This week imac chose our little header challenge and he decided that we should all show a postcard from where we live. Well as those of you who are regular readers know I live in Lincolnshire in England. Lincolnshire is renowned for its wide open flat farm land, hence the image in the header.
Another thing you will see lots of around Lincolnshire (well in Spring anyway) are Daffodils and Tulips as they are one of the biggest producers of the flowers and bulbs in Europe.
The free range poultry business is growing rapidly too both commercially and with individual families hence the chicken.
So there you have my postcard from rural Lincolnshire. I could have gone in to on of the towns and told you all about that but I live 10 miles from the closest one so rural Lincolnshire seemed more appropriate.
Have a look to see what postcards the other headbangers have posted. Follow their links on my right hand menu bar.
This weeks theme is a watery one chosen by imac and is entitled “Fountain”.
Now not living in a city we don’t have much in the way of fountains so I thought I’d take a couple of trips out and get a shot or two to post. Well the other week I went to Belton House in Lincolnshire with imac and they have a nice fountain there. Unfortunately it was still switched off.
Yesterday for our Wedding anniversary we went for a family day trip to Woburn Safari park (photos to follow soon) and I thought there must be at least one fountain somewhere in the parkland there, but, no, not one. So I’m afraid I’ve had to resolve to look through my back catalogues of pictures.
I came across this one taken of Buckingham Palace and the fountains in front of it… or is it?
Leave a comment if you can you tell me what is wrong with the above photo?
I also found this one of a very high jet fountain taken in a park in the south of England…
I even found a photo of a fountain of water given off on a water flume ride…
very soggy people under that fountain of water.
But for my header I have decided to go back to one of my original ideas albeit a photo taken there last summer, I knew there was a reason for taking so many photos.
After posting yesterday that Spring had sprung I awoke this morning to this…
No it’s not a washed out photo of the field next to my house, its just that it is blanketed in thick fog.
No bright sunshine making the daffodils glow today. Oh well at least yesterday gave us a quick glimpse of Spring, before we are back to the fog of Lincolnshire.
Spring has officially arrived in Lincolnshire as the daffodils are all starting to bloom.
So out I went with my camera to get a few shots of the beautiful blooms.
The sun was out too so it was shining through the petals making them glow.
Which makes a nice welcome home as they are out all along the verge in front of our hedge.
We also have miniature daffodils out in one of our tubs next to the front door…
So my friend Lanny loves the Winter months the best but for me Spring is the magical time of the year, especially for photography. The light is great for photography, bright but not overpowering perfect for taking lots of photos.
This last one is against the brick of the house not sure if it works but I thought I’d include it anyway and see what you think. Works or doesn’t work?
Well this weeks choice of theme has been my choice (ably helped by Mel). She suggested I do baking, so this weeks topic became “to bake or not to bake” that is the question and also the theme. Well being a student of English Literature I had to add an extra Shakespearian lilt to it didn't I?
Now our family love to bake. We all take our turn in the kitchen rustling up some masterpiece of culinary delight for the rest of the family, well that's what I call it some others may disagree.
Our girls have been taught to bake since they were big enough to kneel on a stool at the counter and lick, sorry stir the spoon in the mixture.
You may now understand my wife's suggestion to do baking for the theme this week.
Living in the middle of nowhere in Southern Lincolnshire, doing our own baking is much more economical than jumping in the car and driving the 20 mile round trip to the supermarket. More helpful for the environment too.
So we make all our own bread…
It really is gorgeous especially when eaten fresh and warm…
Recently muffins have been the cake of choice in our household and these are my attempt at the classic Blueberry muffin…
Even though I say so myself they didn’t turn out too bad.
This weekend saw the birthday of our nephew Toby so it was a good excuse to do some more baking this time some cookies to augment the selection of food that was going to be there. This time it was Mel's turn to bake…
and these where very nice…
double choc chip yum yum.
Now obviously it’s not only our immediate family who enjoy baking, as our sister in law made her son Toby a wonderful Teddy bear birthday cake…
I’ll bring you more pictures from Toby’s birthday celebrations here soon.
My header this week incorporates some of our families baking, but, also an element of the what “not to bake”, but which is still very nice, chocolate fingers and animals. I hope you enjoy!
I’ve posted nice and early this week to go somewhat towards making up for my tardiness in posting last week.
Remember to drop in and see what delights the other headbangers have cooked up for you this week. Just follow the links in my right hand menu bar.
The theme for this weeks challenge has been kindly set by Tom - fishing guy and is `Tracks`.
