Coloured bottles

I have 4 brightly-coloured plastic bottles which I fill from the tap and keep next to the dogs’ water bowl in the living room ready to refill it.

These photos, which I took the other day when there was bright evening sun, show light passing through the bottles and mingling their colours. I’ve then cropped them and applied some experimental effects …

I feel there’s a whole lot more I could do with this idea!

Throat of the tulip

Textured glass jewel

Fabric strip

Dewdrop photography

I saw a lizard this morning, warming itself in a patch of sun, and sneaked in to get my camera.

The lizard very kindly waited, but only allowed me one shot before the click of the camera startled it.

Unfortunately the lizard itself was out of focus, but I did accidentally catch a dew drop on a sweet pea leaf.

Dew drop on a sweet pea leaf

This reminded me of one of the types of photography which I most admire – dew drop photography. I’d advise anyone interested in natural beauty to look it up on the internet!

Egg heads

When I was little, my parents used to put faces on hard-boiled eggs as a surprise for us children on Easter day. Then when I was a bit older, I took over the custom.

One year I made a woman with a cloud of white cotton-wool hair, red cheeks, and fierce blue eyes behind spectacles. My father, who liked to give names to these egg faces, called her ’Miss Florrie Smithwick M.A.’ The name was so perfect for her that I still laugh about it, decades later.

Anyway, these 2 faces which I made today represent the struggle I’m undergoing with regard to buying or not buying an Italian Easter Egg. It’s so tempting, but they’re all so big!

Who will win, devil or angel?

So far the Angel has won, but when they’re reduced in price after Easter, who knows?

Carol’s what?

The cause of all the racket

In the run-up to Christmas, I have the annual treat of playing carols on my violin. Clive, who hates carols, makes it sound like I’m talking about something belonging to Carol.

As I went up and down the scale of G by way of a warm-up, Taylor hummed a bit. Then he went silent all the way through ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ ‘Away in a manger,’ ‘The holly and the ivy,’ etc.

It wasn’t till I got to ‘It came upon the midnight clear’ that he found his voice.

I know the reason why: he responds to music of which a high proportion is played on the G string, that is, at a low pitch.

All of a sudden he was making up for lost time. He thrust his muzzle up in the air, narrowed his lips to a small circle the better to project the sound, and let fly. He howled and wailed and whooped, the siren-like sound soaring above the notes of the violin like a shout above a whisper.

I was soon aware of a shorter-rhythmed howling, more akin to a bark, as Joules joined in followed by Kepler.

We made such a racket that I wouldn’t be surprised if our neighbour heard us, 300 yards away through the double glazing.

Tripod

Clive gave me a detailed introduction to his camera tripod today. The trouble is, while the tripod may be all-singing all-dancing, I’m all-fingers all-thumbs.

The sharply-focussed zinnia

While we were tightening multiple screws and winching the camera in toward our chosen subject, a yellow zinnia, my fingers were itching to grab the camera and take a quick automatic shot before the light went.

“I expect you’d have been happy with a monopod,” Clive said.

A single support to stop your hand wobbling that you just extend as necessary? Without 3 legs, each of which you have to find a footing for? You bet!

After the camera finally stopped arguing that we were too close and consented to take a photo, I could see in the preview window that it was going to be a good one.

The aperture priority setting reduced the depth of field so that the zinnia and the nearest lavender sprigs are in sharp focus, with the rest of the lavender and the house all blurry behind.

Next time I have a lizard or a bee that will sit still long enough, I’ll do it Clive’s way.