Idj20

2009-07-03T19:50:00.005+01:00

I've just launched a brand new photo web site! You can check it out by clicking on this link!

http://idjmedia.blogspot.com/

30th June '09. Photo 365. The End!!!

2009-06-30T20:50:00.002+01:00

Finally!! I've made it! I've made it right to the end! I stayed true to my word and took a picture a day for a WHOLE year (well, okay, there was a couple of occasions when I got a bit busy and had to leave it until a day or did it a day early!) but I did it.
My word, it had literally costed me my sanity but I'm so pleased to have stuck with it! But that was only because I've really enjoyed doing it and have learnt a lot about photography in the process. But golly, in the process of keeping this project going I've been trampled on, nearly got ran over, blown over, had abuse thrown at me, had frostbite and even nearly got struck by lightning! But still I kept this thing going.
So there you have it, I've reached the finishing line. 365 photos in one website spanning a whole year.

So! What happens now? Is it truly the end? Not quite . . .

Like I said earlier, I absolutely love photography and I don't want to stop it . . . so . . . the good news is that I will continue to take photos but any future stuff will appear in a brand new photo gallery web site. However, it will be at a much reduced scale where I will do things in my own pace. If I'm in a good photography mood and end up taking loads of pictures of the same thing then so be it. Naturally there will occasions when nothing is happening for ages and the camera could be sitting on a shelf gathering dust.
Details of the new web site will appear here shortly in the next post. But, for now I need a break!

Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to my legion of followers and how your comments had made the whole thing so worthwhile. I do look at your comments and how pleased I am to see it was all positive, so . . . thank you all you readers of IDJ's 365!

29th June '09. Photo 364. Mechanically minded? Not!

2009-06-29T17:45:00.003+01:00

A "spoof" picture of me showing off my mechanics know-how (none whatsoever).
How was this done? The principle is exactly the same as the "Three Of A Kind" picture back in Photo 83 on the 21st Sept '08).
I took 3 pictures of myself, but the camera was attached to a tripod and activated using a radio-controlled remote control, this way it minimises camera shake.
Once the remote control was pressed, I then have 2 seconds to get into the pose before the shutter goes off, then I moved into a different position and again the camera was remote activated. And did the same thing for the third shot.
I then did some copying and pasting using my favourite paint program. Because the camera had not been handled the whole time, I was able to blend the three pictures into as one without showing obvious signs of joints or misalignment as all three pictures had been taken in the exact same position.
Oh, and it helps to have constant unchanged lighting the whole time. As you can see in that picture, it was a bright day with sunshine.

28th June '09. Photo 363. Turning over a new leaf.

2009-06-28T18:31:00.004+01:00

A macro shot of a rubber plant leaf.

27th June '09. Photo 362. Mystical Fall.

2009-06-27T10:26:00.005+01:00

A good photo web site isn't complete unless it has a cheesy mystical waterfall picture in it . . . and naturally I wanted to do one.
So, here it is, complete with fake "dream-halo" effect. If I want to do such a shot, might as well go the whole hog!
Nonetheless, I really do like this image. I took it at 7.15 am on my way home from work, it was taken in Sandgate. I knew there is a stream there and once I found it, I walked alongside it looking for a decent location and it wasn't very long before I came across that photogenic waterfall feature. When I saw it I said to myself "Bingo! That will do very nicely", but it involved me clambering down on slippery rocks to get the angle I wanted, and then finding something solid to use as a surface to rest the camera on as I found myself dealing with 4-seconds long exposure timings.
But at least a very successful photo session came out of it. And it was taken with my knockabout Fuji S5600.

26th June '09. Photo 361. Red Eye.

2009-06-26T18:50:00.003+01:00

Just beamed an red-laser pen into the lens of an old compact digital camera I don't use any more.
Does it remind you of HAL 9000? That "emotional" computer in "2001, A Space Odyssey".
Oh, and the camera still works!

25th June '09. Photo 360. A classic Sunrise.

2009-06-25T18:25:00.003+01:00

"Classic" in the sense that this one had the clouds lit up by the rising sun. The ones I've taken and shown in here previous were of the "sky glow" type.
Taken from the back of my house at 4.30 am.

24th June '09. Photo 359. My "Magic" Orb.

2009-06-24T20:24:00.004+01:00

Couldn't find any interesting outdoors subject or anything I've not done before to take a photo of, so I decided to think "art" and came up with this!
It is a section of some fancy wrapping paper and used my favourite paint program to turn it into a sphere.
But what I have noticed that after adding the stars and giving it a bit of a halo glow to the lot, the image has that slight 3D thing about it. Can you see the effect?

23rd June '09. Photo 358. Heat haze.

2009-06-23T16:01:00.004+01:00

Taken on a beach only a five minutes walk from my house. Today was a day of glorious unbroken sunshine and while it wasn't actually that hot, the sunshine was!
The shimmering effect in the picture is heat rising from hot pebbles at around 3 pm, usually the hottest time of the day. I had to use a high zoom lens to bring out the effect. You might be able to see it better still by clicking on the image to view a larger version.

22nd June '09. Photo 357. Heiligenschein.

2009-06-22T18:51:00.007+01:00

Can you see a glow around my head? . . . Nope, nor can I. You might have to squint your eyes to notice it.
I tried to capture a heiligenschein on a wheat field while on my way to work at 5 am (I have done this before, on an area of freshly mowed grass way back in Photo 100 - Sept 8th 2008) but it was one of those things that a camera can't really truly capture. You have to see for yourself on how good the effect looks as you can "move" around to notice it.
A heiligenschein is an optical effect where sunlight is refracted inside millions of tiny dewdrops back to my line of vision. A bit like when car headlights shine onto a big road sign at night time giving it the appearance of it glowing in the dark.
If you STILL can't see the effect in this picture, at least the photo itself has a nice abstractness about it.

21st June '09. Photo 356. Tornado.

