photo a day weeks 51 & 52

Weather and Christmas, predictably, dominate.

1. No real snow despite forecasts of heavy snowfall and blizzards elsewhere in the country

2. Bird decals in my bathroom (silver)

3. Snowed all day

4. Mother Goose panto at the local theatre – oh yes it was

5. Snowy vistas

6. Floor down in living room and table in place

7. Shadow of me and the car waiting to rendezvous for drive to family Christmas

 

1. Making mince pies – Christmas eve tradition

2. Stocking all lined up waiting for everyone to gather for brunch

3. The book pile – a Boxing Day tradition

4. Christmas jigsaw

5. Provisions for going back home – apples, ham, Christmas cake, crystallised ginger

6. My new IPOD speakers

7. In the torchlight procession in Edinburgh, part of Hogmanay celebrations, 20 000 people

greetings blogland

 

to all my wonderful blogland friends – wishing you happiness during your Christmas celebrations

knowing when to flash

So many fun photographic opportunities this time of year.  Bokeh is one of my favourites – or at least trying to make it happen.  At an office christmas party recently I spent a lot of time playing with my camera taking photos of the lights. 

 

I know to turn off the flash and to put my point and click on ‘flower’ mode (portrait didn’t work) and to use a tripod, or in this case sit the camera on the table.

I also had fun experimenting with moving my camera to get light paths.

Again with the flash off but here the trick is to set the timer and then move the camera around.  All rather hit and miss but I got some fun images that will be great in digicollage.

The other photographic challenge I enjoy is taking photos of snow – snow falling.

This time the trick is to have the flash turned on.  I’ve only used this technique when it is dark (given it is only light from 8.30am to 4pm this is not a problem). 

With all those lovely light images I had to play with some collage backgrounds.

 

photo a day week 50

Only 2 more weeks (plus one day), hard to believe.  Already planning next year – not photo a day.  A combination of some different forms of creating a monthly photo record, still deciding on the final format.

1. A window seat over the wing for my flight back to UK

2. Evidence of snow on flight into Edinburgh

3. Santas at the German Market

4. Greetings on my front door – 2 decorations from the supermarket, hope to make a wreath for next year

5. Christmas cards arrive

6. Lights in the high street

7. Spending a lot of time on my computer

Christmas 2010 tag–Edinburgh tradition

The first of my tags recording my Christmas this year. 

[The two squares will be glued back to back and put on a ring]

Soaked up the atmosphere today and enjoyed a pretzel and some hot chocolate and bought cinnamon star biscuits.

photo a day week 49

A second week in Bangladesh but the hotel did have signs of Christmas.

1. jute bag bought from handicraft market

2. travelling by rickshaw (I felt precarious)

3. lunch ‘packets’ containing rice and curries

4. it rained

5. Christmas wishes in the hotel

6. group photo at the final workshop

7. the padlock for my suitcase

frozen

Had some time to play on the computer today so despite the 24C temperature here (Bangladesh) I used 5 photos from January to respond to the Sunday Creative prompt of ‘frozen’ and dabble with a range of blending methods in Photoshop Elements. 

photo a day week 48

I’m back in Bangladesh to complete the work project, so instead of the snow and Christmas topics I would have had back in Scotland, there is sunshine and bright colours.

1. flying again – the departures board at Heathrow

2. my wardrobe for the next 2 weeks – cotton shirts instead of woollens

3. a local snack cart I drive past on the way to work – bananas, doghnuts and tea are the staples

4. the meeting room ready for participants to arrive

5. the view from my hotel room – plants grow everywhere

6. mad traffic during the commute to and from the office

7. the building where I am holding workshops – part of the Parliament annex, with a wonderful stand of eucalyptus trees

finding my Christmas-recording niche

With so many December and Christmas project on the go in blogland, with a focus on photos, journalling, prompts and craftiness I thought I’d easily find the project that spoke to me.  But no, nothing is making the connection.  I’m sure part of the reason is that I am in an totally non Christmasey environment at the moment because I’m in Bangladesh working.  Using some of the exiting prompts for memories of Christmases past didn’t grab me either, I want to record Christmas 2010.

So, despite all of the available formats ready made out there, I decided to go my own way.  I created this template for recording the words and will glue a photo to the back – they are 10cm square.  I will punch  a hole topleft and put them all on a ring.  The trees are from Karen Lundberg last year.

Some titles I’ve thought of are: tastes, lists, look @ that, LOL, outside.  I’m sure I’ll add some more as appropriate.  I intend to have several tags for each title.  I’ve done this kind of tag before and really like the format and using a handful of titles.  I’ll share some completed tags when I’m back in the Christmas zone.