Jellynewt's images

iphone Camera

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:16:00 +0000

Recently I was lucky enough to get myself a shiny new iphone. Now there's no denying it, it really is the greatest thing ever. With one small exception; the camera is crap. Now obviously I'm going to be sensitive to this since I previously had a Sony Ericsson camera phone, which really was a marvellous piece of kit. But by any phone standards, the iphone's camera is poor, especially because it has no flash. Now I'm totally aware that if you buy an iphone, it's never going to be to do photography. Or so I thought. You see, one of the great things about the iphone's adaptability is that you can make its rubbishness work for you. I quickly discovered that it's possible to make the iphone's naff camera simulate rather naff cameras from years gone by - with some rather marvellous, if unrealistic results.

A mundane light fitting now looks interesting:

The TV Ariel looks sinister:

Even the ironing looks exciting... well, maybe not:

Last week I went to Eastercon - Odyssey2010 - at the Radisson Edwardian in London. It's a very beautiful hotel and was the perfect arena to try out my new crap camera. Here's a selection of shots...

The grand staircase:

The Atrium:

The décor:

The railings:

The Snow

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:27:00 +0000

It’s quite rare to see snow in Ormskirk and even rarer for it to stay around for any length of time so I got out and took a couple of pictures.

The Garden:

I built a snowman...

I went out in the evening to see if I could take some pictures of snow at night.

This is our bird feeder:

The memorial gardens at the end of my street:

The next day I went to work. Here are a couple of pictures of Edge Hill University in the snow:

The poor Edge Hill ducks were freezing, and with the lake frozen over (behind them) the didn't have many places to go...

Fireworks

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Back in November was the Southport firework display. This seemed the perfect opportunity to have my very first go at photographing fireworks. It turns out that it's really difficult. So, even though I took millions of photos they're either poorly framed, blurred or so filled with smoke they look awful.
Anyway, one or two came out OK (law of averages means that at least some had to look all right), but they're still a little blurred:

Drawing

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Unfortunately, I cannot draw. I had a go though and it came out like this:

I've been told to say "it's supposed to look like that".
So that's the official line I'm taking.

Cemetery

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:11:00 +0000

So I got myself a second hand ‘retro’ lens off ebay – a 50mm manual. I immediately thrust it into the face of all willing participants – portrait pics to follow – and took a trip to the cemetery to have a play. I love cemeteries, probably because the house I grew up in is opposite one. Hence, I spent a lot of time in my youth in, or near, the cemetery. I even learnt to ride my bike in it.

Anyway, back to the lens. There’s something great about having such physical control over things like aperture and focus. Electronic zoom lenses give you full control too, but they don’t feel as ‘free’ somehow, in that they always want to take technically correct photos.

This black and white image of the cobbled path in the cemetery was taken on a bright sunny day. It is way too dark and the contrast is huge. And I love it.

To me this looks like a rain soaked street in a film noir rather than an English cemetery on the sunlight.

Moving on, these graveside flowers look washed out and have a tint, but somehow convey a sense of melancholy associated with graveside flowers (which have always been left just that bit too long and have become faded and weather damaged themselves) on a bright sunny day than any garish colours.

And then, there are sometimes – on rare occasions – when the image is just right.

A walk in the woods

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:14:00 +0000

A couple of years ago I took some woodland photos:

A couple of weeks ago I returned to the woods, hoping to get some nice shots of sunlight through the trees. Typically, things did not quite go to plan.

I took these photos:

...before forgetting all about the sunlight in exchange for my first go at landscape photography. Here are the results:

In the woods people like to walk their dogs...

This means that taking photos of squirrels is very difficult – partly because dog walkers are friendly folks who shout loudly to both you and their dogs, thus scaring away the creature you’ve spent the past half an hour coaxing towards you. And, much more annoyingly, because they assume everyone else is a dog lover too, and allow their animal to jump all over you while you are crouched with a camera. Thus after many attempts, the best squirrel shot I have is this rather pitiful effort:

At least it's holding an acorn.

Handmade jewellery

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:51:00 +0000

Not content to do one thing at once, I like to make costume jewelery when I'm watching TV. Here are some of the necklaces I have made:

Two Black and White Photographs

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:20:00 +0000

One

The wonderful thing about black and white photography is that it can make the ordinary look rather dramatic. Like this wheel in Manchester for example:

Two

Portrait photography is the type of photography that comes least naturally to me. Every now and again at work I take the staff photos for my department. A job which I'm sure has more to do with charity work than economics since I'm quite obviously not very good at it. While I find this type of 'staged' photography difficult, I have set about trying to improve my more natural portraiture technique. Here is one of the first photos I took, of Peter, my endlessly patient 'victim':

Hands on wood

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:29:00 +0000

I love macro photography and I love textures. I also love images that make you think. I tried to keep these things in mind as I took these photographs.

This image is so simple - someone’s hands on a beam. Yet the image is both powerful and evocative.

Whereas these are more contemplative...

...and in sepia a warmer quality is added...

Canada - Niagra and Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Canada is not a mystical land of rainbows, but you could be forgiven for thinking it was based on these photographs. I mean, they are everywhere...

Cards

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Here are some of my own designs – cards I’ve made for other people in the past:

Teaching myself photoshop in my spare time

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:23:00 +0000

I don’t have much spare time, which is why teaching myself photoshop has taken years. Still, in messing around with the program I’ve managed to have some fun.

Since my thesis is on disaster fiction, it seemed only right that I should do some photo manipulation to explore the grungy appearance of a post-apocalyptic world.

The areas of decay:

The strange survivors:

Not a pleasant subject matter. But cool.