2009-06-21T21:30:00.004+01:00

A god-awful photo of Tornado passing through Folkestone taken half an hour ago. Waited two bloody hours and by the time it arrived at 9 pm, it was dark with heavy-looking cloud. Out of six shots taken in burst mode using my D40, this is the best I could do! Whoever organised the trip obviously didn't have photography in mind.
Anyway, as a side note, Tornado is the first steam locomotive that has been built from scratch in over 40 years. Completed only last year, it took three years to build and at a cost of £3 million.
Now it is in active service doing special trips around the UK.

20th June '09. Photo 355. Tractor.

2009-06-20T19:24:00.004+01:00

You've seen that deserted tractor picture back in Photo 342 (6th June), now here's a brand new one I spotted parked on a field while on my way home from work this morning.

19th June 09. Photo 354. Assorted tomatoes.

2009-06-19T16:14:00.003+01:00

From my tomato greenhouse workplace. Although I have taken literally thousand of photos of my workplace (sad I know), this one is unusual because it contains EVERY variety of our tomatoes (apart from the beefs).

18th June '09. Photo 353. Split Personalty.

2009-06-18T18:38:00.003+01:00

Bit of an experimental affair, but it does sums up me!
Oh I'm not a schizophrenia or anything like that but I do believe there is a multi personalty in all of us. After all, how do we make decisions? How do we know what is good and what is bad for us? And we do need our bad side to counteract our good side otherwise we wouldn't be able to stand up for ourselves, while our good side controls the bad side so that we can show compassion.
It's all about keeping the balance and using our multi-personalty as a tool in order to get on in life.
I guess this is what our conscience looks like if we can actually see it.

17th June '09. Photo 352. Another dawn shot.

2009-06-17T21:34:00.005+01:00

I seem to capture a lot of them, but when they are as beautiful as the one above, I can't just "leave" it out.
Taken at 5.15 am just off Folkestone.

16th June '09. Photo 351. A field day.

2009-06-16T17:46:00.003+01:00

Another risky HDR attempt. Does it work or it is enough to make you want to slap me in the face and make me promise never to dabble in the dark art of HDR?
On my way home from work this afternoon, I noticed this burnt-off section etched in a wheat (or barely) field and decided to use that for today's entry. I do wonder why there's that brown stretch while the rest of the field is lush and green. Maybe a runaway for alien crafts? Or perhaps it's just a shortcut created by the farmer of that field.

15th June '09. Photo 350. That's handy.

2009-06-15T18:18:00.003+01:00

A bit of abstractness for today's entry, just to keep you wondering what this is all about!

14th June '09. Photo 349. Running rings around me.

2009-06-14T18:58:00.004+01:00

Spotted this very well defined sun halo at about 12 pm today. I used a cheap ebay-purchased fish eye lens attachment on my D40 to capture the whole phemomenon in one go, and as you can see it worked!
A sun halo is created by light being refracted by millions of ice crystals found in cirrus clouds.
I've tried for ages to try and capture a complete halo for show in this web site but it didn't seem like I was going to spot one . . . and just when I was about to give up as this project is drawing to a close, this beauty showed up!

13th June '09. Photo 348. Beam us up, Scotty!

2009-06-13T20:19:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I've done a still life project!
I bought these two figurines from Sainsbury's the other week and thought I'd put them to good use today. Bear in mind that it's the "new" Kirk and Spock from the hugely successful Star Trek film that is currently doing the rounds.
I've had to do a fair bit of cloning to get rid of the "toy like" joins around the elbows, shoulders, knees and even the crotch area! Then adjusted contrast and colour ever so slightly to give it that "in outer space" look. Lighting was a mixture of natural light coming through the window to the left and a reading lamp to the right and the background was just a sheet of black cardboard. I tried using a picture out of a massive space book I have on me, but the glossy nature of their pages resulted in too much "false" looking reflections.
I used my D40 for this one because I can set the aperture really tight so that it doesn't create that depth of field effect which would make the picture look too "close up and toy-like" but had to use a tripod as I ended up with having to use 3 second-plus exposure timings.
It's not as easy as it looks!

12th June '09. Photo 347. Power Shower.

2009-06-12T14:30:00.005+01:00

This was taken yesterday when a short but very sharp rain shower went over us. One minute we were basking in sunshine, then it tipped it down for five minutes and then sunshine returned just as quickly.

It was like looking at a jet of spray coming from a bathroom shower head. The reason why the lighting looked so strong while it was still raining is that the sun was still shining in the background at the time.

11th June '09. Photo 346. Mad cows!

2009-06-11T15:59:00.008+01:00

I saw this group of cows feeding on a trough on my way home from work and a brainwave hit me. But it was lucky for that they all lined up in this way as I prepared to fire up the camera. The title was already springing to mind as I clicked on the shutter.
Just thought I'd do a twist on what is probably a tried and tested theme. Mind you, I had Gary Larson and his famous "The Far Side" cartoons in mind when I took and processed those two photos.

10th June '09. Photo 345. Can't see the wood for the trees?

2009-06-10T17:12:00.005+01:00

Wandered into a local woodland, then aimed the camera straight up.

9th June '09. Photo 344. Cloud Time Lapse.

2009-06-09T22:07:00.006+01:00

I'm no stranger to time lapse videos, but thought I'd do one for today.

This is the view as seen from my hobby room window where I've compressed 5 hours video into a 30 seconds snippet. I used a Sony Handycam Digital 8 with it's "Interval Recording" mode.

8th June '09. Photo 343. Dawn Break.

2009-06-08T18:16:00.006+01:00

It's occasions like this when being up at daft-o clock in the mornings really does come into it's own. I'll never tire of misty scenes with the rising sun giving it that glow.

No processing, colour or contrast adjustments had been carried out on any of these photos. All straight out of the camera (Fuji S5600). Yes I know the point of putting together a 365 photo web site is to issue just the one picture a day, and yes it is true that I have taken something similar to this one earlier on in this web site but I just could not let this one go by unnoticed. Besides, it was cloudy and uninspiring for the rest of the day so it was just as well I took this set of pictures.

