Category: Macro

Santa Woz Here – 3 December 2016

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3-dec

Scamp was still feeling a bit under the weather today, so we postponed our trip to Embra.  Maybe next week.  Instead, we went to a garden centre for a wee run and the prospect of lunch.

The garden centre was mobbed – well, it’s December, so it’s almost Christmas – added to that, Santa was visiting.  All the gardening assistants were dressed up, presumably as elves, but they looked like a cross between leprechauns and Austrians in lederhosen.  I’m sure they were just as embarrassed as they looked.  We did have lunch.  There was a sort of DIY toastie where you got a plate with bread and cheese and a selection of fillings covered with cling film and I’m guessing you took that to the counter and had it toasted while you waited.  Similar plates with a panini replacing the slices of bread.  To say that they weren’t appetising would be an understatement.  Scamp opted for a baked potato with tuna mayo and I had a baked potato with barbecued chicken.  We both had tea.  When the baked potatoes came, Scamp’s had the typical grey mass on top, but mine had diced white ‘stuff’ covered in a brown shiny sauce.  It tasted like reconstituted white meat with a sweet, sticky, brown tasting glue (yes, I’ve tasted glue.  It tasted better than this stuff).  I ate it and the potato was decent.  The tea was good.  I hope Santa’s reindeer dined better than we did.

We wandered round the shop which was filled with seasonal tat.  You know what I’m talking about.  Bought in very cheap and sold with a high markup for the Christmas market with the remainder either stored for next year or sold off in the New Year sales.  Now I’m not at all Christian, and what I hate most about Christmas is Xmas, and this was all Xmas with none of the Christ.  I’m guessing most of the people were there with children or grandchildren to see Santa, because there didn’t seem to be a lot of jingling of tills while we were there and they didn’t deserve any sales for this blatant cheap commercialism.  It was almost as bad as their food.  Almost.

On the way home I stopped at Home Bargains to try to get some birdfood.  It was absolute mayhem.  Apparently you simply HAD to buy your Chrissy Prezzies today.  This place was mobbed too.  One poor bloke was trying to follow his wife through the throng, carrying a six foot long by two foot wide ‘painting’ of three roses.  I didn’t fancy his chance of getting out alive.  I left empty handed.  We carried on and got some home made ice cream from Soave’s cafe in Muirhead.  The cafe was almost empty.  Everyone must have been in the garden centre or in Home Bargains.

Hopefully Scamp will be well enough for Salsa Social tomorrow.

Nurse again – 30 October 2016

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30-oct

Not a bad day, plenty of sunshine and no wind to speak of.  Not exactly blistering heat, but good for the time of year.

Scamp took to her bed in the afternoon feeling sick.  It was the sensible thing to do and now she’s back downstairs watching another exciting F1 GP, this one from Mexico.  Well, actually she’s playing Gummy drop – it’s definitely more exciting than the race. She can’t pin the sickness down to anything she’s eaten, it could just be the tail end of the cold she’s working out of her system.

That gave me the opportunity to practise my nursing skills again, but it was mainly restricted to making her ’white tea’ as Sim’s dad called it when he was here – hot water to you.  I did think I could take her pulse or her blood pressure, but decide it was best to leave her be.  I could be taking this nursie thing too far.

Later in the afternoon,  the  patient declared herself feeling better and suggested I go out and get some photos in what was left of the good light.  That’s what got me the three photos above.  I liked the shot of the beads of water on the spider web and also the spines on the thin branch.  Mr Grey is always there, he’s just too far away to get a decent sharp shot.  He knows he’s safe there and I presume there is a good food source near that rock.

img_3480-flickrToday’s Inktober sketch is probably the weakest so far.  It started out in Isometric projection (Google it), very unrealistic, but at least the proportions were right.  Then I changed it to put in some perspective and that looked a bit better.  Shading was rushed and very untidy as a result.  Tomorrow is the last one for this year in Inktober, but I’m definitely going to continue as long as my nerve and the pens hold out!  I can always buy more pens, of course.

A Brighter Day – 4 October 2016

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Not just brighter with sunshine, although it was a sunny day, but brighter on the computer front and in my general demeanour, as a result.