On a brighter note, I decided to alter a couple of photographs into something more whimsical. Here are the before and after shots.

House on the way to Hay-on-wye:

I love this house. Over the past 10 years Peter and I have watched it slowly decay, always wondering if it will still be standing when we return. Twice we have stopped to photograph it and each time we’ve said to ourselves ‘it has holes in the roof! It must be derelict’. Yet closer inspection reveals that it’s either haunted or is indeed, occupied. There is always the smell of an open fire (even in summer) and always 1940s style music coming from within. It is one of the most eery places I’ve ever been.

Less eery, but very lovely is Toronto University, which is the second image I altered in this way:

And of course, no play on Photoshop would be complete without the bog-standard ‘turn your photo into a painting’ shot:

Or a 'really weird 3d' sketch...

I’m happy to report that the above exercises, while pointless in themselves, taught me an awful lot. Without them I couldn’t have done the kind of designs I now do for card making, or for the header of this blog.

At the beach.

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:02:00 +0000

I am lucky enough to live near the coast and can go to numerous beaches nearby. I’m guessing there’s no swimming at Crosby, since it looks as though this flag has been flying for a long time.

However, at Crosby you can also see Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ which is endlessly photogenic.

As is the rotting pier.

Additionally, the beach has some great photo opportunities. I like to call this "Left Behind":

In place of art, Southport (as well as having the Old Arcade) has sculptures dotted around for you to look at. Here are a couple of them:

More macro photography - insects

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Moving on from flowers I began to photograph insects...

This is a green bottle. For a creature so gross, it's also strangely beautiful. Obviously, if I'd realised how hairy it was before I took the photograph I never would have got that close to it. *Urgh!*

This dude, on the other hand is ace.

As is this one...

And this one's just cute, although I'm not sure where he was planning to go next...

Bees are cute.

Bees have ‘dangly legs’ when they fly. Because of this I wanted to take a picture of a bee in flight.

Bees are also fast. Hours I spent trying to get ‘the perfect bee’ photo. I didn’t get it. I got this one instead.

Nice bee. Terrible position in the frame. Damn.

Wasps are less cute than bees. Here's the evidence:

Goodbye for now.

Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Macro photography remains the type of photography I feel comes most naturally to me. As such, when I started taking photographs, I took pictures of flowers. Here are some of them, from very close up...

...to a little further away...

At the zoo...

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:27:00 +0000

...there are animals.

Here are some I took pictures of:

Belgium

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:20:00 +0000

I went to a conference recently in Belgium. As luck would have it, my birthday was the day after the conference finished. Logic tells us that it would have been wrong to not stay an extra day and have my birthday in Brussels. Anyway, I was excited about this because I love decaying architecture and fancy railings. So, what better place to be?

As I went around I took lots of photos of old doorways and railings. This one turned out OK:

I wasn’t, however, anticipating how photogenic the Atonuim would be, and when I got home it was obvious that some of the best pictures I'd taken were of this this huge modern structure, and not of railings or doorways or fancy old buildings at all.

I love how some of these photographs give the impression that they were taken on a space station looking down towards earth.

Is this supposed to be fun?

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:38:00 +0000

One of the most wonderful and terrifying places I know of is the old arcade at the end of the pier in Southport - the place where old arcade machines go to die.
What is fascinating about this place (apart from the big old pennies you have to use and the beauty of the old wood and brass machines) is how truly terrifying most of the entertainment is.

Let's take 'Laugh with Jack':

Oh yes, Jack laughs. He certainly does. Hysterically. For about 5 minutes. You can see small children everywhere backing away crying. Jack is a great illustration of when ‘getting your moneys worth’ just isn’t worth it.

‘Jack’ – when laughter becomes mania.

Next up is a visit to the fortune teller.

There is a preoccupation with mysticism and fortunes in this place, which is both cool and really rather creepy. On my last visit I got a card with an image of my future children, who were all black. Odd since I’m white, but creepy, since my granddad was black. Similarly, this lady told me ‘people like your confidence and your sparkling personality’. How nice. But then concluded with ‘and remember: baldness is nothing to be afraid of’. Terrifying. Made worse by the fact that going bald is actually a fear of mine.

By now, thoroughly freaked out, one might wonder what bizarre horrors may lurk around the next corner. Yet I doubt anybody is prepared for the racing bottle drinking babies…

Notice the cut away teets. Nice.

Moving round the old arcade it is possible to see some more normal, nevertheless still terrifying, entertainment, like this demonic, piano playing teddy

And this dancing clown

As if clowns weren’t terrifying enough.

Continuing with the dancing theme we move into the ‘make your child feel as though it’s on drugs’ section of the room.

Remember: they are coming to get you.

To round off the happy day at the seaside what could be better than a ride on a merry-go-round?

But remember, this is Britain – make sure that you don’t have a good time…

I thought the whole point was the waving. But no, 'sit and concentrate you little brats' is the seaside way.

Personally, I'm of the same opinion as the horse in the photo.

Miniatures - Real places, miniaturised

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:29:00 +0000

When it works, this type of photo manipulation can look great. By basically altering focus it is possible to make real locations look like models, like so...

Hay-on-Wye

Nottingham

Llangollen

Welcome

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:01:00 +0000

Welcome to my relocated photo site.

I have decided that a blog is a better space to share my images than a website. For those who saw my site, some of these images will be familiar. Sorry about that, but this is a relocation as well as a space for new photos and other creative projects.

Here's a snapshot of a reflection of my life - at The Old Post Office in Hay-on-Wye - one of my favorite places, Peter reading a book nearby. Perfect.