Taken at 5.15 am this morning while on my way to work near Folkestone.

7th June '09. Photo 342. Bloomin' nice start to the day.

2009-06-07T10:33:00.004+01:00

This mid-morning sunshine certainly helped to bring out the colour on these flowers (identification I have no idea of, perhaps someone could tell me as I'm not into floral-related stuff). We actually had some rain very early in that morning hence why these flowers do look a little wet and droopy but refreshed all the same.

6th June '09. Photo 341. Deserted tractor.

2009-06-06T19:41:00.003+01:00

Revisited that mysterious "final resting place for machines" area and took this tractor's that obviously had seen better times.
Gave this photo a "pseudo" HDR effect type thing. HDR is the dark arts of bringing out the dynamic lighting in a photo using a photo manipulation software thus creating that strange artistic look about it. While it does add a little bit of interest to this photo, I'm not sure it does actually work, especially since I'm not a big fan of heavy image processing.

5th June '09. Photo 340. My Hobby Room.

2009-06-05T18:27:00.003+01:00

This is where all my ideas and inspiration comes to fruit. I have very recently put together those book shelves to store all my books. I am a bit of a hoarder and cannot bear to throw anything away, but had to do something about it as I was running out of space to store tham all . . . hence those book shelves.
Yes, those are a set of keyboards to the far left in that image, I play the synthesizer . . . badly.
My PC is out of view at the bottom right hand side.

4th June '09. Photo 339. Lone walker on an endless path.

2009-06-04T20:20:00.004+01:00

Spotted this chap walking up this hillside pathway while on my way home. I waited until he was quite a way off, then I whipped my S5600 out, set the lens to max zoom and went for it.
Location; just off Etchinghill.

3rd June '09. Photo 338. Poppy field.

2009-06-03T18:47:00.004+01:00

Taken just off Etchinghill, near Folkestone.
While unfortunately it was a very overcast day today, it hadn't prevented all these poppies from looking outstanding in a rapeseed field. What is peculiar is not just them poppies growing in their thousands, but how it was exclusive to that field, where not a single poppy had been seen growing elsewhere for miles around.

2nd June '09. Photo 337. Horse at first light.

2009-06-02T18:39:00.005+01:00

Took this picture while on my way to work at 5.10 am. While I admit to not being at all a morning person, I love the warm subtle hue and light the ultra-early mornings has to offer and I thought the photo above captured it perfectly well (no alterations had been carried out on that photo whatsoever, the colour was exactly how the camera saw it).
Location is just off Lyminge and my Fuji S5600 was used.

1st June '09. Photo 336. Wind Turbines.

2009-06-01T21:55:00.006+01:00

Located near New Romney, taken two days ago.
But the trouble I had in trying to get near to them! There doesn't seem to be any access roads or pathways leading to them so that I could get close up dramatic imposing shots, I even got lost and ended up in East Sussex!
In the end I settled for this zoomed in type shot using my Fuji S5600.

31st May '09. Photo 335. Samson.

2009-05-31T10:41:00.004+01:00

A steam locomotive belonging to the RHDR Light Railway, the small railway with a big heart. Despiting using 15 inches track gauge, the locomotive looks anatomically correct in scale when compared to a full size version. And it even functions in the exact same way as a proper full size steam locomotive works.
This locomotive is called Samson and is being turned around on a hand-pushed turntable in preparation for hauling a train.
I will be honest and say that this photo was taken yesterday but since she'll be around on a day like today doing the same thing along with glorious sunny weather, so I think I could get away with it.

30th May '09. Photo 334. Bones Of Contention.

2009-05-30T15:35:00.004+01:00

This is located down at The Crypt in St Leonard's Church at Hythe. Apparently some 4,000 skulls are kept in there, a lot of them has no records, date of birth and death certificates connected to them, but they are about 150 years old on average.
Note the two small ones right at the bottom left hand corner, you could be forgiven in thinking those are of a child's, but in actual fact they belonged to a pair of adult pygmies. Young skulls are identified by those wriggly lines on their top parts, the older the adult are, the more featureless and smoother the skull top are.
This was taken hand held (without a tripod) using my D40. It was quite gloomy and dark in there (like all good crypts are supposed to be) and the faster shutter speed I could manage was 1/30th of a second. That was just borderline for taking handheld photos without camera shake showing up in the final image but keeping the exposure high at the same time.

29th May '09. Photo 333. Blue Sky.

2009-05-29T19:03:00.003+01:00

Had brilliant blue skies this afternoon and tried to capture it using a cheapo fish eye lens kit.

28th May '09. Photo 332. Golden Sunrise.

2009-05-28T18:46:00.006+01:00

Rather than just show the one picture, I think I'll go ahead and show you a set of them, all taken in the space of 20 minutes. Besides, it'll make up for my slackiness in the past couple of days.
Those were taken at around 5.15 am while on the way to work. I thought the murkiness coupled with the rising sun made for excellent lighting. No alterations or enhancements had been carried out on any of those pictures.
I want to dedicate the House Of The Rising Sun one to Uncle Martin who died from cancer five years ago. He played for a local music group called "The Sundowner" and House Of The Rising Sun was one of their tracks.

27th May '08. Photo 331. Spiderman.

2009-05-27T20:33:00.003+01:00

Well, not quite.
I caught this chap scaling up the side of a railway viaduct, I think he was a railway worker checking for cracks and loosened bricks in the brickwork.

I have to be honest and say that this photo was taken three days ago. Today the weather has been AWFUL for outdoors photography (dark cloud, rain and heavy drizzle all day), and I'm tired having done an 11 hours working day at my greenhouse workplace. So I've decided to use a "back up" photo for today's entry. Still a great-looking photo, though!

26th May '09. Photo 330. Tickled Pink.

2009-05-26T21:30:00.005+01:00

Oh go on then, just one more of my famed colour montages. This time, it's pretty in pink.