Now many of you would think, knowing that I worked on the railway for a number of years, that railway tracks would be my chosen photo subject in relation to this theme, but, no! you’d be wrong.
I’ve decided to stay well clear of the railway tracks on this occasion, and so, camera in hand I went out to see what other tracks I could find.
Well one of the first tracks I came across was from my car tyres. Here they are leaving tracks in the mud…
As you can see, Its been a bit on the wet side recently and as we live on a country lane tyre tracks in the mud are a common occurrence.
The roads near where we live are themselves just tracks really…
Welcome to the Lincolnshire countryside!
Coming back into the house, and the warmth, after the cold damp trip around the country lanes, I decided to put on some music and realised that here was even more tracks; the tracks on a music CD…
Here you go I've taken some close-up macro shots of the cd tracks for you.
The CD I chose even has `Tracks` in it’s title…
For my header though this week I have gone for one of the many farm tracks around my house, one our girls frequently use to walk our dog.
I wonder what track my fellow headbangers have travelled down for their headers this week?
Its great to see the number visiting my blog growing each week. Why don’t you say hello and introduce yourselves. Tell me what you like and why you dropped by. Maybe there is something new you would like to see on my blog? Or something I’ve done in the past revisited. Whatever the reason for the visit remember to say hi and come back soon.
Thanks for dropping by.
This weeks challenge is that winter favourite Snow.
Now for a change we have had some snow already in South Lincolnshire. Nowhere near as much as many other parts of the UK but even the little we have had seems to have caused chaos. Schools have been closed though much to my daughters disgust not theirs. Even my university the Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln closed its campus for about a week due to the snow.
It may cause problems for many but it certainly is beautiful to look at.
though I don’t think our chickens agreed.
So what should I use as this weeks header?
I thought a first to go with footprints in the snow…
but couldn't get it to fit the full width of the header bar and I wanted something a little better.
How about…
our dog Corky in the snow but again wrong shape for the header bar.
I even looked at a photo I took of the snow as it melted from our garden table forming some very strange shapes…
but it was in the wrong format for the header bar so I chose a photograph taken from an upstairs window looking out across the fields of South Lincolnshire whilst the snow continued to fall.
Hope you like it and are enjoying the picture opportunities snow whilst it lasts.
Don’t forget to leave your comments on my blog and then check out the other snow pictures of the headbangers, just follow the links in the right hand menu bar.
We keep a few chickens in our back garden here in Lincolnshire as many of you know. Having fresh eggs daily from your own chickens is really nice and they always seem to taste better when they are your own chickens.
Well we got a bit of a surprise this lunchtime when we collected in our chickens egg from their nest boxes. They were all cracked! Nothing really unusable about that as eggs get cracked all the time. The surprise was why they had cracked.
They had all frozen solid within their shells…
So instead of hard boiled eggs we had hard frozen eggs!
It was so unusual as in all the years we have had chickens we have not seen it before. So I just had to get the camera out and take some pictures.
Poor chickens, time for extra straw and a nice warm mash!
Now this weeks challenge, chosen by Lanny is just one word, ‘persimmon’. Now in Lanny’s neck of the woods persimmon trees and fruit might be easy to come by, but, over here in beautiful Lincolnshire, England its almost unheard of.
I understand that persimmon is a burnt orange type of colour much like our sunsets.
Or the colour of beautiful flowers…
They may be the right colour, but, as we are in Lincolnshire and don’t have access to persimmon trees they still aren't the fruit.
In Boston home to St Botoloph’s church, known locally as the stump, persimmon is seen on many signposts…
Not advertising fruit trees but rather, a house building company, Persimmon Homes.
They are building a new riverfront complex in Boston Lincolnshire so that is what I have chosen to use as my header.
I hope you like my take on the theme Persimmon, especially you Lanny, let me know what you think and don't forget to visit my other headbanger friends to see their take on this weeks challenge. Just follow their links at the top of my right hand column.
This weeks headbangers challenge has been set by Tom- fishing Guy and is `Fall has Arrived`. Now over here we don’t call it the fall but stick to Autumn. So I hope you don’t mind Tom but I’ll sub head this weeks header with ‘Autumnal’.
Now autumn colours I love, all the golden yellows vibrant gold's and bronzes of the leaves. The bright red of the berries in the hedgerows, they all make for an outstanding photo opportunity.
So to try and get that great shot I headed over to a little lake in my neighbouring village to take some photos for the header challenge.
Now the lake isn’t very big but there is still an abundance of trees surrounding it.