I stapled a prepped sheet of watercolour paper to my painting board, built up my easel and started getting a landscape out of my head and on to the paper through the medium of oils. It was partly successful in that, although the landscape wasn’t the best I’ve done, it was a refreshing experience working in oils again. I’m going to try the same landscape again soon in a different medium, perhaps pastel. It’s years since I last painted in pastel, probably not since I was doing my Higher Art about 25 years ago! I’ve dug the pastels out and found some pastel paper, so there’s no excuse not to get started.

Today’s photos come from a walk through St Mo’s today. The toadstool made me think of a poem by Elizabeth Fleming which might ring a few bells with two or three of my readers, although it was a long time ago, even further away than when I last used pastels! I was amazed at the detail that appeared in the little seedpods and of course the Blue Trumpets always look so unearthly. They always make me think of the moon landscape in the Clangers. Google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Oh yes, and there’s a shot of Mr Grey on Flickr too. The sketch is for Inktober – Google it.

Settled down to the fact that I’ve lost all the rules I made up in the Hazel app, and realised that most of them were redundant now. I’ve re-written the ones I use the most and will write more as I feel the need. I’ll also back the bloody things up this time. Lesson Learned!

That’s about it for today. A beautiful bright day, if a trifle cold. A cold trifle would be nice too!

Setting the world to rights and macros – 19 September 2016

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19-sept
Met Fred and Val and sorted the world out again over a couple of coffees. It’s so easy, repairing all the wrongs of the world. If they’d only ask us, we could fix all the problems in no time.

After that went for a drive round the outskirts of our wonderful town looking for something to photograph and found a few things.

  • A Ladybird.
  • Some Cladonia lichen
  • Cow Hair on a barbed wire fence.

They don’t sound interesting, but when it’s a sunny day and you’re just out taking your time and enjoying the scenery, they are interesting things to photograph.

The Ladybird was orange with white spots and apparently it is rare in Scotland, but quite widespread in England and Wales. Also, it feeds on fungus rather than on insects like aphids.

Cladonia lichen or ‘Grey Trumpets’, also known as ‘Golf Tees lichen have fascinated me since I started taking macro photographs. They look so alien.

The Cow Hair needs some explanation. I was wandering around looking for something to photograph when I disturbed a black bodied dragonfly it buzzed round me a couple of times and then flew off, but I could still hear its wings clattering. (They sound like cellophane being crumpled. Strange description, but that’s what it sounds like to me.) The next thing I knew, it landed on my shoulder. Now what I should have done was take a ‘selfie’ with my phone. “Here’s me with my mate, the black dragonfly!”, but what did I do? I swiped at it and it flew away. Numpty. Then I saw it again sitting on a barbed wire fence, just across the road. As I cautiously approached it, it didn’t move, which is quite strange behaviour for inquisitive creatures like dragonflies. You get the feeling they are watching you when you are watching them. It was only when I got closer, I noticed that my ‘dragonfly’ was a tuft of black cow hair caught on one of the barbs. Despite my disappointment, I photographed it and quite liked the finished result from the fisheye lens.

Salsa tonight was energetic and a great deal of fun. I was dreading Scamp wanting to go to the next class which was ’styling’. Not my idea of fun at all. However, I acquiesced to her suggestion that we “give it half an hour”. We did and it was indeed good fun, interesting and taxing with its concentration on footwork. I can see us being hooked on this in the future.

Tomorrow looks as if it’s set fair but cooler which is a decent forecast for the time of year.

Wallflower – 14 September 2016

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14-sept

Sitting it out at Salsa because there are too many men in the second class which is an unusual state of affairs. It’s not a problem really as the sweat is running off me as we’ve just completed our second advanced class of the week. I did think of joining Colin’s class, but I’m never sure what it is he’s teaching. Sometimes it’s definitely salsa, sometimes it’s more like bachata, sometimes it’s almost certainly quickstep or tango or something else ballroom and there are times when it’s something entirely different. It’s difficult to see where they blend together. I did do his warm-up which is always a challenge, just keeping up. Tonight was no exception. That probably explains why I’ve reached melting point.

We had intended going to Kirkcaldy on the bus, but lethargy got in the way.  It’s been postponed until another day, a sunny day, because sunny it was not today. After we had dithered around for a while, we decided to go for lunch instead and then went for garden stuff at B&Q.

I had a go at a couple of  small watercolours and finished off an acrylic that’s been languishing against the wall for too long. I may frame it up and see if I’m happy with it. I’ve decided that even for sketching and wash, it’s far, far better to use watercolour paper, even cheap stuff.

