to recognize him (or so he thinks, anyway)

you can see the entry into POTY competition here. Feel free to vote and/or leave a comment

this image at shutterstock

Patrouille de France

we did catch Patrouille de France on Saturday - about 5ish they were on. Their display was great, and standing where we were, it also felt very, very personal - those jets are whooshing by like there is no tomorrow.


I believe from this picture you can see why we mistook them for red arrows on Friday - there are eight of them (Red Arrows fly eight when one pilot is not available, and that's what happened on Saturday), the outlines of the jets are not dissimilar, and the colors of the smoke they trail are the same. And sure there are differences, starting from the color of the planes, but in the distance you can't really see that at all.

I read up on them a little bit and was very surprised and pleased to find out that the team is headed by a woman - Virginie Guyot

And of course I do have a shot with them doing a very similar curve to the previous picture, but I think there's enough curves for a bit.

Duxford air show today

ever impressive red arrows display over Duxford museum today. They are going to kick off the display tomorrow at two, apparently, so there is still a chance to catch them over this w/e.


Yesterday a jet team was doing a display very close to our house. We immediately assumed that they were red arrows, except when they flew really low, I saw that the jets are in fact blue. I was somewhat perplexed, but decided this was a new look for red arrows (Blue is New Red, you know). They did some figures that I didn't ever see the Red arrows do - a heart pierced by an arrow was one.

Today it transpired that what we saw yesterday was French aerobatics team - Patrouille de France, and they will perform today only. Problem is, nobody seems to know what time. We are assuming they'll close the show at about 5, so we are heading back to Duxford soon.

last day of holidays

Timur is sitting by the sea organ, looking completely and utterly bored with sun, sea and everything around him

I am not sure whether this is something many people feel, but for us, a lazy week by seaside seems to be some sort of cut-off. After that it gets boring and all everybody wants is to get back home. We stayed for nine nights - two too many, it seems.

From my student (long-gone) days, however, I remember that if you stay by seaside for about two weeks, some sort of "second wind" arrives and it feels like you can stay there forever.

Alas, I didn't have hols that lasted over two weeks for a long time, so I didn't have the opportunity to test whether it feels the same now as it did all those years ago.

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

stripes

while in Zadar, we bought a stripy article for everybody, except (sob, sob, sniff) for myself.

Here you can see two of those things, worn by Timur and Yuri on our last day in Zadar, while they converse about something or other. Their conversation tends to consist almost solely of quotes from movies and books known to both. Occasionally those quotes are not even words - that's when they (especially Timur) try to convey the story by sound imitations ("and then he like KAABOOM!")


We stayed in Zadar itself for the last night before going back home. Our flight was in the evening, so we left our bags with the landlord and slooowly went around the town for one last time, with stops for icecreams, long lunch and drinks.

The place for the last night was found via "aquarius" tourist agency in Zadar. It actually proved quite difficult to find accommodation in the area beforehand via the internet, but once you are there, it's easy - just go around asking at tourist agencies that there are a few. If you feel energetic, you can even shop around and look for the right balance of price and quality, but we didn't do that - it was very hot and prospect of walking around with our bags didn't appeal. Incidentally, the trick of easily finding a place to stay while on the spot works in one more place I know of - and it's Scotland of all places. Except in Scotland, you go to one tourist info and they do it for you, while in Dalmatia different tourist agencies seem to hold different lists of properties.

No matter, it all worked out in the end

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

olives in the middle of nowhere

this old olive garden is along one of the roads that lead from village called Kozino (I can't put the right accent on "z", so probably the most appropriate spelling is Kozhino) to the sea.

Village itself is not far from Zadar - about 5 km, on the main road to Nin. Looks like the original village didn't came down to the sea, but now there is a strip of new developments next to the seaside and it is joined to the old village by at least two steep-ish short roads. Once you get to the sea it's a bit disappointing - the seabottom is stony, with inevitable sea urchins. There is just one cove where bottom is sandy, but it is still fringed with stones, so you have to negotiate those before you can feel the sand under your feet.

Having said that, the apartment that we rented there via one of tourist agencies in Zadar was the most comfortable of four places we stayed in over those nine nights. Another plus side was that Nin, with its truly sandy beaches, was not very far and local buses did take us where we want to go - not always quite on time, granted, but we were never in a hurry anyways.


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