All of the shots in that single frame had been taken this afternoon between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm. It seems that in the colourful world of nature, it's pink's turn this time round.

25th May '09. Photo 329. Angling Times.

2009-05-25T19:24:00.003+01:00

I will be honest and say that this photo was taken yesterday. And just as well I had this "back up" photo as it's been a long ol' day at work.
And besides, went I went past this pond earlier on today, there were still some anglers round it.

24th May '09. Photo 328. Dog tired.

2009-05-24T15:38:00.004+01:00

Don't worry, it isn't a dog that had been left for dead after having been knocked over by a car. It's just a random pooch lying on a quiet side road soaking up the heat during a fine warm sunny Sunday afternoon.

23rd May '09. Photo 327. Windows To The World.

2009-05-23T14:16:00.003+01:00

This is the front part of The Hotel Burstin, a large scale hotel close to the Harbour (a two minutes walk from my home).
Thought it would make for an interesting abstract shot.

22nd May '09. Photo 326. Little Ben.

2009-05-22T17:05:00.004+01:00

A nice relaxed shot of one of my friend's son. This is little Ben aged 6 years old.
Actually, this is a VERY unusual shot, and has a completely unique property about it. Why's that? . . . . As well as it being a "people" shot (something I rarely do), this was taken on film using a traditional SLR film camera. For a 25 years old camera using old style 35 mm roll film, I thought it came out really well! The original photo was scanned and no alterations were needed to make it "look" better.
Indeed, lately I have been experimenting with film photography but the trouble with it is that you have to buy the roll of film in the first place, you can't see what you have taken, then you have to send the film off to be developed and once they are done you have to pay for that. To be honest, after having looked at the round of photos I have taken with my old Pentax SLR film camera and taking into account the hassle and cost in developing, I think digital camera technology won out very easily.
However, this photo of Ben will be preserved for years to come, can the same be said for a JPG file kept on a hard drive or CD rom?

21st May '09. Photo 325. Mystical Rocks.

2009-05-21T19:04:00.006+01:00

Last night at 9 pm, armed with my D40 and a tripod I took myself down to the beach (it's only a stone's throw from my home). I wanted to do an experiment involving wavelets splashing against rocks using long exposures. Timing was crucial on this occasion as I needed the lighting to be dim, but not too dark and not too light. The half hour after sunset provided perfect conditions (the weather was fair at the time) but I only had a 10 - 15 minutes window to do it all in. The end result is what you are seeing above.
This was actually my first ever attempt at doing this type of photography, not bad for something I've never done before! I didn't even need to do much processing to those two photos (only a slight contrast boost in the first one, but the second picture was untouched).
I took loads of pictures and had a lot of trouble deciding what one I wanted to use as today's entry to this web site, so I decided to bend the rule books a little and show two today.

20th May '09. Photo 324. Observer Of The Dawn.

2009-05-20T18:28:00.004+01:00

This was taken at 4.50 am using my Fuji S5600, and no processing or alterations had been carried out on the image.
The bucket-shaped building to the left is a Martello Tower, one of several similar-shaped buildings dotted along the south east coast. In medieval times, they were used to watch out for approaching enemy ships and when one was spotted, a fire was lit up on the tower as a warning beacon. The smaller building to the right (the one with the antenna) is actually a coastal watch station. Not sure if it is still in use or it's been abandoned but there's a certain irony that the old and the new was built close to each other.

19th May '09. Photo 323. Cumulus clouds.

2009-05-19T18:59:00.015+01:00

Or "fairweather" clouds as they are more commonly known.

A thought had occured to me as I took that picture during the course of this afternoon. I've never really taken any actual "cloud spotting" type pictures, especially since I'm passionate about meteorology!
And so here it is, which I think is a fine example of cumulus clouds filling the afternoon sky. Cumulus are little pockets of rising warm air as the ground is warmed up by the overhead sun, those pockets (called thermals) cools as they rise and condensation take places in the process. A bit like steam puffing out of a train engine, really! Sometimes this type of cloud may grow large enough to produce rain or snow showers (depending on the time of the year) which can get locally very heavy.
But here in this case, these ones were content to remain as cheerful fluffy cotton wool-type affairs.
But if they do grow really big, then they become as cumulonimbus as their tops hit extremely cold air as high as 10 miles up in the atmosphere and freezes up, hence their wispy appearance, known as anvil tops. Those beasts most often produce hail and lightning and even tornadoes.
These ones as shown below were crossing over the English Channel as viewed from the back of my house, the picture itself was taken a couple of weeks ago.

18th May '09. Photo 322. William Harvey.

2009-05-18T20:08:00.004+01:00

This photo is a bit of a drive-by snapshot, but I thought the blue sky complimented the heavily tarnished statue of William Harvey.
For those who doesn't know who he is, he discovered the circulatory system in the human body and that he lived in Folkestone all his life. A general hospital in Ashford has been named after him.

17th May '09. Photo 321. Highlighted.

2009-05-17T19:52:00.005+01:00

I did promise myself, and to my growing readership that I would try and keep this blog as interesting and varied as I can. It's the least I can do for all the lovely comments I've been getting in here, so I owe it to you all.
And here it is, I call this one "Highlighted".
I hope I've kept the variety factor going by showing you this picture taken an hour ago (it's 8 pm as I type). I set the camera for a 5 secs exposure and sat as still as I could possibly can and "traced" my profile by using a small but bright LED torch.
"Lightpainting" isn't actually a new concept, it's been around for a good couple of years where people set their cameras for long exposure timing and then "paint" the air using a torch (preferably LED types as that gives off a finer tighter light spot). I just wanted to do a different twist on it.
It's actually not as difficult as it looks and with a bit of practise you could create some interesting effects. All you need is a camera that is capable of taking at least 4 seconds long exposure and a timer. Obviously the longer, the better. My little trusty Fuji S5600 can go up to 15 seconds. However, I can set my D40 to hold the shutter open for an unlimited time (and with that, I was able to produce an interesting night time shot as shown in 23rd Aug '08. Photo 54).