Unfortunately as you can see from this photo I arrived a little late for some of them as they had already lost a lot of their leaves.
So it called for a bit more creativity.
Holding the camera just above the ground gave me this more exciting photo.
I used the berries and tree trunk in this shot to frame the fishing jetty and Lily pads.
It must be nice to live in this bungalow and have the beauty of the lake at the bottom of your garden.
I hope you like the little Autumn jaunt down to the lake. Do you think the different camera angles have worked? Let me know what you think in the comments section.
If this is your first visit why not stay a while have a look around then pop over to see the other entrants in this weeks header challenge. Just follow the links at the top of my right hand column.
Technorati Tags: Headbanger,Challenge,November,Fall,Autumn,header,Autumnal,gold,photo,lake,village,trees,tree,garden,photos,berries,camera
Hi this weeks header challenge is Sound Creations selected by Gailsman.
The creation of sound is something close to my heart. I like to think I create music whilst others may just call it noise. I do play the percussion after all.
My header photos though have been taken from our summer flower festival held every year in Spalding Lincolnshire.
%5B6%5D.jpg "Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (98)")
%5B4%5D.jpg "Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (55)")
%5B4%5D.jpg "Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (78)")
%5B4%5D.jpg "Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (35)")
There are always numerous marching bands of different genres dotted throughout the parade showing of their musical talents and helping the parade go with a swing.
Why not check out my other headbanger entrants just follow the links to their blogs at the top of my right hand menu bar.
Sorry fore the late posting this week but our internet went down again and I didn’t think I was going to be able to post at all so better late than never I hope you agree?
Technorati Tags: Header,Challenge,October,Sound,Gailsman,creation,music,percussion,festival,Lincolnshire,Creations,photos,bands
This weeks header challenge has been chosen by imac. His choice this week is ‘Sepia’.
Sepia is the name given to the photographic development process used to enhance its archival properties and to give the photograph a warmer hue. The process got its name from the adding of a pigment to the chemical development of the photograph, derived from the Sepia officinalis cuttlefish found in the English channel.
With modern digital developments and printing processes the sepia pigment is no longer required to assist the photographs protection against the elements. Now sepia toning is mainly seen in either very old photographs or new photos digitally enhanced to look old.
Most photo editing software can now change a colour image into a sepia toned image giving the illusion that the photograph is old or just to add a warming effect to enhance the image.
The effect can be subtle as in the above photograph. just to add warmth to an image.
It can also be used to give an illusion of age to a photograph…
helped in this picture by the addition of period costume.
Pictures of historical societies can also be enhanced by the technique…
as in this group riding their period bicycles through Spalding in Lincolnshire.
Changing the tone to sepia has helped to give the illusion of age to the scene, even though it was actually taken this year.
The technique can be used to Add warmth to an image instilling not necessarily age to the picture but atmosphere.
Sepia has a wide range of applications now other than its original meaning.
Let me apologise for the scarcity of my posts over the last 2 weeks but this has been due to a telephone line fault resulting in the loss of internet access other than via my mobile phone. Hopefully the fault will soon be fixed, we have internet now, but, it is very slow as the fault has only partly been resolved.
Tell me your thoughts on sepia, do you think it is still a viable option to enhance photographs?Let me know your thoughts via the comments section regarding anything about my blog, good or bad.
Why don’t you drop in on the other headbangers and see what they have devised as a header and post for Sepia. Just follow the links at the top of the right hand column.
Technorati Tags: Header,Challenge,October,Sepia,pigment,English,photo,image,Pictures,technique,Lincolnshire,comments,photos,bicycles
This weeks header challenge has been chosen by Lanny. Her choice for this week is Harvest.
Now locally in Lincolnshire a lot of the harvest has already been gathered in, but, luckily I had the foresight to take some photographs of the farmer gathering his in, in the field next to our house a few weeks ago. You never know when photos like that will come in handy, thanks Lanny.
This is what the field next to our house looked like before he started harvesting.
During the Harvest the harvester headed straight towards our house allowing for a great opportunity for a photo.
According to the local farmers if the bales are round then they are set to be used for animal feed. If they, like the ones next to us, are square (well square-ish) they are destined for use in a local power plant to be burned for eco-fuel.
Its great to see the fields harvested in, although the dust created does mean all the windows in the house need to be shut tight.
Why not drop in on the other headbangers and see what they have come up with as their banners this week. Just follow the links to them at the top of the right hand column.
Technorati Tags: Header,Challenge,October,Harvest,Lincolnshire,farmer,harvester,photo,photos
