Digital Art 9 City Lights

This is a pre-scheduled post – I am taking a break right now and so won’t be able to respond to your comments, but I’ll be back soon. I’d still like to hear what you are thinking

The Busker

It’s said that no amount of photoshopping can make a bad photo good …
But I rather like this bad shot.  It gives me the feeling of a painting of one of the old Masters.

This is a pre-scheduled post – I am taking a break right now and so won’t be able to respond to your comments, but I’ll be back soon. I’d still like to hear what you are thinking

Digital Art 8 in blue

Down on the Farm

This is a pre-scheduled post – I am taking a break right now and so won’t be able to respond to your comments, but I’ll be back soon. I’d still like to hear what you are thinking

Digital Art 7 in Red

The Red Planet

Down through the ages

I must admit I run the risk that some of you have seen this photo before but it was over a year ago when my blog was very young.  I have always loved this photo of my grandmother with my first-born daughter – contrasting the stages of our lives, to say nothing of the love and delight in my grandmother’s face..

Ailsa’s Travel Theme is: Contrast

Things are lookin’ up

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes UP on the roof and gets stuck. – George Carlin

When wandering around a new city, or out on a photo shoot, one direction often overlooked is UP.  If you don’t look up you miss …

Snow capped peak in the French Alps

the sun kissing the snow-capped peak as she tentatively peaks over the top …

Sun rising over the French Alps

or the funky building ornament to add to your collection ….

Just wishin’ and hopin’ …

Yes, Virginia, there is a spring …. somewhere.

Blooms at the Montreal Biodome.

Visual Quotations 9 – Stairway to …

Two things are bad for the heart – running up stairs and running down people – Bernard Baruch

Side entrance at Chateau de Combourg, France

An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an

Bus Stop

A day busing around Ottawa …

Last Call

This change represented the emptying of our pockets of the very last of our Euros after a month’s vacation in England and France.  Last of our money, last drink at our favoured brasserie – tomorrow would find us homeward bound, changing from Central European Time back to Eastern Daylight Time.

Related image on Beyond the Brush Photography: Changing up

The weekly photo challenge is: Change

Hallelujah!

Born out of an interest in history, ancestors, and family. I find it astounding that, because of the placement of my birth in the mid-20th C, I have memories of people spanning three centuries – between my grandparents born in the late 19th C to my own grandchildren born in the 21st C.

Maybe one day, a generation down the road, a genealogy-junkie descendent will pick up a copy from an old box of books, dust it off, and cry, ‘Eureka!”

From jottings about my ancestors begun in 2005 … to a desire to preserve and present them ‘some how”  … to envisioning a book … to a LOT of editing, to self-publication.  I hit the button this week and sent it to print.  440 pages. One initial copy to see how it looks.  Hallelujah!  Next project, please.

(Maybe I’d better save the Halleluha! until I get my copy.)

Colour less intensive

Bold colour is not a requirement for an eye-catching photo.  Another case of less can be more, when subtleties of hue might promote enjoyment of other aspects of the photo – line and atmosphere, negative space, depth, perspective or overall composition.

Spring sunset in Frog Hollow

Spring sunset in Frog Hollow

Sometimes an almost total lack of hue, without reverting to black and white, is what makes the photo interesting …

I’m a Tweaker

I tweak my photographs.  It’s true.  Not everyone likes to tweak, but I’m a tweaker. As a result not all of my photos are accurate recordings of the scene, but they are reflections of my taste and vision.   I like to see what my photo can do  – Does it benefit from cropping?  Is there more than one good shot within the photo?  What if I slightly blur the background, or change the level of contrast?  My computer is filling up with many different versions of many different photos.  Whole days can be lost to this messing about

My personal preference is not to push the colours or contrast too far – unless I’m working with the photo as an art piece.  I really pushed the colour on this one and although unnatural, in this case I liked the effect …

But some very ho-hum shots shine with the smallest of tweaks.

Montréal

Montréal is a city like no other.  I grew up on the West Island; my first job was in downtown Montréal; and I was there during the exciting, vibrant year of Expo 67.  Then politics happened – the FLQ crisis and bombs in mailboxes – and I left and except for a few initial return visits, I have not been back, largely because something is awry in Montréal.

The Sign Post – Landmarks

click on any photo to enlarge

“A classic old fishermen’s boozer, complete with low ceilings, tankards behind the bar and a comprehensive selection of Cornish ales.” – one of the oldest inns in Cornwall, England, as evidenced by the sign.

Barred Access

Gates at 2431 Avenida Rivadavia in Buenos Aires.

Ornate gates at Circulo Militar in Plaza San Martin, Buenos Aires …

Connected through Time

Photo by my husband

The astronomical clock in the Cathedral Church of St Peter  in Exeter, England dates from 1484.  In 1841 my great great-grandfather Richard Ingram Pentecost  was a student at the Training School in the Precinct of the Close of St-Peter’s Cathedral in Exeter City, England, and so would have gazed upon this same clock.

Wikipedia informs  that the fleur-de-lys ‘hand’ indicates the time (and the position of the sun in the sky); the silver ball and inner dial shows both the age of the moon and its phase; the upper dial, added in 1760, shows the minutes.  There is a door below the clock with a round hole near its base. This was apparently cut in the early 17th century to allow entry for the Bishop’s cat to deter vermin that were attracted to the animal fat used to lubricate the clock mechanism.

The headstone with the cross marks the grave of my 3x great grandparents, Richard and Anne Pentecost.

Digital Art 6

I’ve had two pieces juried into our Art Gallery’s annual art show …

  Mardigrasand Marsh Lights 12

I’m pleased.

The Tin Box

The Tin Box, A Second Chance, and The Coded Message
Three daughters, three special gifts.

Down by the Bay …

I have a great affinity for water – I could sit by it, gaze into its depths, breathe in its scent be it marshland or the salty tang of the sea, dabble my toes in it, swim in it, float on it, and listen to its gurgle and cadence,  whiling away very pleasant hours.

Newgale Beach on St-Bride’s Bay, Pembrokeshire in Wales …

Whitesands Bay, also Pembrokeshire …
And this is a collection of views of Carbis Bay at St-Ives, Cornwall in England …