16th May '09. Photo 320. Them cows were right!

2009-05-16T20:12:00.004+01:00

So them cows were onto something after all!
Mind you, while it was wet and dull this morning, the weather had improved by the afternoon. But nonetheless it's the first time we've had proper rainfall in May, and very welcomed it was, too.

15th May '09. Photo 319. When cows lie down . . .

2009-05-15T15:13:00.004+01:00

. . . it means rain is on the way.
I think it's more to do with them keeping their patch of grass dry by lying on it while it is raining at the time.
This was captured just off Folkestone during a rather damp and drizzly morning.

14th May '09. Photo 318. Quite White.

2009-05-14T19:54:00.005+01:00

Another one of my famed colour montages. This one came about after noticing most flowers that are open right now are of a particular colour. Yet, some three weeks ago, everything that was in bloom was all yellow!
All four photos in this montage have all been taken in the space of this afternoon. Unfortunately the weather was overcast at the time, but nontheless I went ahead and hoped for the best.

13th May '09. Photo 317. More colours.

2009-05-13T22:13:00.003+01:00

Just lined up some felt tip pens and took this shot.

12th May '09. Photo 316. Star Trek.

2009-05-12T22:12:00.003+01:00

To celebrate the huge success of the new Star Trek film. And a good excuse to bring the Trekker back out in me. This is a "one take" photo where the light came out of my mobile phone LED torch.
What with this film doing the rounds, suddenly all my Star Trek stuff is now cool again.

11th May '09. Photo 315. Spectrum.

2009-05-11T19:06:00.005+01:00

I found an old prism glass I had knocking around in my room and placed that on a sunny window shelf, and got the resultant colour spectrum to show up on a piece of paper in a darkened room.
The photo was taken straight out of the camera where no colour enhancement had been carried out on the picture.
Basicially, light is actually a composite of several colours all merged together to produce . . . well . . . just white. When light passes through a glass prism, or even a water droplet, it splits it up into seperate colours. That's exactly how a rainbow form.
The far end of the red spectrum is the infra red range and is used for detecting heat (high cloud in weather satellite images and picking out heat loss in houses using a special camera) and the purple end is ultra violet, it's that what gives us a sun tan, and is also the same light you see in night clubs (they are used to pick out white stuff on people's clothing . . . such as cocaine).

10th May '09. Photo 314. Now and Then.

2009-05-10T16:54:00.007+01:00

I spotted an old postcard in a boot fair yesterday and gave me an idea for a good subject to put into this web site.

So, today, armed with that postcard, I got myself into the exact same position as the original photographer to take this shot:

What a sad state of affairs.

The first picture was taken in the mid 80's, I could tell it was about that time as that large blue slide was around at about that time. It couldn't be any earlier as one of the two domed buildings (the rotundas) was built about 25 years ago, a fairly recent thing.
The plan was this: the owner of that fun fair place sold the land to a rich Dutch millionaire and had everything bulldozed down so that new luxury flats could be built in it's place. But then the credit crunch saw to that and now it's just a large area of concrete wasteland.

It's not the first time I've done a "now and then" thing, check out this small collection I did a couple of years ago by clicking on this link:
http://www.freewebs.com/iansphotos/nowthen.htm

9th May '09. Photo 313. The future of analogue TV.

2009-05-09T19:18:00.004+01:00

This is what you'll be seeing on your telly in a couple of years time if you continue to receive analogue TV using an aerial and the telly's own tuner. In 2012, analogue tranmission will be shut down as digital takes over.
I've still got a little black and white portable in the kitchen, which will be rendered as useless soon as it has no input sockets to connect a freeview receiver to.
Indeed times are-a-changing as magnetic storage (VHS and cassette tapes) are now regarded as museum relics and bandwidth-gobbling analouge transmission will be confined to the history books.

8th May '09. Photo 312. Gloomy Skies.

2009-05-08T16:59:00.004+01:00

Taken at 11 am, the Kent countryside can be seen in the background.
It does look bleak, doesn't it? However, an hour after I took that picture, that nimbostratus (which is often associated with a passing warm front) cloud cover very quickly cleared away and was followed by sunny conditions for the rest of the day. Wasn't at all warm though as a fresh wind kept things rather chilly.

7th May '09. Photo 311. Decay.

2009-05-07T16:47:00.005+01:00

Spotted this caravanette in the middle of a woodland just off my work place. Sad to think that this was somebody's pride and joy.
Actually, this was part of a graveyard of various machines. It couldn't be classed as a scrapyard as cars, vans, tractors and even diggers were scattered over a wide area. Some of those machines were covered completely with weeds and overhanging tree branches, others looked like they've been dumped there recently and some were completely broken up into little bits. There was even a rusting '70s American Corvette and a '60s Merc. It all looked so random and didn't make any sense at all. There was no fencing, no "Keep Off" signs, no snarling guard dogs . . . just lots of machines and trees.
All very surreal, and I didn't even know something like this existed even though I've been going past it on my way to work and back home very day for the past 15 years.
Still, now I know it's all there . . . I'll be going back in there at a later time with my proper DSLR camera!

6th May '09. Photo 310. Church.

2009-05-06T16:50:00.004+01:00

The kind of thing you'd see hanging on a wall in a old person's house.
The actual photo was taken only an hour ago. As I type this, it is being a very fine afternoon where the sun is dancing around in brilliant clear blue skies, and I wanted to capture the essence of that.
And what else better than that "classic" looking church at Postling? Postling is a charming village in Kent where everything is so tidy and in good order. Even the cows and sheeps are well groomed there.

5th May '09. Photo 309. Wormhole in space.

