SparkyFizz

Oxford...

I've spent some time in Oxford this summer with my family.  My eldest son has a student house there in a lovely part of Oxford called Jericho.  We're paying rent on this place, even though he doesn't go back until October!  So we decided to make use of the house for a while.  He is within walking distance of the city centre in one direction and  Port Meadow, the canal and the river in another.  Jericho is full of little deli's, a cinema, lots of lovely pubs, cafes, grocery stores, vintage shops and bookshops.  Down the road is a beautiful Byzantine style church, full of beautiful objects, and then there is the Ashmolean museum with its collection of Pre-Raphaelite pictures, and the Pitt Rivers Natural History Museum close by - just perfect, I could move there tomorrow!

I spent time wandering by the river and canal at dawn, and taking pictures everywhere.  I took quite a few photos at night after we'd eaten out, dragging my tripod with me to the restaurants!  Rosa was happy to pose for me in the above photo, I was practising 'bokeh' techniques, the little out of focus circles of light in the background.

I also took some 'traffic trails' with moving vehicles leaving their lights streaking through my photos.  This is what happens when the camera is set at a very slow shutter speed.  Most of these pictures were taken using a tripod on ISO 400, f16 for 10 seconds.  I set my tripod up on a roadside in St Giles in the centre of town.  The one above is an image of fire engines rushing through with their lights flashing.

 

You may be able to see the buses whizzing through the image above.

London buses...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camera happy...

My other soon to be 15 years old daughter is desperate to learn photography (they both are actually), and likes to take pictures of all sorts of things.  My main problem is restraining her, insisting on radical pruning of her pictures, otherwise I would have hundreds on my computer!  This is, of course, a perpetual problem with digital images.  She loves the Fuji Finepix camera, and wants one of her own for her birthday.  

She took this in Canterbury, and I can't believe it's possible to open that door.

I love this photo, just wish there was one more human leg in the procession.

My girls outside the Primrose Bakery, with their friend (centre), who spends a huge amount of her time taking photos.  Perhaps it's something about the current teenage generation who've grown up with cameras on mobile phones.  

The produce of the Primrose Bakery...

...and the aftermath!

Mothers' Day...

It's Mothers' Day on Sunday I believe.  I made these photo designs because I thought my youngest son might like to sell them at school as cards.  He goes to an all boys school, and most of them won't have organized themselves to buy cards for their mums, I'm sure.  He loves to sell sweets, illegally, for a small profit, but it always seems like a lot of effort for little return.  So I suggested I could make him a batch of cards to sell for a better profit.  You'd think he would have been delighted, but he's decided that it's just too 'neeky' and he won't do it!  He was horrified when I suggested he could also batch buy some nice sweets or chocolates, wrap them in cellophane and tie with a bow,  to sell with the cards.  Okay, maybe that is a step too far in a boys' school, but the cards...?  I tried to explain that a budding entrepreneur needs to be one step ahead of the pack, but I don't think we'll be seeing him on Junior Apprentice!

As for me, I hate breakfast in bed as a Mothers' Day treat.  I prefer to curl up on a sofa with a lovely plate of toast and marmalade, a pot of tea and a good book, left undisturbed for a couple of hours.  Moreover, nothing beats a card handmade by my children, I will encourage them to eschew all the above.  

Picture for a poem...

This week's photography homework was to take a photo to illustrate a poem.  I chose this one by Yeats, and did a couple of designs.

The background is a collage/montage of three photographs illustrating embroidery and tapestry, and also some words.  At one stage it looked like this...

I used 'overlay' in the Photoshop layers palette to blend them together, and 'dissolve' on the leg.  In fact I did a lot in Photoshop... can't quite remember everything!

Book cover design...

My homework last week was to design a book cover for an already existing book.  I chose 'Oranges are not the only fruit" by Jeanette Winterson.  Looking through her work, I realised that I'd forgotten how talented she is.

Christmas Pictures...

 

Help-Portrait 2010...

 

 

The top video has been created for the event in 2010, the bottom video refers to the 2009 event.

Blog birthday...

I have been blogging for exactly one year today!

This was my first picture...  Reflecting on what has happened in a year is quite interesting.  Some things never change though.  I'm still wondering what to concentrate on when I blog.  I think I thought back then that everything would just fall into place somehow.  A year ago when I started, I thought I would concentrate on the various craft activities I enjoyed.  I did this for a while, but then photography came along.

