February Roundup & 365

Watching Clouds With Little Friends (33/365)

It doesn't seem like almost a month has passed since I made my last roundup post!

Most of what I did in February was walk, clean, and take photos for my 365 Project (goal #65).
I also went on a daytrip, customised some shoes, and spent several days dealing with some particularly unpleasant visitors...

Photography-wise, I did quite well this month. Since February divides into 4 lots of 7, I decided to focus on a different aspect of photography every seven days.

I also took more photographs for my project, A Strange Pair (part of goal #12), but I'll post those at a later date!

As with the last roundup, you can click on the smaller pictures to view a larger version.


February 1-7

I worked with macro photography, making good use of my macro lens conversion kit!

Purple Mountains (32/365)	Dreams of Autumn (34/365)	Cactus Blue (35/365)
Reproduce (36/365)	Feelers (37/365)	Diamonds on Jade (38/365)

My conversion kit isn't perfect -  if I use too short a focal length, I get a black vignette around the corners of the image - and of course it isn't going to work as well as a proper macro lens, but it's good enough for what I use it for.

Two of the photos in this set ended up rotated 90 degrees from the original, because I decided they looked better that way. Can you tell which ones they are?

Racing Thoughts (39/365)

February 8-14

The second 'week' of February, I chose shutter speed as my topic, specifically those outside the usual range that I use. This resulted in images where objects were 'frozen' in movement (fast shutter speed) and those where movement was blurred or ghostly (short shutter speed).

Bing Bing Bubble Tea

On a recent trip to Portsmouth, my friend and I found Bing Bing Bubble Tea, which is tucked inside Sun Hung Chang oriental food specialists.

At Bing Bing's counter, I was completely spoilt for choice by the menu! There were tea-based and fruit-based options, and a good selection of toppings to choose from.

Eventually I went for the strawberry flavour, with ordinary tapioca pearls. It turned out to be pretty darn sweet, with a really strong strawberry taste! Though I opted for the regular size, it was more than enough, and was loaded with tapioca pearls--a lot more than I've had in drinks from some similar places.

I'm not as crrazy about sweet food as I used to be, but I'd had no caffeine that day so this really gave me a well-needed boost! If Portsmouth was closer, I'd probably go to Bing Bing Bubble Tea pretty frequently!
 
Drinking here means I've finally completed one of my goals from The List!

036. Eat/drink in 30 new places (cafes, restaurants, food stands…)

This has taken me so long, but it's finally done! Hurrah!
All the places I've eaten or drank at can be read about on my goal 36 tag!

Looking for an Ocean

On Thursday, a friend and I took a day trip to Portsmouth, to find Cute Things, drink Tasty Things, and find a road named after a book...

Incomplete

Incomplete

The prompt I went with for Delightful Aberrations' theme challenge this week was gap.
To be completely honest this photo happened completely by accident, but it fits the theme so here it is!
This one is also part of my 365 Project!

I know that the majority of my posts lately have been about photography, but I did actually Get Out And Do Stuff again recently, so I do have other things to write about. I just have to have time to sit and write the blog posts--!

Unfortunately despite the fact we're heading towards the end of February now, a lot of places of interest are still closed!
But spring is here at last, and I can at least tramp through muddy fields in my wellies!

Colour Fall

Colour Fall

For Delightful Abberations' theme challenge this time around, I opted for the fall prompt. I decided to experiment with shutter speed, and ended up with the above photo (after much editing because it's a dark day, so not entirely suitable for a fast shutter speed!).
I'm trying to do more with the technical stuff like shutter speed and depth of field, because I'm so out of practise with it!

Bounce

This second image was produced in-camera by combining two separate photos--one with a fast shutter speed (1/1000) one with slow (1 sec).

More photos taken for this challenge can be found on my Delightful Abberations tag.

January Roundup & 365

Into the Fog (23/365)

Since I plan to take a vast number of photos this year as part of my 365 Project (goal #65), I decided to post monthly round-ups to look back at what I've done over the past month, and share the photos I've taken in places other than Instagram and 365 Project.

Rings (12/365)

Ideally, I'd post the roundups at the start of each month, but this one is a few days late as I've been ridiculously tired lately. The weather certainly hasn't helped--cold, dreary wet, and occasionally fairly windy!

My roundups might not always take the format of this first one; I'll play around with that over the months and tailor each one according to the photos and what I've got done.

So here's how my January has been...