11-11-10

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

12-10-10 The evening light was stunning today. I couldn't resist trying to get a decent lens flare effect.

10-10-10 This piece of street art pretty much sums up how the people of Sheffield feel about John Peel. Instead if it being painted over when the wall was repainted it was instead deliberately framed. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard of his death and how hard it hit me. Around this weekend every year is designated John Peel Day. Six years after his death there is still a hole in the world where he should be. RIP John.

2-10-10 Another shot with my DIY tilt shift.I cant get that thing off my camera at the moment It just opens a whole new world of imagery to me! This is my local boozer where I spent a good part of last night! Like Thursdays pic I appied some split toning to a Lightroom B&W conversion and it came out slightly sepia. I think it looks vintage.

As I was back at work today and the weather had improved slightly, I took my DIY Tilt Shift Lens out with me. Its a very different and expressionistic style of photography. Trying to understand the physics of the focal plane intersecting with the sector was bending my head for the best part of the day. On my way home I stopped by the park opposite my flats and took a few shots. This one stood out. It was quite badly overexposed due to the fact I am now shooting manual and kept forgetting that! So I had to rescue it with a B&W conversion and some split toning in Lightroom till it looked good. I am going to enjoy this lens its already got me thinking about taking pictures differently.

Oh I also bought another cheapo lens on ebay last night so I am going to build another! I think a couple of my friends are interested in having one this might end up being a bit of an earner ;)

22-9-10 I took the wife to the dentists today and parked in side road down Kellham Island way. I hopped out of the car to try and get a macro of a butterfly but it flew away. When I looked up I was confronted with these scene of decay. And there was my shot. I applied a cross processing plugin to try and accentuate the old time feeling.

16-9-10 I was stuck for a shot today. Then I turned around and saw this guy behind me.

22-08-10 Building on my intentional camera movement experiment of yesterday. I tried to get something a little more abstract today using the same technique. I think this one worked well.

Better on black.

21-07-10 Sometimes you look up and your shot for the day is looking right at you. That happened to me about an hour ago. I was coming out of Tesco I looked up and the cloud had a halo. A few snaps later and it was in the bag. Minimal processing on this just a bumping of the blue saturation a little.

14-07-10 I took the grand total of 3 pictures today. There would have been more but there was a massive storm this afternoon and I didn't fancy getting my kit wet. This was the best of the three. I liked the lines and the leaf breaking parking regulations.