I think the ocean stole my watery soul

So to distract me from life when I can't be arsed to do anything I have taken to spending too much time on two websites:

• Fuck Yeah Beds
• We <3 It 

FYB has some of the nicest bedrooms you will ever see, some lived in, some not digitally rendered, some hotel and some catalogue. I love it a lot but there is one problem, it makes me wish I had a nicer room. I live in a tightly packed box. I would love to have more storage or less stuff, or somewhere else to put all my stuff but whilst I live with my parents that is not an option. Also by my horderish nature I can't reduce the amount of stuff. I can try but it will never be at a low enough amount that I have space.

It does remind me on how much I love fairy lights though and I must remember to:

1. Buy some more at Christmas, including light rope if I can afford it
2. Stop putting all my fairy lights in the loft with the Christmas decorations because I can't use them up there

I like having a lot of light in my room. For those who don't know my room I have a cabin bed. Great for extra space, not so good for lighting. It's nearly always really dark at my desk unless I have my desk light on and then it's dark everywhere else if the main light isn't on. I'm used to a lot of light in my room as well because I have a west facing window so I get all the fabulous sunsets filling my room with golden hues. It's a lot more useful for me than the east facing window my brother has because mornings will never be my thing.

I also want more glow in the dark stars. Not the stickers but the plastic ones you can stick on your ceiling with blu-tac. I suppose I could use paint but I like the thought of changing my ceiling every so often to match the stars outside and paint is kinda messy and a faff to get right instead of just putting them up and dealing with any mistakes as you find them. I can currently only find eleven and whilst that is the very best number in the world I would like more thanks. It's actually not that easy to get them cheaply either. I don't really want to spend £5 on 20 stars. I feel like that should be maybe half that cost but I haven't bought glowy stars in ages. Currently I have a rough constellation of Draco on my ceiling (it's in the sky at the moment with the Draconid shower, not because of the Harry Potter character) but I'm missing two stars from the complete constellation because I simply don't have enough. It would also be nice to be able to have more than one constellation on my ceiling but I would have to make them smaller then. It's actually lovely looking up at the stars before going to sleep. Granted the bed is a lot closer to the stars than is necessary (I can touch them if I reach out ) so it's quite bright but it's actually rather soothing. I'd like to have them coming down onto my walls but again that would require many many more glowy stars than I currently have. Many.

I also don't want to have just packs of one size. I like being able to differentiate the size of the stars in the constellations with different sized glowies. I have three different sizes at the moment but some packs don't give you different sizes. Or they give you like moons and meteors and planets. I don't really care for those, in fact I think I binned all the meteors from my last set. They weren't particularly insulting I just didn't really want them. I don't know how I feel about different coloured glowies either. I have a slightly orange star and a very blue star. I find the blue doesn't really show up at all unless you don't look at it. Other colours are kind of ok but really green is where it is at. They glow the best and it just looks good!

We <3 It is a place where people put images that they like and have found on the internet for other people to look at and enjoy. It is updated constantly, depending on how fast people are uploading. There is normally at least one new image every second or thereabouts. I use it to search for new hair dying ideas or to find new pictures to draw from or just to pass the time. You can often see if someone is posting a lot of similar images so sometimes you get a vein of a theme going on. My favourite is when people start linking cakes. Pretty cakes are so win. I would like to make lots of pretty cakes actually. I don't really like cooking but I enjoy baking quite a bit. I just don't because my brother is better at it than I am and getting the motivation when you know that you aren't as good as someone else in the house is hard work. Hopefully I'll start making some tasty deserts though. I know that practise makes perfect but practise is hard work and time consuming.

Urgh he isn't online. I'll ask later ¬¬. Oooh I'm having some excellent cake ideas for my birthday party/Halloween time :D I will have to try it out first though to make sure it works fine.Om a nom a nom a cake a gone.

Actually on the topic of Halloween I reckon it's my favourite day of the year. It's right in the middle of my favourite season (autumn), the day after my birthday and you get to dress up and have fun :D although I will confess to you that I have never been trick or treating. Well... ok one year, at my party (that was on Halloween) all my friends get really antsy because they wanted to go trick or treating so mama agreed that we could go to two houses (next door and a family down the street that I knew). Then they were all "we're going to keep going" and I was like "well fine then but I'm going home because mama doesn't like trick or treating and I said I would be back straight away". They did come back about a minute after me but that was almost going to have me really sad. The only other time I was going to go trick or treating I had my dance lesson that day and so by the time I got home the people I was going to go with had already gone out and so I didn't get to go. Although mama did say she would go with me, which was nice of her seeing as she hates the whole concept. I declined and continued with my les mising. I'm kind of ok not having been trick or treating ever. I think this year I'm going to put more black and orange ribbons in my hair, it'll clash wonderfully with the pink dye :D I might even see if there are any cute spidery ones or ghosty ones. And I'll be all stripes and fabric and it shall be bon. Actually since Halloween is on a Monday this year I might do all of that on the Saturday for going outness. Or maybe I'll do it on both days. Nothing wrong with lots of Halloween.

