All posts filed under: Phonography

Foggy morning

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Last night was rainy and warm and this morning was humid and foggy. I do like interesting weather, so fog is a good morning for me. A good storm (if I am inside or on the porch) is also a winner in my view. Even pouring rain or bucketing snow make a change. I of course love the blue skies we usually see, whether the temps are warm or freezing cold, but the weather odd bods are what makes the interesting days.   Thankfully it was only the air full of fog today, I started with a fab boxing class which is my favourite class ever, I love to beat up an inanimate object once a week! I picked up the new (still one issue behind Australia though) Frankie magazine and finished getting ready for the Halloween party at school tomorrow. Now I am here chatting to you and listening to the new ‘London Grammar’ album. Are you trick or treating for Halloween? It may rain here, so let’s hope not (no, not even an …

Photo filters and apps for Halloween

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October is here and apparently so is Halloween fever!  My youngest fetched up our bag of Halloween decos gathered mainly from November sales, so it has taken us a few years to gather a spider or three. I did like that he squished a pair of skelly-bob gloves behind a drain pipe, to rather good effect I think!  So I took a snap and then I added a few (too many) finishes and got a spooky photo as a reward! For this shot, I used Snapseed and cropped and added a ‘grunge’ finish and a texture and a creepy frame.   Spooky huh? I started with this – After this one, I had to do the spider too!  An innocent giant spider chomping on a glow in the dark skelly, add a few photo finishes and creepy spider with a swarm to help him…. For this one, I started in Camera+ , cropped and added the ‘Dreamstate’ filter, then on top of that I used the ‘Pinhole’ filter.   I messed with the intensity to get …

Favorite instagrammers

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Do you Instagram?  Who do you follow?  Family?  Friends?  Big corporates?  Small businesses? Celebs? I have used Instagram for about a year and a bit now and to start with there was the option to share or not, so I used it more as a filters app and not a social media app.  Now, of course it is all sharing and all social media which is fine, I just use other filter apps and think about what I want to share with anyone who cares to take a look. About that anyone can take a look thing.  How do you feel about that?  Are you careful to watermark so your photos can’t be reused?  I am not, but then I am no top photographer, so I am not too worried.  I follow @davidloftus and he interestingly doesn’t watermark his photos and he is a top photographer.  I think watermarks are only useful when they are slapped right across the middle and that completely ruins the whole point of putting a photo up in the first …

New York Photos from my June visit

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I had a very interesting, informative and  photo-ful trip to New York and Brooklyn last month. Some highlights were the Punk exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, Coney Island even with the Mermaid Parade chaos, Tinsel Trading (my new favourite shop) and seeing friends and friends. My trip into the big city on Friday.  The Met for Punk Chaos and Central Park  for a sunny walk with a lovely friend. I came across Tinsel Trading as I was heading from a magazine shop to Muji and I am so happy I did, the place was amazing, I wanted to move in there!  Trims and buttons, vintage and ribbons as far as the eye could see all displayed in old cabinets and drawers.  Gorgeous.  I came out with some beads, silk ribbon and metal thread.  I thought I was rather restrained, I hope you are proud of me! Coney Island colour and fun! My last day in Brooklyn.  I had to visit the Momofuku Milk bar and Union Market.  I picked up some international magazines and caught …

Challenges and an actual challenge.

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Monthly, daily, weekly challenges. Do you love then or do you hate them. Or do you love the idea of them and hate that you never stick with them? I have been doing the photo a day challenge with prompts provided by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim for almost a year now and it is now totally part of my day no matter how busy I am. Some photos are snaps which barely meet the prompt and some are worked on with filters and all sorts of nonsense from a variety of apps. I started the daily photo thing with Hipstamatic who also do a prompt based challenge on Instagram. I love the Hipstamatic app, but I don’t want to have to use it for every photo. I saw a challenge on A Beautiful Mess today – The 30 day self portrait challenge. My initial reaction was holy squashed avocados, even I don’t want to see a month of photos of me! Why would any modest person want to do this, blah blah, blah.  Then …