That took me by surprise, I hadn't intended to study photography last November. I had considered it, but only in the same way that I'd considered learning a language or a musical instrument or an English degree...  

So now I find myself immersed in the study of photography, and I don't find it easy.  I find it technical, hard to understand, frustrating, very time consuming - but I'm still doing it.  I sometimes wonder why I'm doing it - I'm not naive enough to think it will be a life changing event, or that it will enable me to become a professional photographer, I suspect I'm a little too old for that.  

It's partly because, having invested in the equipment, I now feel I must put it to good use.  It's a horribly expensive hobby, there is no end to the amount of money you could spend improving your kit!  Apart from the original purchase of camera and kit lens, I've only bought one lens, the cost made me gasp!  I'm also going to purchase a decent flash gun, but then I'm going to stop for the forseeable future.

I know what I don't want to do, but that isn't very helpful.  I don't want to shoot weddings, the fear factor of screwing up would be unbearable.  I don't want to stand out in the cold for hours on end to get a fantastic landscape shot, although I greatly admire others who do.  I don't want to be involved in the fashion world with all those egos to consider.  I have no desire to take photos of posh watches and jewellery.... so what's left?  

I love taking pictures of flowers, fruit, vegetables and food of all kinds.  I don't know why, it just pleases me.  I love taking pictures in low light, with lots of shadow and sludgy colours and great textures.  I like pictures to look fairly natural, so no food dyes or pizzas screwed to the table top for me.  I love to take close up pictures, or parts of pictures,   Hmm, not doing very well here, can't imagine I'll ever make any money...

At some point I'd like to try crossing photography with art in some way, the creative direction appeals.  I think I would also be interested in food photography, so long as it could be fairly natural.  I love the work David Loftus does for all the Jamie Oliver cookery books.  I think I would also enjoy 'lifestyle' photography, the kind of thing you see in Country Living or Living Etc.  

But all this is just wishful thinking.  Such opportunities are very unlikely to materialize.  Meanwhile, this year I'm hoping to do quite a bit of studio work, with all those massive lights etc.  Portraiture could be good I think.  

So I wonder what I'll be writing about on my 2nd blogging birthday? 

Shadows...

This was our photography homework this week.  Shadows can be quite complex, it isn't always obvious how the shadow pattern is going to fall. It's difficult to get natural shadows at this time of year.  Today we have gales and rain, but when the sun does shine, the autumnal effect can be lovely.  In my house the sun streams in more beautifully now than during the summer months, due to the placement of my windows and the sun being lower in the sky.  So I chased shadows around the house...

The time of day makes a big difference to the image, even in autumn.  Long shadows in the morning and evening when the sun is very low, slightly shorter in the afternoon.  How far the object is from the light, and the height of the object make a difference.  Also, whether the light is diffused to create soft light or direct to create hard and crisp images.  The surface the shadow falls onto makes a huge impact on the result also.  Sometimes the shadow just doesn't photograph well, the reflection is too weak. This week I tried to create soft and crisp images.

I don't have one to show here, but I love the type of shadows that effortlessly bend planes and climb up walls.  Overlaying shadows can also give interesting results. Pictures of shadows can be quite abstract, especially if you don't show the source image.

Soft lamps can also be used to replace sunlight of course.  In this picture you can see that the shadow has been 'lifted' from the source image due to the placement of the lamp at the lower right.

I like the way the source image intertwines with the reflection

Pomegranates...

Continuing my photography homework on different views of the same subject, I decided to feature pomegranates.  They cost a fortune, these were £2 each in Waitrose... but I needed them then and there and so they were purchased.  So I hope I got my money's worth photographing them, because I can't see them all being eaten at home!  I used to spend hours as a child picking out the glassy seeds with a cocktail stick, but then I suppose there wasn't much else to do.  I find my children much more impatient, they will use the stick for a while, but inevitably end up bashing the thing on a plate to release the seeds! 

I love the irresistible colour of pomegranates, all those blush and pinky shades together with their glossy sheen...

Copying Photographic Images...

Homework this week was to copy a photographic image, any published and printed image, with an emphasis on re-creating the original lighting.  I chose to copy David Loftus, the photographer who works on all the Jamie Oliver books.  I love lifestyle photography, so it seemed a good place to start...

I can't upload the original image, but you'll find it here under 'genres' and 'tastes'. It took me forever.  I spent a lot of time worrying about setting it up.  I wanted to copy it as closely as possible, and was very indecisive about angles, props and lenses.  I thought it would be simple... don't you think it looks simple?  

