Flying The Flag

Till next time.....

The Voice was silent.

Chilling By The Tower

On a trip round town recently I grabbed this shot of the steps by the Tower Of London. A few touches in CS5 to rid it of an annoying Crane in the background and its a clean casual shot of people chilling by the tower.

Till next time....

The Voice has spoken

Swan Lake (Tooting)

Now then fine peeps.

On this weeks thrill ride of a post (?!?!?!) I will reveal to you a fine photo that I shot today at Tooting Common. As some of you will know this is a regular haunt for me and my family. Last weeks pictures of Boogie were taken in the park there and this weeks shot is from the pond. Using my Canon 70-300 IS USM lens I was able to get up close and personal with one of the swans that live on the water there.
I took many shots but this one is my favourite as it is a nice close up with just the right amount of background blur.

As usual I welcome any comments you may have, good or bad.

I welcome your judgement.

Till next time.....

The Voice has spoken.

Photography In The Park

Good evening and welcome to the show.

Today we had a break from the Olympic madness thats has gripped the city and escaped to the park. Of course, with me, I had my trustee Canon EOS 450D. The morning was a bright and sunny one but as usual the clouds crept in by lunch time but luckily we managed to avoid the rain by seconds as we headed back to the car.

After attending a talk, on how to improve your photography skills in regard to portraits, on Saturday I was inspired to try something a little different from what I was used to. I tried to get as much light in the lens as possible and opened the aperture as wide as possible. I had the ISO set to 400 and ,using full manual mode, I set the shutter speed to a relatively slow speed of around 1/200 of a second. This resulted in the images looking washed out and over exposed. But this is what I was chasing. I would have preferred to use a lower ISO but the light was so unpredictable that I was forced to compromise with these settings in order to avoid constantly fiddling with the settings every time the sun disappeared behind a cloud. One last note, due to lack of space on my card I was forced to shoot in L instead of L / RAW that I usually use. New card needed I think.

Once home I opened the files up in photoshop and tweaked with the Brightness, Exposure and the Hue / Saturation settings to bring out the picture I was looking for. This has resulted in the backgrounds being bathed in light along with certain points in Kara's hair and skin but the colours being vibrant and powerful.  For the first time I am very pleased with my days shooting. Personally speaking, I think my skills are improving.

If you have any comments (good or bad) then please do put them down as I welcome criticism, it's the only way to improve.

Till next time....

The Voice has spoken

Gone But Not Forgotten (Pic 13)

My eldest sister and Dad
Ernest Stocks 1929 - 2012

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The Voice Has Spoken

Shades Reveal All (pic 12)

My pic this week was inspired by the freakily warm and sunny weather were having at the moment. My lovely wife was wearing her shades all afternoon and so I decided to take a picture looking through the glasses.
After a bit of magic via CS5 the result is below.

Till next time....

The Voice has spoken

Boogie Turns 3 (pic 11)

This week my pic is from my little Boogies 3rd birthday party. She turned 3 today and loved every minute of her special day, but celebrating with her friends this afternoon was the peak of her day. As evidenced by this picture. It really does show a little girl having a great birthday.

Till next time....

The Voice has spoken.

Bubbling Bubbles (Pic 10)

This week I had a plan, to try and take some good photos of bubbles. I got the idea after playing with Boogie out on the balcony. I used her bubble gun to create bubbles and she jumped around bursting them. It was great fun and the bubbles looked great as they caught the evening sun. However by the time I got chance to dig out my camera and try a few shots the sun had retired for the evening and all I had left were the room lights and the flash. Needless to say the effect wasn't quite as good as earlier so I decided to play around in Photoshop and just see what I could do with some basic editing. The results were quite interesting. There was no cropping or cutting and pasting just a bit of fiddling with the luminance, saturation, white balance and other similar things. What I finished with are displayed here for the judgements of all, please show mercy......

original

edited

Till next time.......

The Voice has spoken

Waiting At The Bus Stop (Pic 9)

This week I found my self waiting for the bus and as usual it was late. After browsing the web for the travel news it became apparent that the bus had taken a wrong turn and had ended up in the most unusual of places. After spending a few hours trying to track it down I finally stumbled upon it and was as surprised  as Im sure the driver was at just where it had ended up. I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped away.

So can you guess where the bus finally turned up?

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.

The Future Of Crime Fighting (Pic 8)

My picture this week is one that I never expected to post, one I never expected to take. I stumbled upon a superhero?!?!?!
OK, truth is we visited the Baby Show at the London Excel today and while there there was also a comic convention going on in one of the other halls. Needless to say there were plenty of people walking around in costumes, some I recognised and some I didn't have a clue about. But this one was by far the greatest.
Imagine the Wonder Woman as she nears retirement with a bit of Amy Winehouse skankyness thrown in.
The original was taken within the Excel but using the magic of Photoshop and my limited skill with it I managed to place her by Putney Bridge. Outdoors, where super heroes belong.

So without further delay I give you, the working class version of Wonder Woman.

By ecky thump its that there Wonder Bird lass.

 Would you want saving by her? Answer's to the usual place.

Till next time.....

The Voice Has Spoken

Mr Frog Goes To Church (pic 7)

This weeks pic is the result of a desperate man. I had no idea what I was going to throw on here today but then my daughter decided to put her frog under her flannel in the bath and told me he was going to sleep. It was so cute that I immediately got out my camera. I then decided I would try and cut out the image and paste it on another picture. And so I took Mr Frog to church. It took a while as I had never done anything like this in CS5 before and there was a lot of trial and error (should probably have looked for a tutorial on line but I like to do things the hard way)
And so I give you Mr. Frog Goes To Church.