2009-05-05T21:16:00.004+01:00

In Star Trek, a phenomenon called "wormholes" exists, it's a corridor in space that enables sspaceships to take a "shortcut" from one part of the galaxy to another part of the galaxy. Under normal warp drive, it would take several light years to get to the same destination.
For this effect, I used a handheld fan that had flashing LED lights on it's wing tips and just simply moved it away from the lens of my camera after having set it for a 3 seconds long exposure in a darkened room.
You can get them such fans from B & Q for £4.99 each and they are fun little things, especially in the dark!

4th May '09. Photo 308. Mock Moon.

2009-05-04T04:48:00.004+01:00

You've heard of a Mock Sun, or a "Dog Sun"? Then how about this in a lunar form. Spotted this optical effect when I woke up at 2 am to answer to the call of nature.
But you will have to excuse the poor quality of that picture as setting the camera up and fiddling about with it's settings while I was still bleary eyed wasn't very easy, but I just had to capture it as it did look special.
Had to tweak the picture in my Paint Shop Pro to bring it out a little bit.
Here's a tiny bit of sciences; this effect is caused by sunlight (or moonlight in this case!) refracting off millions of tiny ice needles in cirrus clouds at a right angle and splitting the light into a rainbow.

3rd May '09. Photo 307. A Spent Force.

2009-05-03T10:57:00.004+01:00

It's dawned on me that it has been a while since I last did an arty indoors still-life type capture.
So here it is. I was putting together a cartoon and as I sharpened up a pencil , I saw the shavings and thought I could make something out of it.
Actually, this shot was taken with a special macro lens attached to the camera. It increases the magnification and enables me to take real close up shots, otherwise known in the world of photography as macro shots.
I have experimented with macro photography before (the spider back in 18th Sept '08, photo 80 and the shield bug in 28th Sept 08, photo 90).

2nd May '09. Photo 306. A Memory Losing Itself In The Mists Of Time.

2009-05-01T19:20:00.005+01:00

My drive to work and home again takes me through a frost hollow.
A frost hollow is where cold damp air sinks into a valley or low-lying gound area and condenses as it does so, but appears as "spooky" looking layers of mist as warm dry air sit on top of it. The end result by dawn break shows up as layers of mist only a few meters in depth.
This frost hollow is located near Etchinghill, Kent and is a great spot for taking moody misty shots . . . but be warned, it doesn't occur every time. And even if it does you really need to be up with the lark as this kind of mist disappears rapidly as soon as the sun pops up above the horizon.
Like for instance, this picture had been taken at 5.30 am this morning. By 6 am, all the mistiness was gone.

1st May '09. Photo 305. Purple Reign.

2009-04-30T22:14:00.003+01:00

Continuing the colour montage series. But this is the last one, I promise but what do you think of them all?

30th April '09. Photo 304. Browned off.

2009-04-30T20:04:00.004+01:00

Even the most mundane of colours has a certain charm to it. And it's a good exercise in capturing textures.
Again, just like in the past few days, what helped these photos was the good strong sunlight we had today.

29th April '09. Photo 303. Tangerine Dream.

2009-04-29T20:08:00.003+01:00

Continuing the colour montage series . . . whether you like them or not!
All of those photos have been taken today, as per my rules regarding doing a 365 photos web site.

28th April '09. Photo 302. Back to Black.

2009-04-28T20:04:00.003+01:00

Now that the sun came out today which provided me with better lighting conditions for photography, I was able to carry on with this montage series.
Strange that I need good light for taking pictures only for me to turn all of them into monochrome!

27th April '09. Photo 301. In true British style.

2009-04-27T19:21:00.003+01:00

In the form of bad weather and snarling traffic jams.
I got entangled in this one and once I was able to get away from it I realised this could make for a good capture, one that sums up everything that is wrong with this country.
Actually, at first I thought it was Operation Stack being implemented but it turned out that a lorry broke down while inside a tunnel and caused all the traffic to back up. Just about every car from Southern England were diverted through Folkestone town.
It's just as well that I found this photo opportunity as lack of time and bad lighting meant that I couldn't carry on with the colour montage series, so had to think of something else . . . and fast.

26th April '09. Photo 300. Going Green.

2009-04-25T16:46:00.003+01:00

These great ideas keep on coming to me!
I will be honest and say that I've dropped this picture off at the same time as the previous photos. Wanted a day off from thinking about what to take and carrying the camera about with me. However, I will be honest and say that all of the photos you see in this one had been taken on the same day as the red-coloured ones.

In other words, I had to find and take eight seperate pictures in one single day for use in this web site.

Now you know why I deserve a little break!

25th April '09. Photo 299. Seeing Red.

2009-04-25T16:40:00.003+01:00

Wanted to keep this concept going. It's where I'm thinking it's a very good idea and it does make for a very colourful sequence of pictures!
Like the previous two, all of those photos have been taken today. The traffic light ones were taken at 5.15 am while on my way to work, that was when it was still dark and I was able to hang around those set of lights to take pictures of them without anyone staring at me!

24th April '09. Photo 298. True Blue.

2009-04-24T19:47:00.004+01:00

I quite enjoyed doing that montage based on a single theme, so much that I've decided to continue the same concept for today's entry, except it's based on a different subject.
Just like yesterday, all four photos used in this collection have all been taken on the same day. I wanted to make good use of the blue sky and good strong sunlight we've had all day.

23rd April '09. Photo 297. Yellow Magic.

2009-04-23T19:40:00.004+01:00

I was going to take a simple picture of a dandelion today, then a rape seed field tomorrow, then those daisies the next day, etc, but then I realised I'll end up with a running theme all showing more or less the same thing over a few days (something I'm trying to avoid doing).

Then I came up with the idea of doing that montage and now I think it looks much more eye catching. You can marvel how there could be so much yellow at any one time if you take a few minutes to stop and look around.

All four pictures in this little montage had all been taken during this afternoon, when the sunlight was at it's most strongest.

22nd April '09. Photo 296. Magpie.