I did manage a quick visit to St Mo’s later in the afternoon and was thinking that with the warm, damp weather we should be getting to the season for toadstools and mushrooms when I chanced upon a neat little creamy white umbrella, right in front of me. To get the shot, I wanted a low point of view (POV). That meant I couldn’t check focus through the viewfinder, but one of the Oly designers had considered this eventuality and made the back screen articulate so you can turn it horizontal. Even better, you can set the touch screen to activate the shutter. So clever.

As I mentioned, it was a dull, damp day. I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.

Fungi, Physio and That Friday Feeling – 26 August 2016

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26 AugWhen I was making breakfast this morning I saw a coal tit having its breakfast of peanuts in the garden.  Grabbed the Oly and got a dozen shots.  Two of them were fairly sharp and showed a bit of detail in the bird.

Physio later in the morning and it looks like there is quite an improvement in my shoulder, but I’ve to keep doing the exercises and continue being a pincushion.  I was amazed when the physio (David Brogan) showed me his cycling shoes, made from carbon fibre with dial-in adjusters to tighten them.  I didn’t dare ask him how much they cost.  It looks, JIC, as if his whole bike is carbon fibre.  It’s a Wilier.  A Beautiful machine, designed for racing and that’s what he does with it, I think.

After lunch I took the bike out.  Poor wee thing had been languishing in the hall for so long, its computer had gone to sleep.  Anyway, despite a fairly strong west wind, I headed out for a bit of exercise.  Nothing too strenuous.  Half an hour of cycling and then an hour or two searching out some interesting things to photograph.  The Three Amigos were an easy candidate, but getting a decent viewpoint was a bit more demanding.  I finally settled on leaning on the fence by the railway to get a usable shot without the intrusion of the overhead lines for the electrification of the line to Embra.  Big push to get all the gantries and cables in place and then for some reason it’s going to take another seven or eight months before they will be used.  That’s British efficiency for you.  In my wanderings I found hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny little toadstools on a rotting tree stump.  I got a few shots of them, because fungi in general grow, seed and die in a very short time span.  Better to get the shots when I can and hopefully get some more later when I’ve got the proper equipment (tripod) with me.

We had dinner booked at Cotton House for 6pm, so I took the shots I could get and headed home hoping for a tailwind and with thoughts of Chow Mein in my head.  I got both.  See, even when you’re retired, you can still have That Friday Feeling!

Colin’s flower show tomorrow.

The end of summer? – 18 August 2016

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DSC_6158- flickr--231Today started cloudy and remained that way until the early afternoon when the sun finally broke through.

I went for a walk along the railway hoping to get some black and white shots, or more exactly, some shots that would transfer well into black and white. It didn’t happen.  I couldn’t settle on anything at all and came home with a few photos, but nothing that I would be happy to upload to Flickr.  Just as well really as Flickr is in one of its strunts when it refuses to upload any photos.  That is why today’s link takes you to the full size image instead of Flickr.  This is happening more and more recently of late to Flickr and makes me glad that I didn’t opt for a ‘Pro’ account, ie.  one that I have to pay for.  Flickr is owned by Yahoo and Yahoo appears to be in trouble at the moment, so it’s spending less and less money on peripherals like Flickr, so outages aren’t dealt with as an urgent need.  All it means is that I’ll upload tomorrow, not today.  It matters very little today as the only decent photo I got was the one above of some pansy seeds.

Rain due tomorrow.  The garden needs it.

Drip, Drip – 25 July 2016

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25 July b

The title refers, of course to the weather.  Yet another rainy day, but as I write this in the back bedroom while Scamp watches Celebrity Masterchef (boak!), there is blue sky with some clouds of course, but blue sky nevertheless and the promise of a better day tomorrow.  Hope it’s a better day for Scamp too.

Scamp’s new phone was due to arrive this morning between 9.12am and 10.12am.  I just love DPD’s accurate time intervals.  Anyway, it arrived just around 9.15am and as she opened the parcel and then the box the phone was in, I noticed that the seal was broken on the box, the bit that says “If the seal is broken reject the phone, blah blah”.  I carefully took the phone out of the box and noticed there were finger prints on the protective plastic cover.  The cover itself looked as if it had been removed and replaced.  You know how it looks when that’s been done, the bubbles and the edges not quite right.  Now it might be my paranoia, but in these days of heightened cyber security fears, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen.  We eventually agreed that she should phone Vodafone and request a replacement in a sealed box.  It took three phone calls and finally a post on Facebook to get the thing almost sorted.  I say ‘almost’ because she now has to wait 48 hours to get approval to get the replacement from a Vodafone shop.  Neither of us can understand why she has to wait that amount of time and neither of us is happy with the result.  Customer service from Vodafone has been shocking for both of us now and I don’t think either of us will be renewing our current contracts.