Till next time...


the voice has spoken

The Girl In Red (pic 6)

Week six of project 52 sees my first attempt at using selection and colour conversion in CS5. It took a while for me to figure it out but eventually I got there. Using Schindler's List as an influence I chose this picture as my little Boogie was enjoying the winter weather in her red fur trimmed jacket.
I hope you find as much enjoyment looking at it as I did making it.

The Girl In Red

Till next time....

The voice has spoken

Something I Love

Looking through all the pictures on our Mac I was surprised to find myself drawn to this picture when looking for a picture of something I love. I passed over countless pictures of Kara and loads of pictures of Otilia all of which I love as much as I love them but this one jumped out at me as soon as I saw it. Its a picture of me and my wires family. Her parents - Mircea and Aurelia, her sister - Simina, Otilia and me. Its one of the very few pictures I have of all of us together. It was taken the year before Kara was born so no little Boogie but it shows all my new family whom I love dearly and am proud to be a member of.

So may I present to you The Pasolescu's (and me)

I am sharing this picture of something i love with Love all Blogs and Albelli.

The Watcher In The Woods (pic 5)

This weeks pic was taken once again in Toting Common (truth be told it was taken the other week as this week has been a busy one) Ive tweaked it a little in CS5 from the RAW data. Having been taken on a dull January morning I increased the colour and saturation in order to make it a little more colourful without making it look cartoony and un-natural.

Look closely and you will see there is someone looking back at you. This is the reason I took the picture, I tried a few shots but in this one the little guy is looking directly at me.

Hope you like it.

Till next time.....

The voice has spoken.

Home Of The Windy Miller (pic 4)

So this Sunday I headed out (at the behest of my lovely wife. OK it was more like, 'Get out from under my feet and take some pictures!' Bless her you gotta love her) to try and find something to photograph. I got into the car and started driving south. After about half an hour I took a slip road off the A23 and headed to Gatwick another 5 minutes and I found this......

This is Lowfield Heath Windmill situated just outside of Charlwood village and has been almost fully restored to working condition. It was closed when I got there as it only opens a few Sundays a year but as I was photographing the outside some of the members of the Trust in charge of the site came to do some work on it and were kind enough to let me go inside. Below are just a few of the many pictures I took that morning.

These were all taken on the first floor just using the light of the sun shining in through a small side hatch. I think they are lit beautifully.

What struck me about this windmill was the skill and care that has gone into the restoration. As you can see from the picture above a lot of new woodwork has been put into place and it impressed me how beautiful it all looked. There's something about wood that you just don't get from modern building materials. All the glass, steel and concrete mausoleums that they throw up in every city could do with more natural materials like wood and stone. Which leads me to the my next pic...

The centre column is an original piece (can't remember if they said from this windmill or not but certainly from an old relic of a windmill) and the cross beam that you can see in the lower left corner that supports the whole thing was an old timber that was originally going to be used in York minster after the fire back in 1984, but ended up not being used. Years later it was secured for use in the restoration of this Windmill. A well travelled bit of wood, big bit of wood.

This is some of the old metal work form another windmill that is on display in the grounds. The picture was taken from the small side hatch that allowed the light to enter for pictures 2 & 3.

So there you have it, the Lowfield Heath Windmill in all its restored glory. The grounds are open all the time so any one can take a close up look when ever they like, or you can go on one of the open days to get a look inside and maybe talk to some of the guys involved in its restoration. I fully recommend it.

http://www.ockleywindmill.co.uk/lowfieldheathwindmill.htm

Till next time...

The voice has spoken

A flock of sea gulls (no not the band. Pic 3)

This post isn't just about my next picture in the 52 weeks 52 pics project but also my first attempt at fixing things using Photoshop CS5. Needless to say more training is needed but, I don't think I did too bad for a first attempt.
Just like last weeks pic (come fly with me) this was taken in Tooting Common by the pond. The camera was set to RAW by mistake but as it turned out it was a stroke of luck as it allowed me to play with it a lot more in Photoshop. Presented first is the picture before I tweaked it.

I took this image and toyed with the brightness, saturation, grain and a few other things in order to bring out as much detail and colour as I could. I'm quite please with the results.

I was impressed by the amount of detail that was dragged kicking and screaming from the shadows and the colour of the trees in the back ground gives a real autumn feel (though as you know it was actually taken in winter)
For a first attempt at Photoshop I don't think I did too bad.

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.

Come Fly With Me (pic2)

I was in Tooting Common with my lovely wife and daughter when I decided to try and catch a few pics of the birds around the lake. I managed to get quite a few pics around the lake but this one was a very lucky shot. I just managed to raise my camera in time as this bird came past and following with my lens I clicked. Luckily for me the settings I had used for the few shots before this worked out just fine as I had no time to change, it really was a one chance shot. How I managed to keep the bird central to the image is beyond me but I think I did quite well. So here we have my pic for week 2 of the 52 week challenge.

Pic 1. 'Im Having An Old Friend Round For Dinner'

I found this Fella having his lunch above a jumper frame in the Battersea Park BT shed. A bit of light conversation and a glass of Bollinger 53 later I found out his name was Trevor and he's an out of work accountant. He moved into the BT shed a week ago. He considered it an ideal location for a spiritual retreat. He's trying to get in touch with his inner self, though I think he's more likely to end up getting in touch with the inners of his lunch a long time before any spiritual enlightenment should befall him.

So please join me as I raise a glass to Trevor, may he live a long and full life. Unlike his dinner.

Till next time...

The voice has spoken