2009-04-22T19:30:00.003+01:00

There, nice and simple.
I've actually taken a good collection of all sorts of photos during the course of today with this web site in mind, but this one won out because of it's "rarity". I've seen magpies flying around my house but it was damn near impossible to get a half decent picture of one.
But then this afternoon as I sat on the front porch soaking up the warm spring sunshine, this fella (assuming it's a bloke!) hopped into view and I just happened to have my S5600 with it's 10x zoom lens to hand!

21st April '09. Photo 295. Flight Of The Dawn Navigator.

2009-04-21T18:05:00.005+01:00

The early morning is often the best time of the day for taking landscape photos, and this one was no exception.
While on my way to work, I couldn't help being fascinated by this bank of fog that rolled over and down the hills near Folkestone.
If I hung around at that location for another half hour, the general lighting would be so much better as the sun begin to rise above the horizon, but I'd end up being late for work so I had to grab what I can and move on.

This picture was taken at 5.45 am, I used my Fuji S5600.

20th April '09. Photo 294. The green, green grass of home.

2009-04-20T18:15:00.008+01:00

Gave the lawn a cut using my new petrol mower. As you can see, the result is VERY pleasing!
A pity the council doesn't take as much pride in their grass cutting. Can you guess which is my lawn, and which is the council grass verge at the front of my house?

19th April '09. Photo 293. Suburban life.

2009-04-19T16:17:00.003+01:00

. . . where every single house all look identical. It must be a nightmare living in a "new town" such as Milton Keynes.
Here, it's just off Cheriton, Folkestone.

18th April '09. Photo 292. Kingsnorth Garden.

2009-04-18T15:41:00.004+01:00

A bit of a postcard-thing project. I went for a little stroll around Kingsnorth Garden (just around the corner from Folkestone Central train station) this morning and took this small collection of photos.

17th April '09. Photo 291. My new mower!

2009-04-17T17:24:00.006+01:00

After years of putting up with flimsy electric hairdryers for flymos that has a lifespan of a fruit fly, I decided to "invest" in a REAL lawnmower . . . and today I got myself a petrol-powered one. It replaced the rubbish flymo that got knackered when I mowed over it's wire.
At the moment, the grass isn't that long and I need to get some oil and petrol for the mower . . . I'm so itching to give it a go!

16th April '09. Photo 290. Side By Side.

2009-04-16T20:14:00.004+01:00

I thought a friend's 8 months old twin boys and their red clothing on a patterned rug all combined to make for an interesting snap shot I could use for this web site.
Technically, the photo is slightly flawed (a little blur due to poor lighting) but I quite like the general concept, and I think it does give it the appearance of the boys leaping up in the air.

15th April '09. Photo 289. Strike It Lucky!

2009-04-14T23:27:00.005+01:00

A short but violent storm went over Folkestone last night, and from the safety of my front door I captured this lightning strike.
The thunder that followed the strike was frightening but I LOVE storms!!

14th April '09. Photo 288. The old and the new.

2009-04-14T16:30:00.003+01:00

Camera technology as we know it.
The camera to the left is an Olympus Trip 35 I recently bought at a boot fair for 50p. It still works and is in excellent conditon. Apparently 10 million of them were made before it was discontinued in 1978, it was the ideal starter camera for people wanting to get into photography.
And it was such a camera that got David Bailey, the world famous photographer, into the world of photography.
The camera to the right is a Fuji S5600, an "average" £100 digital camera that most people these days would possess. I took the lot using my Nikon D40, a digital SLR camera (a camera that feels and behaves just like a normal camera complete with mirror, prism and a shutter, the only thing different is that it has an imaging sensor at the back rather than where the film is supposed to be).
Nowadays, what with just about every man and their dog owning a digital camera due to it's ease of use and no worries about wasted shots and development costs, everyone wants to be the next David Bailey (including me!).

13th April '09. Photo 287. Flower Power.

2009-04-13T18:26:00.003+01:00

Spring continues unabated. This is part of a flower bed just off Radnor Park.

12th April '09. Photo 286. Meet Mllie.

2009-04-12T17:22:00.005+01:00

A friend's neighbour's dog, Millie.
My friend is currently "babysitting" her as the owners are away on holiday. I'm not at all a dog lover, in fact I do have a slight phobia of them (I get very nervous around them) but this mutt is the most friendliest placid thing I've ever come across.
When I'm mucking about with her, it's so easy to forget that she could easily rip off a limb with one single bite if she wanted to.

11th April '09. Photo 285. Bargain hunting.

2009-04-11T16:40:00.005+01:00

I'm a sucker for boot fairs. Okay, the mere mention of them may make some of you feel sick but it doesn't stop me hunting around for bargains. Of course, it goes without saying that I've bought my fair share of crap, but I've also made some fantastic purchases.
Thanks to the Credit Crunch and the Ebay effect, buying and selling junk - I mean - used stuff is a huge money making machine in it's own right.

10th April '09. Photo 284. Rays Of Hope.

2009-04-10T18:24:00.004+01:00

Spotted this gorgeous sun rise while on my way to work at 6.30 am. It was those crepuscular rays that caught my attention.
I think that's where Japan got the idea for their national flag.

9th April '09. Photo 283. Swept off feet.

2009-04-09T18:37:00.003+01:00

Spotted this guy wrestling with a rather large kite (I'll admit to this picture being yesterday's, but well, it's better than not showing any pictures at all!).

8th April '09. Photo 282. Altered Image

2009-04-09T11:07:00.003+01:00

I went for a short bike ride to take a picture of a trio of bright green holiday huts. The weather and general lighting conditions was spot on for photography. But when I loaded up the image on my PC, I felt it looked boring and too "standard", So I decided to have a mess about with it using my paint program. The first thing I did was to alter the hue and colorization . . . and ended up with this eye-catching alien-looking theme which I rather like.