Anyway the point is that I love Halloween. I'm not sure why really. It's just awesome. Oh and it's really close to bonfire night and I really love bonfire night too. I love fireworks. I love the sparklies and the whizz bang and the smell of the bonfires and the burnt powder. Actually some years I prefer bonfire night to Halloween. They're both pretty awesome. It's the wrapping up warm to stand outside for a couple of hours whilst daddy and brother set up the fireworks and light them. It's the standing with mama choosing what will be next and having gloved hands put over my ears when it gets too loud. It's the tiny crackle of sparklers and the slight fear that it might hurt even though it never has before. The burnt after image of a firework. The Catherine wheel that never seems to turn right until daddy goes and hits it. Trying to work out where best to light everything in the garden depending on the wind and the plants or trees around. The whipcrack of your neck as a rocket wheees off into the sky at an angle. The different names that make them sound interesting. the occasional disappointment that suddenly bursts into brilliance at the last moment. Writing your name with the sparkler and then just making circles because you forgot how long they last.Sitting up all night with the curtains open, watching the best that the city has to offer from the fabulous view over a school field. Walking down the street yelling "bang" every time a firework goes off, hunting for it before it fades to nothing but smoke.

The week after my birthday is the best week of the entire year.

I've really cheered myself up with all of that. Actually this year that week is going to be a billion times better because on the fourth I'm seeing Evanescence in London with Blue. It's going to be so fucking fantastic. We're going cyber shopping and phototaking and sightseeing and hostel staying and it's all just going to be fab.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah :D

Lemons of love to you all

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Blow bubbles with their gum, take photographs have fun, have fun.

Ok so it is the end of 20th September so here is what I have decided on shallow depth of field (sdof).

• It is the focus I use most, without realising what I was actually doing.
• It works best with a close up object or a definite focus object and less so with general area.
• Works best, well so far, without too much clutter in the focus area but looks good with clutter in the unfocused area especially when it gets really unfocused.
• Makes for good macro shots but need to try portrait and landscape more.

I didn't take too many photos these past ten days but I did take more than I have done so that's a good start eh? :p This is really my forte when it comes to my photos. I love macro work and so I've done a lot of sdof without realising it. It was good, however, to learn what the hell made it the way it is and I know how to do it on my ME Super which is good :D I can't wait to try it out on film instead of all this digital faff that I'm having to jump through hoops for. (Talking more about the conversion from DNGs to PNGs than my camera or actual digital photography. Different programmes process the image differently to each other even when I don't want any processing but still want a watermark).

On that topic I'm trying to do more photography that is known as SOOC (straight out of the camera). The hardcore nazi soocs will tell me I fail simply because I use watermarks but regardless on if people would actually steal my pictures I will always watermark because I am paranoid and over protective :p. Another issue I can see arising is that I have to use photoshop to convert my images into PNG and the software that came with the camera does not convert to PNG. They say to convert to JPEG but you are losing colour quality there so... I don't know. As far as I care they're sooc (well when I label them as such). It's that whole trying to take what I see and not thinking "well it looks ok but I can add some awesome filters and tweak this, that and the other and it will be fabulous!" No! I am attempting to be more creative and do everything without superfluous processing. Although if I see a gem that needs polishing I'm gonna polish the damned thing until it sparkles so much wor Eddy C is jealous and cries in a corner.

Ok... so the images I've taken. I've been uploading them to Flickr as I type, which makes the whole process about a million times longer than it ever should be. I'm also not sure on how to link the images from there to here. It's probably really easy but they try and make it not easy so people don't go stealing photos and whatnot.

Ok so it's easier than I thought to do that (I wonder if I should look into my security settings or whatever they are to make it so you can't download my images or right click on them ¬¬) (also I say easier... blogger is a bitch to use when you want to mess around with formatting that isn't just a picture, in the middle of the page, breaking up text).

So these are my four favourite sdofs. Personally my favourite is the raindrops (middle of the three to the left) because the colours and the focus really worked in that image.

Actually that day was good for photos. I had great fun just photographing the sky. Post storm is always a good time for sky photos.

Notice the first image is in black and white? I never shoot without colour and actually it was really fun to play with. I definitely need to understand my camera's settings more. Also I need to find out how to make photoshop process my photos less when I open files. It's being very controlling over what happens... especially when I want it to do nothing ¬¬

So there's my sdof attempts. It was actually harder when I was specifically trying to take sdof photos. I was looking for things that would make it good instead of taking various photos and seeing how they turned out but the next challenge should help me out with just going for a shot and seeing the consequences later.

