Street safari Manchester

Yesterday I went on a street safari course in Manchester (I shared some of the photos here for this weeks scavanger hunt sunday). We spent 3 hours walking around the city trying to capture candid street photos and photos of the architecture and street art. These are a selection of my favorites including the first one which I submitted to paint the moon p52 (unique perspectiv) and was included in Annie’s picks of the week, I was so surprised and honoured to be included. Street photography is not something I have considered before, so it was something different for me. I signed up for the course as it was greatly reduced on groupon and I hoped to learn a bit more about photography. I did learn a few more tips about photographing reflections and I had a go at trying to capture candid street photos. I definaetly have a long way to go with capturing good street photos but I really enjoyed exploring the city with my camera and with a group of people all interested in photography.

Scavenger hunt sunday – 29th January

My fourth scavenger hunt in a row! This weeks photos were all taken on a street safari photography course I took in Manchester yesterday.

Smile

Not the best street art I photographed yesterday but the nearest I got to a smile.

Stand Alone 

If it wasn’t for this prompt I wouldn’t have looked twice at this photo but after a bit of cropping and converting it to black and white I actually quiet like this photo.

Rusty or Something Old 

I loved the detailing on this old building

Artificial

This photo is articicial in that it is a photo of a building reflecting in a puddle. I then flipped the photo 180 degrees in photoshop so the building is the right way up but the legs look like they are walking on the ceiling. This is one of my favorite photos from yesterday and the best tip I learnt.

Repeating Pattern

The roof of a tunnel we walked through.

I’m still editing photos from yesterday so expect at least one more post of my favorites later (possibly more).

P52 weeks 3 and 4 update

Week 3′s theme was white/negative space. I submitted this one from my frosty post.

Earlier this week I was surprised to see my frosty photos in Sweet Violet photography’s featured photos. Thanks to Faith for including me. She chose this photo but mentioned that there were lots of beautiful photos in the post. The photo she chose was one that I nearly didn’t include in the post. They were both taken very quickly and I felt the focus was off but in the end I included them as I liked the photos but wished they were a bit sharper.

Week 4′s theme is sparkle or unique perspective. Yesterday I went on a street safari photography course in Manchester. We spent 3 hours walking round Manchester trying to capture street photography. I learnt a few new tricks from the tutor including photographing reflections in puddles like this one. I have plenty more photos to edit so you’ll be seeing more of them later but this one is my favorite so far.

Scavenger hunt sunday

A day late due to a computer virus affecting my computer on friday. At one point it looked as if I had lost all my photos and documents (thankfully they were just hidden) and no they weren’t all backed up.  The virus is removed and thankfully I haven’t lost any of my photos (they are all safely backed up now) but it seems to have hidden and removed all the shortcuts to my software.

1. Sunset

I wasn’t able to capture a sunset this week so here is one taken in Tuscany last summer (the photos I was most worried about losing).

2. Black and white

3. A day in my life

Thursday 19th January, the day I passed my driving test.

4. Four

5. Colourful

Frosty

After an unseasonaly mild few days, we had very heavy frost over the weekend. The way the frost edged the plants, sparkling in the light inspired me to brave the cold and capture these images.

Scavenger hunt sunday – 15th January

Stacked Up

A small selection of my cookbooks stacked up

Winter Wonderland

One from my archives as it’s been unseasonably mild here (until today!).

Sweet

Rhubarb and custards. One of my favorite childhood sweets from a selection of traditional sweets my husband bought me for christmas

Hole

I struggled with this one so this is the most interesting hole I could find in my house!

Frozen 

Again since it’s so mild here I struggled with frozen. This is a macro of some of the frost inside my freezer!

 

P52 week 2 – open

Week 2′s prompt was responsibility or open. I chose open and ended up with this photo of an open book. Not the most imaginative interpretation of the prompt but I happy with the end result. I seem to love black and white photos at the moment. I love how it can transform the most mundane photos.

Scavanger hunt sunday

One Color

I had to use one from archives here. I did re-edit and crop it though. We’ve had storms here in the UK this week and I’m stuck at home this weekend full of cold. I felt this post needed a shot of bold colour.

LaundryI’ve been experimenting with actions this week. This is a black and white action from The Pioneer Woman. I love how it made a really dull photo of laundry look slightly more interesting.

Empty

The trees behind our house are still empty of all their leaves. Another black and white as it was so grey and miserable when I took this photo (most of the week in fact) that it nearly was black and white anyway.

One Dozen Well there was a dozen when we bought them on new years eve (we rarely by more than six so it felt like a sign on new years day when I saw this weeks prompt was one dozen) but I used four to make this on new years day.

Soft

My new crochet project (shared here). The yarn really is soft.

Yarn along, crochet and reading January

You might remember back in December I posted about starting to learn to crochet. I used the stars I crocheted to decorate some of the gift we gave this christmas including jars of chutney. Between Christmas and new year I went along with my sister-in-law to her local wool shop (I can’t find one local to me) and bought some red, grey and cream yarn. I’ve started making a throw for the sofa but as you can see at the moment it is more of a scarf! I’m enjoying working on it though and watching it grow row by row. I’m not following a pattern, I simply chained to the width I wanted the throw and then I’m doing a mixture of coloured stripes in different thicknesses and in a random order. The red and cream stripes are double crochet and the grey single crochet (I think that’s the right terms in UK terminology but I could be wrong).

My nephew decided he wanted to be in the photo too!

Reading wise I took a short break from reading The language of flowers that I shared with you last time to read a festive book over the holidays. The book was Comfort and Joy by India Knight, a short and funny story about family Christmases set over three years. This was the first book by India Knight that I have read and although it did make me laugh in places, it hasn’t made me want to go and read any of her other novels. Now I’m really looking forward to getting back in to the language of flowers.

Linking up with Yarn along for further inspiration for reading, crochet and knitting.

 

Project 52, week 1

I’ve decided to undertake a project 52 this year. I’m hoping that by aiming for one good photo a week instead of one photo a day this photography project will be less of a chore than a 365. I also hope to share other photos with you and enter other blog hops but p52 will be my main goal with anything else being a bonus. I’ll be joining in with Paint the moon: lets do 52 as Annie is offering 2 prompts each week to choose between (I need some inspiration for my weekly photo but I often struggle with prompts so I’m hoping that out of the two I’ll be able to think of something).

For week one the prompts were Sharing or All natural. I selected sharing. This is a photo of my husband and I sharing homemade focaccia (recipe to be published on purely food shortly) and a selection of anti-pasta. The photo of near enough straight out camera with a few tweaks in Adobe camera raw.