7th April '09. Photo 281. Motorbikes galore

2009-04-09T11:06:00.004+01:00

This shot was taken a couple of days ago but it was only today that I've got around to making it look good for show in this web site. Yes, only shots taken on the day should be allowed but I couldn't let this one go because . . . well, it added variety to the whole thing, doesn't it? Two days ago, a whole load of motorbikes of all size and shape congregated at a car park near my house, so I decided to be brave and see if I could get a cheeky shot in. Thankfully I didn't get mugged by any disgrunted Hell's Angel and returned home with my camera still in my hand and not up my bum.

6th April '09. Photo 280. Apple Blossom.

2009-04-09T11:06:00.003+01:00

Further evidence of spring making it's presence felt. Today saw to the highest temperatures of the year at 15.2 C for my home location.

5th April '09. Photo 279. Boats losing themselves in fog.

2009-04-09T11:05:00.004+01:00

After a fine and sunny morning, the wind swung in from the south east as we went into the afternoon and brought thick dense fog in from the English Channel. With this web site in mind, I took a quick stroll around the harbour area and out of the few pictures I've taken I thought this one looked nice.

4th April '09. Photo 278. A trip down memory lane

2009-04-09T11:05:00.003+01:00

This isn't any old victorian building in Folkestone. It's a house (the number is the same as today's date) which holds a lot of special memories for me. It was where my little Nan, Uncle Wal, Aunty Rose, Cousins Sally, Susan and Andy all used to live. I used to have a lot of sleep overs in that place, whether it's in my cousin Andy's room or downstairs at Little Nan's basement flat. I remember always sitting close to a roaring log/coal fire and watched Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee) on a black and white telly in Little Nan's living room. Happy times. Sadly, which will never be repeated as Little Nan and Uncle Wal had passed away, and Aunty Rose and all my cousins are all leading their lives in their own places. The house itself was sold to complete stranger who converted it into flats. I'll be honest and say that the photo had been taken a few days ago but when I went past it today, it was exactly the same so there was no need for me to take what would be an identical photo. I greyscaled it to give it that 1960s look - especially what with that mini sitting in front of it.

3rd April '09. Photo 277. Sign of the times.

2009-04-09T11:04:00.005+01:00

I spotted this LED sign outside a taxi firm's control center. I took this picture at 6.15 am while on my way to work. It was dark at the time and that sign very easily got my attention. I gave the image a bit of a contrast boost just to bring it out a little bit

2nd April '09. Photo 276. Chad

2009-04-09T11:04:00.004+01:00

This photo of my 5 years old black cat was "planned" as I saw him sitting in the hallway enjoying the late afternoon sunshine,, but the bordering around the photo was found by accident. I was having a bit of a look around in my favourite paint program when I stumbled across this nice frame effect.

1st April '09. Photo 275. Flowering bindweed

2009-04-09T11:03:00.001+01:00

Spotted in woodland near my workplace. Like the way they basked in the spring sunshine.

31st March '09. Photo 274. Classic car.

2009-04-09T11:02:00.001+01:00

But I have no idea what makes it is. All I know that it's different to the usual run-of-the-mill Ford Focuses, Clios and Saxos that gets parked on my street. I'm surprised it got through the night without being vandalised! I took it while walking to my car early this morning hence the lighting does seem on the dim side

30th March '09. Photo 273. The Leas Lift.

2009-04-09T11:01:00.004+01:00

I actually took this picture yesterday but since today's conditions was virtually identical to yesterday's, and the subject matter is still there, I think I can get away with saying it was taken today. Might as well have been. On a serious note, The 125 years old Leas Lift is under threat of closure. It's because the council doesn't want to pay for the upkeep of it since it's not making any money. It costs £90,000 per year for maintainence and staff wages but only makes £30,000. But it's only because there's nothing at the bottom half to justify people using the lifts. Since the Rotunda and the Sunday Market were closed up a couple of years ago, the Lifts had been making a loss, and the council - in typical fashion - doesn't want to have anything to do with it. For the engineers amongst you lots, here's how the lifts works. It is two cabs tethered together by a cable, and water is pumped into a tank underneath the top one and the increased wieght of that cab makes it descend down to the bottom - and pulls the other cab back up to the top in the process, very simple and yet very efficent. And thanks to the tight fisted gits in the council, this bit of Folkestone heritage could soon be nothing more than a fading memory. I gave this picture that retro 1940s atmosphere, I also had to do a LOT of "cloning" as there was a whole load of barriers on the road (placed there to prevent road racers from doing handbrakes turns).

29th March '09. Photo 272. Blue Sky Thinking

2009-04-09T11:01:00.003+01:00

This is the new Academy School that's recently opened up in Folkestone. My bike ride to a ladyfriend's new house takes me past there and on this occasion I thought I'd take a picture of it. However, as luck would have it, just as I poised to take this picture, a gap in the thick cloud sheet formed and became a similar shape as the building itself!

28th March '09. Photo 271. Yellow alert!

2009-04-09T11:00:00.004+01:00

I wanted a decent rapeseed field picture for this web site but I've not seen any such field at all, and the ones that are about are heavily delayed due to a cooler than mornal winter. Then the answer was literally right in front of me, in the form of a tree in my front garden. I thought it made for a nice yellow theme.

27th March '09. Photo 270. Mock Sun

2009-04-09T11:00:00.003+01:00

Or a "Dog Sun", it's an optical phenomena where ice crystals high up in the atmosphere has the effect of refracting sunlight. Usually it's best seen to the left or/and right to the Sun at sunset. This isn't the best example of one but since I've waited months to capture one for use on this web site, it will have to do.

26th March '09. Photo 269. Another guess the texture

2009-04-09T10:59:00.007+01:00

I'll give you a clue, you have it with a cup of tea.

25th March '09. Photo 268. A ray of brightness

2009-04-09T10:59:00.006+01:00

A shaft of sunlight bursts through a gap in heavy cloud. It was a day of sunshine and heavy blustery showers. This was taken from my hobby room window at 5 pm

24th March '09. Photo 267. My all time favourite album

2009-04-09T10:59:00.005+01:00

slight variation on the cover of my all time favourite album