Trying to get the lens to capture this frame was hard work, but the tripod, (with which I'm a novice) nearly killed me!  This set-up ended up on the floor in front of a large window. Then I had to consider lighting, which was the main point of the exercise, I needed to get the shadows and highlights in the correct places -  almost impossible.  I managed to get the shadows almost in the right place, although they weren't deep enough, but I couldn't get the highlight on the cheese topped bread.

The depth of field was difficult to get with the angle of the photo, as for the colour of the soup... yeuk!  His was a sprightly bright green, he had more pea soup in his bowl than I did, and  bread floating just in the middle.  Mine looked like sludge pouring into the Danube, with an off-centre floating bread.  Actually my soup looked much more verdant before I took it to Photoshop to give the whole thing a 'blue hue' which seemed to exist in the original.  This was a mistake.  The chives were the easiest and I do like the reflections on the side of the bowl.

I ended up using a long 300mm lens, which weighs a lot, on a tripod.  I was convinced the tripod was going to fall over and smash my new expensive lens, so cushions everywhere and weights hanging on centre of tripod.  Also used my new remote control for the shutter which should have been easy, but wasn't.  No one has ever explained to me how to use all this equipment, so it's very much trial and error and lots of tantrums! Keeping the cats away from the soup was hard work too.  I thought my bread was going to sink...

Despite the frustration, it was a good assignment.  I think I learnt something and it squashed my idea that I might be able to do some decent lifestyle photography in the near future!  So much to learn...

So, I take my hat off to Mr Loftus, I think the simplest photography is possibly the hardest to copy accurately, and my plagiaristic tendencies endeth here!  My tutor told me that food photography was difficult to do well.  Although David Loftus tends to shoot his food pics naturally, probably no food dye for example, he may well have had his bread propped up on something, which I didn't even think of. 

By the time I'd finished I was very hungry.  The home made pea soup was delicious in reality (and much greener), as was the goat cheese toasted bread.  Of course for my photo the soup was cold and I didn't eat that particular piece of bread... just in case you were wondering about me!

Now, if I'd just moved that bowl a tad to the right.... 

Low Key and High Key Images...

Photography homework this week was 'The Light" to be interpreted as I wished. So I tried some low key images...

and a high key image...

Hmm, on reflection none of them could strictly be called low key or high key, but this is a learning process - and goodness I have a lot to learn!

Tomorrow I am going to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in north London.  I go every year.  I hardly ever buy anything, preferring to spend my time devouring the exhibitions of student and established textile artists and I always find it inspiring.  A few years ago I was particularly smitten with the work of two very different textile artists.  Primmy and Jessie Chorley were a mother and daughter team each displaying their own different styles of embroidery. Alongside, but with a radically different approach was Tilleke Schwarz with her graffiti style embroidery.  All of these textile artists sewed by hand rather than machine.  

So I will be taking my camera this time, looking for new inspiration, tea and cake. Ally Pally is also a fantastic building, on a hill overlooking most of London.  I believe we're going to have some unseasonably sunny weather, so I hope to have my lunch outside.

Transparent Plastic Cups... Again...

Our first level 2 photography homework - plastic cups - again!  We did this at the beginning of level 1, so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to think of anything new.  Furthermore, the definitive 'plastic cups' homework was then achieved by my friend Glenn Foster, who had his picture displayed in the City and Guilds exhibition at Morley College in summer (see 03/09/10).

 

I had a go anyway.  The plastic cups above were filled with pieces of coloured glass that I once acquired in a glass blowing factory in Stockholm.  You may remember me telling the tale of how my then 13 year old son took the huge and heavy pile through customs in a rucksack... they didn't know what to make of it!  They didn't know if it should be treated as potential terrorist material or not, this was 2005. They let us through eventually...  My son wouldn't do that for me now, he would consider it exploitation and would certainly require payment!  I digress...  the picture was then altered in Photoshop.

The picture above was taken in my cellar where it's quite dark.  I used lots of black cloth for the background, and softly lit the image from the right side using a reading lamp.  I also used the flash on my camera.

Fast shutter speed produced this image

A little more colour here.  Next week's homework... 'the light'... hmm...

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #6...

I liked this humorous picture, but once again, it was spoiled due to lack of white balance, so ideal for altering in Photoshop.

Before...

