Tools of the trade

I was torn between doing some photography and sewing yesterday, so decided to combine the two. I slapped the macro lens on the camera and opened up the tripod.  When the light levels are very low (it was raining all day),  the tripod and the remote control shutter release are essential if you want sharp pictures.

I used manual focus as the depth of field is so shallow -  a centimetre or there abouts - so it is vital that you manually focus on the spot you want, especially when it is a needle.  My eyes are not brilliant and I have a miriad of 'floaters' but a bit of concentration got the results I wanted. Because the pictures are a high resolution I was able to crop them closely around the area I wanted. 'Picasa' now lets you edit your pictures using 'Picnik' which enabled me to add the drop shadow, all very simply done.

'Rotary Cutter'

'Bobbins'

'Topstitch Needle'

'Needle and thread'

I do hope your are enjoying some sunshine as I am here. Chilly, but bright, the best January can get.

Jill

Fly away with me

When you were  a child did you lay in the grass and imagine you were as small as an ant walking through a jungle? Well I guess we all did, which is why it is such a popular idea for stories and films, but when you were young, you felt as if you were the first to have that feeling. I really wanted to believe in fairies too. I just knew where they lived in the nooks in old tree roots and ivy clad walls. It was the sort of thing you kept to yourself if you didn't want to be laughed at, but my friend and I knew where to leave them gifts of flower petals and little bits of bread and cheese.  I would love to think of children today having such innocent and imaginary play, and I am sure some do. I re-lived some of those moments today. It was so beautifully warm and sunny so I popped the macro lens on the camera and got down on the grass. I guess my neighbours have seen it all before, the far from slim lady with the camera, laying on her belly on the grass, and then having trouble getting up again.

 But how small do you have to be for the daisies to tower over your head?

Or look a speedwell in the eye?

There are aliens too...

or you could catch a ride 

and fly off into the blue...

...and thank you to you all who commented so kindly on my previous post, allowing me to let my imagination fly away with me today, with no fear that anyone was going to laugh, unless it was with pleasure.

Jill

A 'Mary Lennox' moment

Mary Lennox is the heroine of this book. This is the copy my grandmother bought me in the early 60's because she had loved the story so.

Although it is so grey and dull in the garden this weekend, something has definitely changed. The air smells different and the birds are singing, tuning up. Our robin sings hidden in a holly and I can hear another singing back from a few gardens away. The dunnocks are chasing each other round and round the hedge so I can't decide if there are two or three or four of them. And of course poking up through the dead leaves and tangled stems are the crocuses and daffodils and narcissus. The Mary Lennox of the story is a spoilt little girl from an colonial family in India who has been orphaned and taken to live in chilly Yorkshire. Left to  her own devises she learns to skip in the gardens of the large house where she lives and discovers a locked walled garden which she secretly works in. Of course Mary's personality blooms with the garden and the book has a very happy ending. (Curiously I went on to marry a 'Colin', the name of the boy in the story - although my Colin calls himself Tod - but that is another story).The descriptions of the garden's return to life has never left me, and I know it is a favourite read of many of you.  As  I went into the garden to take the netting off the bowls of bulbs I planted up last autumn. (The netting stops the squirrels digging them up) Mary Lennox sprang into my mind. I thought I'd also get out the watercolours, and like the robin I have done a couple of tuning-up sketches.

These are called February Gold - I wonder if they will live up to their name.

I have little success growing snowdrops in my garden. I don't know why. It may be that I disturb the bulbs in the summer, and although I have tried planting them in out of the way places they seem to disappear after a couple of years.  I was given a potful a couple of years ago and took some successful photographs of one when I set up some lighting as part of my photography course. I have one little rather weedy flower this year where I planted this out. So fingers crossed it will be there next year!

I hope your weekend hasn't been too dull - just go and look for those bulbs!

Three little spotty frogs

Sorry they are a bit out of focus, but I was having to kneel down, hanging over the pond sideways on, with the macro lens - a point and shoot camera may have been better in this situation!

Abstract or not?

I have been reading a lot of definitions of abstract photography to try to clarify my own thinking. It seems to me that macro images are often described as being abstract when they are just close-ups or detail. Here are some defininitons of abstract I have culled from many sources ;-

• Abstract (adjective) existing in the mind only. Having no reference to material objects of specific examples. Not concrete.
• Abstract (noun) essence of the whole
• Abstract (verb) to take away. To remove from reality.

Perhaps the definition is less easy to apply to photography than other art forms. We know when a painting is non-representative and may be a total result of the artist's imagination, but in photography, the viewer knows that the photographer started with an object or a view of the natural world which has been abstracted. Very often the object is still recognizable but the subject has become secondary to other considerations such as shape, form, colour.

Before taking the Open College of Arts photography course these questions would not have mattered to me, but now I want to develop a language to talk about my photography.

Here are two of my photographs which illustrate what I have been talking about.

Abstract or macro?

Beads

Ice and Fire

Beads is a macro shot taken infront of blue and red cellophane taped on a window.

Ice and Fire is snow on a greenhouse roof, shot into the morning sun.