For September: Part Two my challenge is to shoot from the hip. It's a challenge I actually found in a photography magazine. You set the camera to auto, don't look through the lens or on the screen. Hold camera about waist height (or wherever your hand naturally sits when at your side) and take photos. I think the idea is mostly to get candid shots of people without them noticing (although if you're using a DSLR then good luck on making it take quiet photos and being subtle :p). This isn't a technique focusing one. I really want to do it more because it sounds really really fun. And it's only for the next 10 days (for me anyway)!

Also Anna-chan (I'm replying on here because blogger replies don't work very well unless you have subscribed for replies to be sent to your email) don't worry about it if you fancy starting from the last one and catching up or whatever. Pick and choose what things you fancy if you fancy them :D as always I enjoy looking at your photos (this applies to everyone actually not just Anna-chan, you need to do what you want folks and I will enjoy looking at any photos that come my way :D).

photoshop and take lots of photos this part (wishful thinking).

Lemons for all

xxxxxxxxxxxx

It's like forgetting the words to your favourite song, you can't believe it, you were always singing along.

Hum, where to begin?

I have stopped taking a photo a day and quite possibly the MSH challenge as well.

I did enjoy doing these things but whether it is the fact that I forget to take a photo because my memory is so bad now or the fact that I'm just really bored and not progressing in my photography as much as I was before I have stopped. Some of you probably weren't even aware that I was doing these things. That is fine, you did not need to be aware, this is more me just rambling away to myself.

Regardless, I love taking photos. I'm waiting for some equipment to arrive as we speak (darn delivery times and the fact that to me it feels like we ordered the stuff a month ago when in fact it was only last week ¬¬) and I have a lovely new 35mm SLR (called Chip). I love photography. Love. End of.

But my photography has become flat. Actually a lot of it is done purely to cover that particular day, or to cover that particular scavenger clue and recently you can tell that I was just putting up what I did to cover that. I don't have artistic drive today? Tough. Got a photographer's block? Hey look an item, photo that, there done. How crap. So I'm essentially making what I love into a chore. There's no real challenge and there's no progress. Whilst the MSH is a challenge to a degree really all I have to do is find a loosely related item and it's done. Technically I could take a photo of something barely related, yes I wouldn't get any good marking for it, it would be done.

I made a decision. I don't know much about photography at all. I don't know how to make photos good. I've had some good shots and all of them have been, from a photography point of view, luck. I can work out an alright composition from my art Alevel days, I know how to do that and I know what my strengths are, but taking a photo? Knowing how to get the best, or how to get a good, result out of a shot? Not a clue. Not even a little bit. I barely know how to use my camera and I bought that last December! I haven't played. I haven't learnt. I haven't actually settled on a name for it yet!

So I'm starting a new challenge, and any readers who wish can join in because quite frankly I can't stop you regardless :p, with the idea to learn what my camera does and what the terms mean and how it looks. I'm telling you my rules because I'm following them and I like to set out my intentions to other people because they may come up with a better idea. I think each of my challenges will last 2 weeks. It gives time for days when you just don't care and the camera lies on your desk (re: floor) feeling unloved. When creativity just doesn't happen. Take some photos based around what that is. Different places, settings etc. As many or as few as is fancied. Then when it is the end of that challenge to choose one that is your favourite. Sometimes they'll be camera/tech specific, sometimes they'll just be like a MSH.

I'm probably going to be uploading my "one" on here or on deviantart but I'll be uploading any I think are good on flickr. Annoyingly it's the 10th and I want to start now, because that is how I do things.I'm doing 10 days on this one and 10 on the next (splitting the remaining month into half). I can tell you what this one is, it's one that is good for me since I heart the macro!

SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD.

Told you it was macro based :p but I haven't really looked into specifically making my depth of field shallow before. In fact I didn't know how to do it until a few days ago. I thought you set your camera to macro (the little flower shape) and that was what it did. How mistaken! I mean macro settings may have that built in but what if you wanted to take it without using that setting? Or even what about when you use a film camera? I shall tell you the basics of what I know although really you should look into it yourself if you are interested because I might get something wrong.

The wider the aperture the shallower the depth of field. Where one thing is in focus and the rest of it blurs. If you have a long depth of field fewer things are blurry and more is in focus (landscapes are often deep).

To make the aperture wider you use a smaller f/ number. My DSLR can go down to about f/4.5 but I have a manual lens that shoots at f/2.8 if I wanted (I don't think it works with my DSLR though, it just sets to auto and runs through the camera but that is by the by).

So for the next 10 days I intend to take photos that are shallow. I shall let you know my results :D this isn't a huge step outside what I normally play with I just have a better understanding of what I am doing this time around. Macro is something I feel is a strength of mine and so away I go!

Ramble ramble ramble love

and lemons

Buttercup xxxxx