I decided to do an Andy Warhol style picture, which is more complicated, but great fun to work on.

After...

The hardest part about this creation was trying to achieve similar tones in all four pictures.  In my mind I had an idea of war time vintage colours, which I think was best achieved in the last photo.

That's the end of this little selection.  Now I'm off to start photos for Level 2...

 

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #5...

This was a fairly simple transformation.  

Before...

I just used a 'posterize' setting on Photoshop, and created the frame around it.

After...

 

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #4...

I liked the composition of this photo.  So I decided to change it a little.  I know the finished version of this has appeared in the blog at an earlier date, but I wanted to explain how I did it.  

Before...

After...

The first photo was fine, but I just wanted to change it to black and white, then reintroduce some selected colour.  To begin with I turned the image into black and white on Photoshop, then used three separate 'layers' to add each of the colours.  I zoomed in until the image was very large, then added the colour.  I didn't worry too much about accuracy, as I went back in with an eraser after each colour application.  I took much more care with the eraser!  I made sure that the colour retained transparency, in order to pick up the highlights, and I also used the 'opacity' slider to reduce the intensity.  I repeated the process for each of the three layers.  The great thing about layers is that the colours don't merge and make a mess.  The bad thing about this sort of work is that it can make you a little obsessive... 

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #3...

This is the final manipulated picture.  I couldn't upload the original picture for some reason.  The original was, once again, very orange due to shooting in a room with lots of overhead lights at night and not using white balance controls.

I liked the photo though, with their serious expressions, and decided I could do something with it in Photoshop.  I thought it could have been taken at any time in the last 80 years.  There wasn't much to give away the fact that it was a modern picture -  the girls weren't wearing pierced earrings for example.  The background was very simple, again, nothing to indicate the time setting.  So I decided to make it a 'vintage' style photo.  I turned the colouring to sepia, added a 'film grain' to make it look older and more grainy.  Then I added a black decorative frame.

City and Guilds Photography - Level 2...

Yesterday I embarked on level 2...

We have a new tutor, Joe Partridge, (mentioned previously July 23rd 2010).  I will miss our old tutor, Kim Lucas, who due to demand, is running another level 1 course, but Joe is also a brilliant and well respected photographer, so it will be good to have a new and different perspective. Previously they worked together in their own business for about 20 years.  Both of them have had considerable success  with their students' exam results this year. This course will last for a whole academic year rather than 4 months.  This all takes place at CALAT, Croydon's Adult Training department.

I'm terrified!  The composition of the class was almost completely new, only 4 or 5 of us from the old class, and at least 16 in the new class.  Most of them seem to be in a different league -  far more experienced!  Looking at the work produced by the students last year made me take a deep breath - I don't believe I can achieve that standard!  So, I'll just have to wade in and hope for the best...

I'm still at the stage of slowly reciting the camera requirements every time I take a photo, then double checking in my mind that the decision is correct.  By that time, of course, the thing I wanted to take a picture of has moved or changed in some way.  I only used my camera on 'manual' for the first time this summer holiday, although I haven't used it on fully automatic since the day I joined Kim's class. My default has been 'aperture' priority, with a few experiments with 'shutter' priority thrown in.  So I feel a little out of my depth...  Alas, I'm doing the course to learn, so I just hope I don't drown - watch this space...

On the plus side, it all seems very exciting.  Joe seems very dedicated to teaching and we have a great photographic studio with lots of equipment.  We will be doing a photographic project for homework each week and researching a photographer/artist also.  Of course we have portfolios to prepare too... two of them, but not yet...!      

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #2...

This picture was possibly the most complicated for me...

Before...

This was taken at night at home without any 'white balance' alterations, so the whole thing came out with an orange tinge.  I liked the picture though, beautiful profile and lovely negative space, so I decided I would alter it in some way.

This is a piece of vintage Sanderson upholstery fabric I inherited.  I decided to use this as a background for the profile. 

After...

I blurred the background, so that the profile would stand out.  The skin tone has been altered quite a lot.  I cut out the profile and placed it on the background.  The cutting out was more difficult than I expected in order to get a clean cut without shadows or other markings.  I used several 'layers' in Photoshop to get the final result.  I had to draw her eyelashes on a separate layer and merge it with the photo, they were too difficult to cut out...!

 

Photography: C&G Manipulation Picture #1...

