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Blue

Blue

by | Mar 4, 2015 |

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

by | Feb 17, 2015 |

’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

by | Feb 8, 2015 |

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 🙂

Canal walkers

Canal walkers

by | Jan 29, 2015 |

Low winter light with its dramatic long shadows can be fabulous, it can also be very hard to process. Here’s one of several I shot just before Xmas at our Canal du Midi’s head of the UNESCO protected 17th century Five locks, i’ve photographed it many times, in fog, mist and even rain when it had its beautiful rows of Napoleonic ancient marching trees along each bankside, unfortunately this is all that’s now left, as they were all cut down last year because of a fungal infection spreading though the canal water all the way from the Atlantic coast, now finally reaching here in the Mediterranean coast after they think the

Snow Barn

Snow Barn

by | Jan 21, 2015 |

mouse-over for before view.
Up here in the French Jura again! This year the snow was very late, the resort workers were pulling out their hair for the lack of it.Then only just this weekend it finally arrived heavily enough and has been snowing ever since and now we’re expecting it to continue all week!

Rain in Paradise

Rain in Paradise

by | Jan 7, 2015 |

On New Years Eve I visited the Queenstown area for the day, Queenstown being a very scenic and busy tourist town and the arguably the adventure tourism capital of New Zealand. It’s also one of the places to be on New Years Eve and naturally the town was extremely busy! To escape the crowds we drove to the head of Lake Wakatipu and….

Forks

Forks

by | Dec 16, 2014 |

Christmas briefly came early for me! The lens that I had ordered as my Christmas present finally arrived yesterday, and I couldn’t resist a quick play before I put it away, just to check that it worked okay 🙂 The lens is a fabulous Sony/Zeiss sonnar 55mm f1.8 for my favourite  little Sony A7 camera and after my quick session with it, I can say it’s a keeper. The sharpness and clarity are wonderful and it produces some beautiful bokeh. I’m looking forward to Christmas!

Fauvist mist

Fauvist mist

by | Dec 7, 2014 |

Here in the Languedoc, where the fauvist artistic movement made its home we’re blessed with over 300 days of sun, unfortunately many of those days are windy! It’s that same wind that keeps the clouds away and also makes my job as a landscape photographer harder as the light is very hard.

Nik Preset 4 Pack Launch

Nik Preset 4 Pack Launch

by | Nov 28, 2014 |

We’re pleased to launch this summer/autumns final color efex preset pack and get you bang up to date with our basic color balance processing. All our images pictured above are processed with the presets included in this 4th pack. For those new to our Nik Color Pro Presets, you’re in for a treat because we now release all 4 sets as a  bundle pack at a discounted price!
Other changes include a newly updated Complete pack and for the first time we’ve bundled all 3 of our Edges packs into an Edges Combo!

Paint it Black!

Paint it Black!

by | Nov 19, 2014 |

My first apartment in London after moving south with a college friend after graduating in the 1980’s was in the Hasidic north London Jewish area of Stamford Hill. Our charming Anglo German landlord and his wife we discovered to our embarrassment as we were hiding our pet cats, were drinking tea in our apartment on arrival! whilst meeting we noticed that they both had faded blue German WW2 ID numbers tattooed on their wrists, which we’d seen before on Holocaust survivors up north. On departing his final friendly though bizarre words were;