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Feather Light

Feather Light

I got a new macro lens for my lovely little SonyA7 a couple of weeks and I can definitely say that it’s money well spent! It’s a Sony 90mm F2.8 and the results are beautifully clear and sharp and it has wonderful bokeh. I’m looking forward to having more time to play with it. In the meantime, since flowers are in short supply here with it being winter, I’ve been taking macros of anything that catches my eye, kitchen tools, fences, things from the workshop and feathers!

Summer Sale and Preset Launch

Summer Sale and Preset Launch

This 5th pack of 40 Fly Nik Color presets are a mixture of subtle and dramatic and are perfect for jazzing up your holiday imagery, for use with textures and without, the sample images pictured above are mostly without so you can get an idea of their effects, a few of the above images are not yet published, but we’ll blog those shortly using some of the presets in this pack.
Just a taste of things to come over midsummer!

Lacewing Texture with Misty seed heads

Lacewing Texture with Misty seed heads

I shot this very early one misty morning back in the autumn with my new Iphone 6 plus. It’s a view looking back towards my girlfriends house up in the French Jura which is surrounded by mature pine trees. Would have been great if a light was on in the top window, but I like it as is or I would have photoshopped one in!

Hydrangea Blue

Hydrangea Blue

Not another hydrangea I hear you saying 🙂 I’m of the opinion that you can never have too many! They’re such photogenic flowers especially my favourite blue variety. This was textured with a mix of old and new Flypapers, one texture came from our ever popular Summer painterly pack and one from the brand new Distressed Painterly.

Distressed Painterly Launch

Distressed Painterly Launch

Although delayed by server problems, at last, our first new textures set launch of 2015!
Always wanting to give that bit more with each new Flypaper pack, for this new Distressed Painterly pack, think Shabby Chic!:-)
Think of it as a kind of two-part pack with traditional grunge painterly goodness to first texture your images in the time honoured way and then why not go the whole hog and Crackle Glaze them! The choice is entirely up to you, with this packs 45 king sized textures there is something to please everyone, for our loyal traditional grunge texturers and our newer painterly fans who have requested cracks on many occasions!

New pears

New pears

Sorry about our long absence here on the blog, we do have a good excuse though, we’re excited to announce we’re busily working on a wonderful  new pack!! You’ll be pleased to know it’s almost ready for launch so keep an eye out for the “mailer” with the details and if you’re not already on our mailing list there’s a joining form HERE!

Annecy Canal

Annecy Canal

Just back from eastern France, where we visited Annecy, the ancient lakeside mountain town on the Swiss border which, coincidently, during my time as a freelance Getty curator, whilst selecting mostly French imagery, I was delighted to finally visit the actual location of the famous Palais de l’Isle canal prison that I saw images of nearly every day whilst looking through Flickr.

Blue

Blue

You’ll be pleased to know that the Hydrangea that I planted last season has remained blue! So I’m happy! I’m now hoping the bush will grow a bit bigger now and have a mass of flowers to brighten a fairly bland corner of my garden. While we’re on the hydrangea subject, I was given another hydrangea bush for Christmas which I planted it at our country hut. Unfortunately when the river that borders the property is low, the sheep from the paddock over the fence can get in via the river bank and this is what they did a month or so back. They ate everything; hosta, roses, flax bushes, potatoes, they even nibbled on

Bell Tower

Bell Tower

’ve recently started using my Lensbaby again, with the Optic 80, ideal for tilt shift effects looking down from the mountains, and frankly a lot lighter to carry! Its also great for capturing a moody, painterly effect. Enhanced by the painterly filters in Topaz Impression and finishing with our Flypaper Textures.

Jam

Jam

I have always made my own jam, usually from produce I’ve grown in my garden. As well as knowing exactly what’s gone into the jar, you get the satisfaction of eating something that’s completely home made (well apart from the sugar that is). The above is a jar of blackcurrant jam and I was delighted to find I’d sold the photo for use as a bookcover via Arcangel Images . The book is  Burnt Toast Makes you sing Good by Kathleen Flinn, here it is on Amazon. I’m adding it to my reading list, I love books like this about food 🙂