Over the next few days I'm going to post some pictures I took for my City and Guilds, level 1 Photography assessment - my 'Manipulation' (Photoshop) portfolio.  This should give an idea of what's possible on Photoshop.  All the photos have been changed to a greater or lesser degree, but none of these have been altered substantially.  Some of my class colleagues produced  wonderfully altered photographs, but for this project I wanted to do some fairly simple and subtle changes.  I can't wait to do some outrageous pictures though!

I'm not going to show you my 'Typography' portfolio because they've all been posted in here somewhere over the last few months.

A big thank you to my muses, my two daughters and their lovely friend, who posed for me for all these photos, and put up with my tugging, pushing, poking and rearranging... with great patience!

Before...

After...

I changed the original picture to black and white, then put some selected colour back in in an attempt to create a simple, dreamy picture.

City and Guilds - Photography Results...

Well, today I feel 'like the cat that got the cream'.  I got my City and Guilds Level 1 Photography exam results.  I got 2 distinctions...  and I'm feeling a little smug!  I submitted two portfolios - one on 'typography' and one on 'manipulated images' (Photoshop).   I suppose it just gives me confidence to keep on doing the follow up courses, still so much to learn.  I feel like I've learnt an awful lot since I took those photos for my assessment.  One of my problems is that I frequently don't learn from things I do.  I might take what I consider to be a good picture, but then find it difficult to replicate because I didn't pay enough attention to the light or angle of the picture.  It's easy enough to check the camera settings, but not the thought (or lack of thought) processes at the time.  Note to self: pay more attention...!

Here is an example - I took this photo, above, of my beloved hydrangeas one morning recently.  I liked it, the way the filtered morning sunlight fell on the flower, together with the shady areas.  But I can't remember how I did it...  I did a similar thing with my rose picture, below.  I paid a lot of attention to the camera settings, and not enough to the mood.  Consequently, many of my photos are happy accidents!  

Indeed, happy I am!  I wonder if this means I should treat myself to a zoom lens... or maybe a flash gun...?  Photography is such an expensive hobby.  So, Level 2 here I come.  This course lasts a whole academic year, and starts next week.  I'm so glad I'm not going to have to ask for a refund!  Better go and take some pictures,  I think. 

I've Been Tagged...!

My blogging friend, Corine, at Hidden in France, has tagged me.  She's asked me to post some pictures of myself as a child, and tell you a little about them.  Then I have to tag a few other bloggers to do the same.  So here goes... 

It's 1961 and I'm about 3 years old.  It's taken on my family's farm in Co. Westmeath, Ireland.  I don't remember the dog at all, but I do remember the dress which was a brown and yellow floral design, and would be worth a lot on a vintage fabric stall today.

1962 and I'm about 4 years old.  My mum loved to do my hair like this, it must have been fashionable at the time. I remember the pleated hair bow very well, it was quite hard.  I adored this dress... I felt like a princess in it. I only wore it on very special occasions, so hardly ever.  It was a pale pink silky chiffon type of fabric with blue rosebuds.  

I was an only child of Irish parents, growing up in Lancashire in the north of England.  I remember having a vivid imagination, imaginary friends etc, and being obsessed with the local library and the idea that you could take all those books home to read.  

1974, bit of a hippie.  Genesis t.shirt with bell sleeves.  Look at the wallpaper in my parents' house.  I hated it at the time, but would love it now!  This was taken at Christmas, I had just turned 17.  I had left my horrible catholic school and the equally horrible nuns, and had just started at a local college.  Life was fantastic...!

This was 1975, and life was still wonderful!  This was taken in the University Parks in Oxford, where my husband -to -be was at college.  I didn't know it then, but I would end up living for many years in Oxford, and I would go back now if I could.  Bell sleeves again, and I was so thin...!  Probably because I lived on a diet of coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and a few other similar things! 

So there you have it... now I would like to tag a few of my most favourite blogs:

• Jane Brocket 
• Christina Wilson -  Sweet Nothings
• Maryam at My Marrakesh
• Emma Lamb
• Teesha Moore
• Elise Blaha
• Linda Woods and Karen Dinino at Journal Revolution

Hope none of you mind being tagged, but if you do, just ignore it.  Otherwise, thanks for taking part.  Make sure you have a look at Corine's blog, Hidden in France, she's very entertaining, and doesn't live in France... 

My Very Talented Photography Friends...

Sometime ago, I said I would try to persuade a couple of my photography course friends to allow me to put their pictures on here.  These then, are their winning photos which they submitted for the national City and Guilds Level 1 photography competition.

