2013 365-5

Week five and no shoots worth talking about this week. Guess it's time to fall back on mooching around the house and trying to be creative. Small things, small places.

28/01/13

Damn but I just love this little sock rabbit. My daughter Katie bought the kit for my youngest, Sarah and Katie came round on Sunday to help Sarah make it. This seemed to involve (to an objective observer) Katie making the sock rabbit while Sarah tried to distract her with an amazing repertoire of pointless questions. I'm tempted to say that it was the ruin of a good pair of socks, but how could you not love that little face? It has taken pride of place on the mantlepiece, at least temporarily.

29/01/13

This is a close-up of a little light-up snow globe given to Sarah by the two elderly sisters who live next door. The actual snow flake is tiny and the halo of light is the macro ring light I was using to take the shot.

30/01/13

Sarah's feet. Not actually that little - but then big feet run in the family (see what I did there?) Sarah has a real penchant for going bare-footed around the house. So far, no nasty accidents involving trips to A&E.

31/01/13

Got out orbing tonight for the first time in months. This was taken on the footbridge over Parkway that links the two halves of Belmont Park. Thanks to the kind driver who tooted their horn at me - I'm wondering if it was someone who knew what lights being swung around on a footbridge bridge meant. Or just someone who thought the aliens had landed.

1/02/13

Stuck in the house, very bored, so decided to start working on single flash lighting set ups. This was "clam-shell" lighting with an SB-700 above the camera shooting down and fitted with a softbox. I was holding a  large gold reflector under my face angled up to bounce light back into my face and hopefully kill some shadows. Pretty decent results for a relatively simple set-up - I'm going to keep working at this, time permitting.

02/02/13

This was the big kids' Xmas present - a morning's go-karting at Raceview in Broughshane. Eight of us in total and I was going great guns until i managed to crash in the semi-final race (spectacularly) and put myself out of the final. Here's the winners podium, with Will (right) in third, Siobhan (left) in second and Si in the middle hugging his trophy. It should have been mine - next time, next time......

03/02/13

David Millar has featured on the blog before. He is my aikido mentor and the man who took an interest in me when I started training in aikido 14 years ago. Davy went out of his way to teach me and has never stopped offering suggestions and critique when it was needed. He is a man with a wealth of stories and who loves to tell them, about aikido and his life. He is an avid reader who I've swapped books with over the years, mainly on boxing which is one of his passions. Last night was Davy's 75th birthday and it was an honour to attend his surprise party. I'm hoping he'll be around for many years to come.

367-50 The Final Round Up

Only four shots left to see me through to the end of this year long project, finishing with my 50th birthday on the 15th of November.

12/11/12

Don't mess with me when I'm doing the washing up. That's all. I'll cook all day and all night but I really hate doing the feckin' dishes.

13/11/12

Old-looking hands. These hands have now taken 365 shots for this project, plus a few thousand others across the last year. This is my hand doing something it does too often. I had thought of having my other hand holding a glass of wine.

14/11/12

A final light trails shot, taken with the assistance of my daughter Sarah. Set the camera and tripod up in the back of my car and set the camera for a series of self-timed 8" exposures as I drove along a busy road. This was the best of the batch, although I'm not totally happy with it and might give this another go at some stage soon.

15/11/12

And there it is - the last of 367 shots. That's me, on my 50th birthday. The beard is back and the hair needs a trim, but I'm saving my next haircut for a special, photographic purpose. I'm taking a bit of a risk wearing a white shirt to go out tonight as there's a pretty good chance that things will get messy. Very messy.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look at the blog and thanks to everyone who got their picture taken at some time over the last year. To quote the Beatles, "some are gone, but some remain."