I’ve been painting experimentally today, using cling film to create interesting effects in watercolour.  I tried doing the same thing with acrylic, but it wasn’t as successful.  The next thing is to try it on a real painting, and on a larger piece of paper.

Neither of us went to salsa tonight.  Me because I couldn’t really be bothered and Scamp because her shoulder is still giving her some pain.

Did you know if you overwater a spider plant, the plant gets rid of the excess through the leaves?  That’s where today’s photos come from.  It’s amazing what you find out.  Every day’s a school day.  I never thought I’d say that again after June 2014.

Better weather forecast for tomorrow.  Let’s hope they aren’t lying.

Dug wi’ a burst ba’ – 24 July 2016

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt was raining when we got up and it never stopped. Last week it was too much sun, this week it’s too little.

We sat and watched a boring Hungarian F1 GP. Most of the race was yawn-friendly, only becoming interesting in the closing stages. Best part was the after-race comment by Jenson Button about his team being ‘unfriendly’ towards him. I can’t blame him for this throw away comment after the ridiculous rule change that prevents the teams telling drivers about safety issues. F1 is becoming more regulated than the EU. Maybe Britain should opt out of it too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ‘fiddling’ with a neat little program called Elementary OS. As the name implies, it’s not so much a program, more an Operating System. It’s based on Linux and like most Linux programs it’s free. Unlike most Linux operating systems it looks very neat an clean and almost Mac-like. After a few unsuccessful attempts to install it on my ancient HP netbook, I found that the laptop wouldn’t boot back into Windows. After dinner, I spent the rest of the evening trying to coax it back into life, unsuccessfully. It seemed like the hard disk was empty!! Oh dear.

Eventually I gave up and went out to get a PoD of raindrops on the nasturtiums at the front of the house. I did a bit of focus stacking to get the front and the back beads in focus and with the aid of Photoshop, it all came together as a whole.

After we went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was still worrying away at the netbook problem, like a “dug wi’ a burst ba’” (That’s a Scottish way of saying “a dog with a bone“). After another hour’s work using the excellent, free and dubiously sourced Hiren’s Boot Disk 15, I managed to get it going again with no loss of data. Now I could go back to sleep.

Looking for some dry weather (sun would be nice, but dry would do) tomorrow.

Getting things done – 11 July 2016

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11julyI had a few things to do today and after I got started, late as usual, I got started on my To Do list and tonight, everything is ticked off.

It was another day of mixed fortunes as far as the weather goes. We had sunshine, rain and wind today in almost equal doses. Most of these climate elements were acted out under cloud cover.

One of the good things today was the delivery of my Grass shower gel from Lush. I had wondered if it would be the solid gel that they seem to have adopted as their base shower soap, but it was true shower gel. Expensive, but so good to have again. I will use it sparingly, I’m not that dirty these days 😉

Among the items on my To Do list today was thinning out my basil seedlings that have been sitting on the kitchen window sill for the last month. Scamp thought they should be left as they were, but I decided they’d grow better after they had been thinned out. We’ll just have to see who was right.

Scamp came to salsa class tonight, but didn’t dance. I think that was a sensible decision as the tempo towards the end of class was becoming quite frantic. Hopefully it won’t be too long before she’s joining in again.

Today’s photos are details from Scamp’s favourite rose. Alec’s Red was a wedding present from my mum, dad and Alex. It’s a beautiful deep red rose with a heavy scent. It’s followed us all around Scotland as we travelled around following the work in the 70s and 80s. It’s been a central point of the front garden here since we moved in in the mid 1980s. I had a bit of concern when I was taking some shots of it in bright sunlight, using extension tubes on the ’10. I noticed considerable evidence of flare appearing on the finished images that I hadn’t seen in the viewfinder. I think it may be due to some light getting in from the extension tubes which have worked really well since I got them, but they are plastic and maybe there is too much wear in the mounts. Some more research is necessary.

May go to Glasgow tomorrow to get some photos of the Homeless Football World Cup if it’s not raining.