The photo above is by Glenn Foster.  This complicated, technical shot was quite beyond my understanding... Our first ever piece of homework was to experiment with three plastic cups, which is exactly what Glenn has done here, with fantastic results!    

This picture is by Ric Carlucci.  It's City Hall, the workplace of  London  Mayor, Boris Johnson.  Ric has taken this picture from an unusual angle.  The building is on the south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge, was designed by Norman Foster, and opened in 2002. 

Both my friends have been doing photography for some years, and are doing the City and Guilds course mainly to achieve accreditation to work legitimately as photographers. Both of them are experienced and capable of doing professional work such as weddings, which they have done previously, and are contactable through me.

iPhone Photography Apps...

I love these iPhone apps...

Hipstamatic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's designed to be washed out and vintage in style, a bit like an old Polaroid.  There are all sorts of combinations of lenses, films and flash modes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ShakeIt:

A similar application, attempting to create a vintage look.  On this one you can only change the frame.  The best bit is watching it develop slowly, just like a Polaroid!  You can shake it to speed things up, but I think that just spoils the fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Maggie O'Farrell's book is wonderful, by the way...)

Polaroid...

I took this picture using 'ShakeIt' on my iPhone.  It emulates the old Polaroid instant film.

I like the bleached out look.  You can choose a couple of different surrounding frames.  It's also fun watching it slowly develop, like a real Polaroid - you can shake it to speed things up, but that ruins the fun!

City and Guilds National Photography Competition...

 

I won second prize with this photo at the national City and Guilds Photography Competition - Part 1.  My prize was a Fuji Finepix S1500 camera - very pleased! Even more pleased about having the picture in a photography exhibition at Morley College Art Gallery near Waterloo.  It's there until closing time on Monday 26th July.  There were prizes for entries in Part 2 and 3 also.  

The picture is of Burnley Football Ground - Turf Moor, taken in April this year.  It shows the sheer joy and delight, and large amount of money spent on advertising BFC's rise to the Premier League in 2009.  There were lots of these gigantic hoardings surrounding the ground, but I concentrated on this one.  You can get a feeling for the size of it, if you compare it to the traffic lights.

The poignancy and  irony is that this picture was taken just a month or so before Burnley were relegated in 2010, so the elation was short lived, sadly...

Nevertheless, the impact of the images was amazing!  I'm assuming they're still there.  I imagine medieval cathedrals had a similar impact on congregations!

The photos in the exhibition were wonderful and inspiring.  Two of my class friends also had pictures in the exhibition. Glenn had an amazing picture of exploding plastic cups of water, the action frozen as they exploded!  Ric had a fabulous picture of City Hall, (the home of Boris Johnson, London's Mayor) which is an amazing sight on its own, but he shot it from a very unusual angle.  I'll see if I can persuade them to allow me to show them on here...

All three of us are very grateful to Kim Lucas, our professional photography tutor, for giving us the skills to be able to do these pictures.  He spent quite some time cajoling us to enter the competition in the first place!  We're looking forward to studying part two photography with Kim in September, if we ever manage to finish our part one portfolios... deadline looming...

We are all studying City and Guilds Photography at CALAT, Croydon's Adult Education Institute.  Thank you to my old friend Nicky Partridge who persuaded me to have a go... Nicky is a professional photographer who is in charge of the photography and creative courses at CALAT.  In fact the college snapped (no pun intended!) about 6 photography awards altogether, including 1st and 3rd prizes in Part 2!  Nicky's husband, Joe Partridge, who is also a professional photographer teaching at CALAT, won a national award for excellence in technology teaching in photography at the college.  Nicky, Joe and Kim, (who all studied photography together as students, and are old friends) have created a wonderful digital photography studio for all those doing courses at CALAT, so we are blessed with these facilities! 

Also thank you to my good friend, Jan Bennett, who accompanied me to the private view as my guest.  My husband stood me up in favour of a trip to Amsterdam... (working trip though).  Jan, who is a talented artist, has taken some of my photos and recreated them in beautiful pastels.  I'll try to persuade her to show some on here.  She also creates pastel and acrylic pictures of lots of different things, tigers, lions, Geisha Girls flower pictures including many in close up detail, and Buddhas amongst others.  I think she enjoyed it!  We're both just reaching the point where we can abandon our children for a few hours, now that they're old enough to be left alone, so that we can have an evening out - such liberation...!