June Roundup & 365

This roundup is a bit late, considering we're just over a week into July now! Between hot weather and being busy with things (mostly everyday things), this blog has been neglected over the past month, with posts I've intended to write as yet left unwritten.

Despite that, I've kept up with 365 Project and am now halfway through! The first six months of the year have gone by very quickly...

Anyway, here's a roundup of what I did in June, along with my June photos for 365 Project.

I started the month by going to see a comical play, The Accidental Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with my parents, followed by a meal at Las Iguanas in which I tried some new food: Brazilian xinxim (which helped me start on goal #43 Try foods of 5 different countries).
The play was fun, and the xinxim was so tasty that I have actually had dreams about eating it!

Photography-wise, I started off the month photographing pets:

Watching (152/365)	Attempted Portrait (153/365)
Snacking (154/365)	Ignore (155/365)

The first full week in June turned out to be quite a busy one, with three trips out, lots of walking, and some axe throwing for good measure...

I did the axe throwing at the South of England Show, and thus completed goal 95. Throw an axe
I also had a go on the rifle range, and beat my score from last year!

Reaching to the Sky (158/365)

Side View (159/365)

The day before the show, my sisters and I took Mum to Portsmouth for her birthday. We roamed the shops, and ate dinner at Frankie & Benny's, and I snapped the above picture, Reaching to the Sky of the Spinnaker Tower (Side View is the big wheel at the South of England Show).

Secret Garden (156/365)

Last Post (157/365)

Bricked In (161/365)

Leek Green (160/365)

Watchers (162/365)

Whilst I focused mostly on a theme of overgrown, crumbling structures (with the occasional curveball) for my photography during the week, I also did a lot of walking (and hence found quite a lot of overgrown, crumbling structures!)

One of my walks took me on a hike up a hill, on the windiest day of the month. Hiking up to the summit was a real challenge, as the wind was against me--I lost count of how many times I had to stop!
Of course, walking back down was much easier!


On the Sunday, my middle sister and I went to Brighton for a vintage/retro kilo sale at the Open Market. The queue was huge, and whilst I didn't find anything, she found four great items!
Afterwards, we nipped along to the Painting Pottery Cafe, where we'd learnt to throw pots back in May, and picked up our shiny glazed and fired pots! I'm still really pleased with how mine turned out, and proud of my sister for her's too--it looks so cute!

Aerial Avian (166/365)

For the second full week of June, I wanted to focus on pareidolia (in simplest terms, seeing faces in things). But I couldn't resist photographing this beautiful jackdaw when it landed on the aerial. Tonnes of these birds nest in the trees near the house, and on that day they were swarming back and forth, so I went onto the balcony with my camera and 70-300mm lens, and then spotted this guy, who was very calmly watching his bird buddies soar overhead!
I think this is one of my favourite photos so far this year.

Elephant (163/365)	Hug Me! (164/365)	Patch the Dog (165/365)
Robo Dog (167/365)	Mechanical Bird (168/365)	Sadface (169/365)

I'm pleased with how the pareidolia pictures came out, too.
I'd intended to seek out metallic faces in various tools and objects (can you tell what these are?) but the last one ended up being completely different!
This was taken at the Weald and Downland Living Museum at Singleton, Sussex. They were hosting a wood fair on Father's Day, so Dad and I went along (and being a Dad, he got in for free!)

The Weald and Downland Living Museum is a huge site with numerous traditional buildings that have been rescued and relocated and refurbished back to their former glory. I won't write too much about it today - eventually I'll edit my 200-odd photos and select some to make a proper post with - but it was great to look around, and of course fun to spend time with Dad! I last went when I was in primary school, and the site has grown a lot bigger.
This visit counts towards goal 10. Visit 30 museums/art galleries/exhibitions.

A Patch of Sunlight (170/365)

Though the end of the week, that Sunday heralded the start of the most roastingly hot weather of the year, so unsurprisingly most of the third week in June involved Staying Indoors!
I ventured outside on the Monday to play around with depth of field and shadows to photograph A Patch of Sunlight, above, but on the whole only took a couple of photos outside, and experimented with my camera's 'image overlay' function (which is as close as the Nikon D3300 gets to multiple exposure).

City of the Dead (171/365)	Daisy Chain (172/365)	Old Holiday Snaps (173/365)
Schirm (174/365)	Aeternus (175/365)	Passage of Time (176/365)

Having found some old negatives from about 16-17 years ago, I used my macro conversion kit to zoom in and photograph the frames (which I stuck to a window), which I used in three of these images.
They weren't all created completely in-camera: I inverted the image for City of the Dead, and did the same for the black and white image I used in Passage of Time. 
I created Schirm using an iOS app called BlendMaster, which I found when looking for apps that offered the effect of multiple exposure.
It was fun to experiment with these images; I'd like to try something like this again sometime!

Ocean Bread (177/365)

Flaky (178/365)

Mummified (179/365)

Hedgehog (180/365)

Bunny's Stretch Marks (181/365)

To round off the month, I spent the last five days taking macro shots of natural forms: coral, sponge, seaweed, part of a tulip tree, and a shell.

The second part of this month was so warm that it ended up being a bit of a write-off when 'doing things' was concerned. But I did at least manage to keep up with my photography, and work towards several goals!

Despite the hot weather, it ended up being a good month for photography. Today, my 365 Project is 52% completed, so I'm over halfway towards completing that goal, too!

Even if not a particularly active month, June was a productive one.