Assignment 2

I'm running quite a long way behind, so trying to catch up before my first computer marked assignment.

Assignment 2 was to take "pictures of someone, somewhere or something that you really like".  I chose knitting as being one of my favourite activities, and decided to use some of my stash to experiment with colour and texture.  For one photo, we also had to "boldly crop the image in an interesting way", so the last photo in this sequence is my attempt at interesting cropping.

Assignment 1

For this assignment I had to pick two letters of the alphabet and take photos for them. I interpreted that to mean of something that looks like the letter, not of something beginning with that letter. I picked C and F.

First exercise

I had to take three photos of a bottle, focusing separately on colour, light and view point in each one. These aren't even shared on the course, I think they're just for practice, but it seems a pity not to do something with them.

Time to restart

I've decided that for the next couple of months I'm going to use this blog as a means of sharing photos taken for my Open University photography course with the wider world, as they'll otherwise only be seen and commented on by the other students.

I'm already running about a week behind, having had the most ridiculously hectic week last week, so I'm trying to catch up with the whole first week today. As a result, there may be a few posts today!

Sky Watch Friday

For this week's Sky Watch, I'm going back just about four years to some photos I took with my then very new camera. These were taken over Cardiff Bay from our front window, during the Cardiff Harbour Festival (if I remember rightly). I'll admit to being useless with planes, I'd have to rely on my father or my other half for identifying these, and although other half did have something to say about them at the time, I can't remember what that was... I just thought it was an unusual sight to see from your sitting room, and grabbed the camera - I pretty much forgotten I had these, until Picasa decided to organise my photos for me!

For more skies, visit Sky Watch Friday. By the way, I won't be participating next week, as I'll be away and won't have time to find a suitable photo before I go. See you in two weeks!

Sky Watch Friday

That time of the week again, and this week I managed to get a slightly different photo from my usual. As I came home from work on Monday evening, I became aware of rather a lot of seagull noise, and looking round from the front door I saw this:

I think the gulls were after flying ants - we'd actually had quite a hot and sunny few days, and there were critters everywhere. I keep my camera in my handbag just in case I spot something good while I'm out, so I took a photo. A little boy sitting on the neighbour's wall said "there's millions of birds over there as well if you want to take a photo of them", so I thought it would be rude not to! This was the result.

For more Sky Watch photos, visit its new home here.

Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Thunder come to Cardiff

I'm posting this more than a week after the event, because my Blogger hasn't wanted to play ball recently...

On Monday 14th July, one of the girls in work was celebrating her birthday, and coincidentally Def Leppard, supported by Whitesnake and Thunder, were playing at the CIA in Cardiff that night. She's a BIG fan of Whitesnake (or David Coverdale...) so said months ago that she wanted to go to the gig and asked who wanted to come - I refrained from jumping at the chance for just long enough to phone the other half, to see if he wanted to go, and then told her with very little excited jumping up and down, that we'd both love to go. The excitement being almost entirely due to the fact that I've been a Def Leppard fan since I was 14 and hadn't actually seen them live before, or thought I'd get the chance!

Thunder were excellent, they could have done with longer than 45 minutes to be honest, as it really wasn't long enough to fit in all their best/biggest songs. Danny Bowes was hardly recognisable with short hair, but the voice was very much present and correct - I don't think I'd be being unreasonably disrespectful to the other two frontmen that night if I said he was the best singer there.

Whitesnake were initially a bit disappointing - the new album is good, but I think practically everyone there was there mainly for "1987" (it's certainly the album I know best) and after a large number of songs I didn't know, standing there getting pushed and squashed was losing its appeal! Particularly as Coverdale didn't appear to be singing entirely live all the time (he was getting a lot of help from the guy on keyboards, and there was a certain amount of "singing" with his mouth closed). Fortunately, they remembered why they are where they are, and the second half of the set was entirely made up of the big hits - the crowd perked up and the set ended well, and the lady from my office was in seventh heaven!

Finally, Def Leppard, the real reason I was there, took the stage and were brilliant throughout. Joe Elliott might not be the best singer in the world, and his voice might have been suffering a bit by the end, but they're still a great band. Highlights included "oh my god, Phil Collen doesn't look a day older", Joe in a Welsh rugby shirt, Rick Savage's bass solo and the awesome version of David Essex's "Rock On" that followed it, every one of their big hits - in fact, there were too many to list, but general opinion is that "Rock On" was the very best bit. All in all, it was totally worth £37.50 and the pain of standing up for 5+ hours!

The night in photos follows...