July ten on the 10th

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As usual (it seems!), it is raining on the morning of ten on the 10th. At least it is cooler that way, so no complaints here. Following some thunderous storms in the early hours, it was still raining when we planned to set off to see Despicable Me 2 at the cinema.  So, we grabbed the umberellas, stopped on the way for illegal snacks (how much are cinema sweets?  Too much, I tell you!) and off we went. I got a funny poster picture of a minion from the movie theatre which also fitted today’s photo a day challenge theme which was ‘Smooth’.  He he. Space man toy. My button tin, just some of my vintage buttons which I love to use in jewelry but I am often unwilling to part with them! Button bracelets, made with the aforementioned buttons.  I wear these two, but I am planning to make some to sell, if I can stop myself from claiming them as mine! During the summer, we usually end up at the YMCA pool every …

June 2013 Photo a day

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I cannot believe how fast June has zipped by (I am sure I say that every month!).  At the same time, when I look back at the photos from the beginning of the month, they seem so long ago. We have been on holiday to Cape Cod for two whole weeks, then I was back in St Louis for about 10 minutes and I was off to New York for the Alt Summit and a lovely weekend in Brooklyn. It has been hot and cool and wet and stormy. I followed the A Month of… prompts from Just B Australia for most of the month, but by the last week I was back to Fat Mum Slim.  Apparently it is harder to break a habit than I thought!  I do enjoy the FMS prompts though even though they do circle round on a regular basis, but that just makes for a new photo challenge, n’est pas?! Well, here are  my June daily snaps. 1. Tea 2. Story. 3. Fabric 4. Party.  Pie from Marion’s Pie …

Abandoned towers and weeds

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After much research and unhelpful YouTube videos, we found the way to the abandoned Air Force Base of North Truro and the infamous Jenny Lind tower. I imagined a spy mission, scaling chain link fences and possible barbed wire and dodging ‘keep out’ signs. Amid no drama whatsoever, we arrived with no problem and parked next to a wooden box with ‘trail maps’ and a sign explaining the area and the base and the trail around it. Not very James Bond at all. The base now houses the Highlands Centre and has lots going on. Seashore research, buses coming and going and a performing arts centre. Having said that, the whole area still looks to be completely abandoned, the grass is tall, the plants overgrown, ‘keep out’ neatly stenciled on most doors and out of service fire hydrants. The buildings which are in use are only apparent by the signs on the doors and in the tall unkept grass around them. It is almost as though they are enjoying the solitude and peace the old …

Buddhas, beads and lighthouses

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As we are heading along the Cape, the town of Eastham can’t be passed without a visit to Buddha and Beads. A little antique store which has all kinds of treasure including lots of beads which ironically are not my favourite part of the store. There are wonders in every corner. There is now an outside bonus area which wasn’t here last time we visited. Green glass floats. Many many Buddhas, new and vintage. We headed out to the lighthouse and the beach next. The steps to Nauset light beach have been eroded away so they are building new ones. Right now. So, no access to the beach. We also came to see the lighthouse, so off we went. There are four lighthouses here in all. One working and the identical Three Sisters lighthouses residing in the woods just behind. Nauset lighthouse. Moved from Chatham to replace the Three Sisters lights. The top was painted red and the light signal is a white light followed by a red light. This lighthouse is featured in the …

Lucky stones and fluffy clouds

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Bodhi was given a lucky stone yesterday which is a stone from the beach with a band of quartz all the way through it making a white line. I am still trying to find out why they are considered lucky and if they are a Cape Cod thing. This must be one of the few times that Google is coming up empty! Of course if something is considered lucky, who am I to question. Today had been another fantastic day on the Cape and we headed out to Monomoy Wildlife reserve. We spotted horseshoe crab, hermit crabs, turkey vultures and lots of seabirds (no, I am not a bird watcher, I don’t know who they were). There were lots of pretty clouds too.