Opalescence

Took me all day to pick, arrange, photograph and enhance these. I'm exhausted, but had such fun.

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Shades of grey

Channel splitting can be done by RGB [red-green-blue] or by HSL [hue-saturation-light]. I picked out the -light version- and it looks rather better than simply turning an image negative. No? In the mouse-overs I combined the various shades of the original and the channel into a different pattern, so that the tones stand out.

Petal Play

Little pink dancers by De Gaz, with a touch of poppy petal power. Below the steps I had to take to the endresult.

As soon as I opened this picture, it struck me that the dropped poppy petals had left a ballerina's tutu and wanted to do something to make that obvious.

I cut out the skirt, made it into a transparent layer and put it in place on a Degas sketch.

It didn't really look like what I had in mind: the contrast between the sketch and the poppy petals was too great. Therefor I decided to go for one of his oils rather than a pen drawing, and voila: perfect. As you can see in the mouse-over at the top of the post, the colouring in the painting has some of that very pink in, so I didn't have to do anything at all to the poppy petals to make them fit in.

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Also linked with app-happy-wednesday

DANGER

PAPAVER SOMNIFERA Double Poppy somnifera double Poppy carries sleep twice the size and twice the strength twice the benefit to reap Mystery and danger beckon centres mesmerise our gaze and with their narcotic power turn the day into a haze Will we reach the Emerald City with our poppies in our hair dressed like Ozma with black tresses even though our hair is fair? Forbidden riches soporific medication kills the pain pods in blender add some lemon: tea to help sustain the brain within cell walls of the seedpod lurks this opiumlike wave when released into our system gives the painfree day we crave.

Just to clarify: extracting narcotics from opium poppies is against the law in most countries. We are allowed to grow these plants for horticultural purposes in the UK. In no way am I suggesting you make this tea. Don't want anyone to end up in goal. This was just a WWW yarn to spin for fun. [WWW= Wicked Witch of the West]

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Also linked with app-happy-wednesday

Wild Geraniums

All wild geraniums I find in my garden with one pelargonium/geranium creeping in for colour balance. These are some of the many types of wild geranium that have sprung up in my garden over the years. I interspersed some of the little globules of the rose called 'Raubritter', because the geraniums tend to be predominently blueish and make the photo a bit somber.

outside table

TABLES

My favourite rose is at its best at present. Margaret Merril, a lovely ivory white, or rather whipped cream.
The breeder was Jack Harkness, now no longer with us. He 'designed' some wonderful roses. Another one I particularly like is called "Bridge of Sighs" and is a lovely orange climber.

My find this week has been the use of tables inside posts. This means that the text is easier to read when I change the background colour. I find light coloured lettering on black very hard on the eyes but images look better on black. The best of both worlds? The physical find has been a strangly shaped blue vase: it is round from the front, but narrow from the sides. Makes for interesting pictures and I have been playing with it ever since I got it home. The glaze has cracked uniformly, either deliberately or by accident. Whatever, it looks beautiful. 'Craquelé' or 'Craquelure' always appeals to me, unless it is on my face :-) Count yourselves lucky that I'm only showing about 2% of the number of pictures I took of this combination :-) The rose is so pretty: not too many petals and very photogenic, both at the full-blown stage and in tight bud. The scent is unbelievable. It is a very tall bush rose and this year there are about a dozen flowers on it. My pearl of wisdom for today: MAY ALL YOUR WEEDS BE WILDFLOWERS

MACRO 01

MACRO photography means filling the frame of a full frame camera sensor. I don't have a CMOS camera, so 'near' macro will have to do. Others say: ˌmakrə(ʊ)fəˈtɒgrəfi/ noun noun: macro-photography 1. photography producing photographs of small items larger than life size. This is a coral necklace and the blue tape shows centimeters divided into millimeters. CLIC ON PIC to see them in the lightbox larger than life size size I never realized my tape measure was so cracked :-)

CAMERA TRY-OUTS

Click on Pics to enlarge in Lightbox









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It does what I was hoping for. I'm trying to get the wide converter to work for me. Can't see much difference in result with or without. Took the daylight filter off between the lens and the converter. Setting it for add-ons in M-Rec made no difference, as was confirmed when I started reading up on this. Still, it looks impressive on the camera. Mind you, it makes the camera top-heavy, and I nearly dropped it. Can't be that good for the turning mechanism either. I was surprised to see how fast the camera stored the images in its sensor: I was told it would be very slow. I wonder if it has been professionally restored at some stage, where somebody managed to speed up the storing time. Could be the Fuji card I suppose.

RUNNING IN CIRCLES

My new barefoot road running shoes arrived by courier today. Found them on friday, on ebay and they got sent off so quickly. My feet are very grateful for the gift :-)

GLORIOUS GERBERAS

Above fresh, below six weeks later. Amazing how long they last. I know they are 'only daisies', as my husband tells me, but I adore Gerberas. I am grateful to the botanist Traugott Gerber for discovering them and then hybridizing the varieties.

TABLE TRY

table left I hope - - - - - - - - - -

table right - - - - - - - - - -

table left I hope - - - - - - - - - -

table right - - - - - - - - - -

A WALK IN THE WOODS

I go out for a good walk almost every day now. So many fat pheasants ambling around, enjoying their final days before the guns arrive. Little do they know... Today I had to do some clambering over fallen trees. They were felled ones, waiting to be cut up for firewood. There is never much deadfall in our woods, as they are all carefully managed. It was all poignantly beautiful with cloudscapes I could hardly believe. There are lots of little cyclamen dotted all over the dropped pine needles. They must be hardy to be out now. So dainty in this unforgiving season.

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END OF SUMMER

Late Summer flowers are a sign that the party is running to its end. It makes me a little sad, but also grateful that last year's stalwarts are still prepared to take their place on the stage. Not being fond of yellow flowers, I chose as much white as I could find. The daisies and hydrangea go together nicely. At least to my eyes. Always nice to find that old friends haven't left.

For more friday flowers visit Nick HERE

SIMPLE

The most ordinary, every-day thing may suddenly catch your eye and delight you. Here, an empty evian bottle, with some blue pebbles in the bottom. Suddenly it struck me how beautiful the waterdrops looked, caught by the ridges in the plastic. If anyone has a find like this, suddenly noticing beauty in something plain, I'd love to hear.

SOAPDISH

There are so many toilet soaps on the market these days with overpoweringly sweet smells that I usually buy something called Simple or Pure with no scent at all. Then somebody gave me a bar of Royal Jelly soap which has a faint hint of honey. Wonderful stuff. Obviously this needed an equally lovely soapdish to put it in. And this is what I found. Apparently more than 120 years old, so I gave it a very good scrub :-). Makes you wonder how many hands have reached for this lid first thing in the morning. I love the old Victorian or Edwardian bathroom china sets. Next week we are going to Shakespeare country for a day and I am hoping to find a complete set with bowl, jug, tooth mug and yes, of course, another soap dish. Two great finds in the past week to display on FRIDAY FINDS day.

For more finds visit Kim HERE

LAST YEAR

WHITE ROSE

Found in a little antique treasure house in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Looks like a candlestick, the kind you take up to your bedroom when the lights don't work, or rather didn't, in the 18th century.

WHAT SUMMER?