Stop!

Things That Stop The Flow

After a few weeks of brainlessness, I'm finally participating in the theme challenge at Delightful Aberrations!
This week, one of the prompts was stop.
I worked this into my project, A Strange Pair, which I originally started partly for the challenge and partly for goal #12 (Complete 3 photography projects).

I've been continuing the project, and had planned to post all the images together when I'd finished it, but today I got my hands on the items to take the image above, which is a pairing that comes directly from Daniel Nettle's book, Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature:

"When asked to sort pictures of objects into classes, schizophrenics often depart from those categories most intuitively accessible to the rest of us, such as 'tools' or 'fruit'. One subject put together a bath plug, a padlock, and a circle of red paper 'because all three stop flows or processes'."

- Nettle, D. (2001). Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature.
Oxford University Press, Oxford

Since 'stop' was one of the prompts for this week's challenge, it seemed the obvious choice! It works for the prompt, and works for my project, too!

I still have more ideas for A Strange Pair which I haven't photographed yet. It's a real exercise of the mind to figure out these pairings, without them being too obvious or typical!

At the Bottom of the Bottle

Mouth

I managed to miss joining in with the theme challege on Delightful Aberrations these past few weeks, but this time around I actually got organised, and played around with several ideas using the prompts bottle and inside.

I ended up with this photo (among others, one of which I uploaded to my 365 Project). Didn't edit this much, just adjusted the levels a little and resized it for the web (because nobody needs a 6000px wide 300dpi version of this photo).

This is just a photo of an old bottle that I dug out of the ground as a kid. Something has marked the inside, and the glass itself is covered in scratches.

You can see my previous photos for this challenge on my Delightful Aberrations tag.

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.

Circling the Stars

Circling the Stars

Just in case you hadn't seen enough photography here lately, here is some more.
This time it's photos for the theme challenge on Delightful Aberrations; I used the theme outline and am totally late in posting!

The first photo doubles up as one of my 365 Project images.

Tracing the Path

All I did for these pictures was photograph the raindrops on the window this evening, using a cheap macro conversion kit on the front of my lens. As it was difficult to get a shot without reflection on the glass, I had to focus on the section of glass directly in front of the lens.

I have some other photos to share, including a round-up of my 365 Project images for January, but I'll leave those for another day!

Frozen Since Last Week

Since the beginning of the year, I've been working on a 365 Project (a year-long photography project in which the aim is to take at least one photo a day).

I've been so sidetracked by it, and generally head-fogged and irritated at the internet (FB troubles!) that I didn't get around to posting this photo for the Delightful Abberations theme challenge until now!
This is for last week's challenge, but it was also one of my 365 Project photos, so Lilia snagged it and popped it on the D.A. blog for me (thanks Lilia!)
The theme was frozen... It's been icy here for a good week now, and honestly it's a nice change from all the dreary grey clouds and rain we were getting.

I've been neglecting this blog for a couple of weeks, but have new things to post (especially a lot of photographs!) So keep a look out for what's to come!

Colouring In

Last week, I didn't have time to participate in the theme challenge at Delightful Aberrations.
However, the prompts were rolled over to this week, with the addition of five more!

So I've stuck with last week's prompt lip (with the prompt write included, kind of) for this image.
I may yet produce something for one or two of this week's new prompts, but shall have to see.

This time around, the image is a combination of photography and intense amounts of photoshopping! I wanted to give the effect of a pair of lips that are in the process of being coloured in to look 'realistic'.

Not as keen on this resulting image as some of my pictures from previous weeks, but this is better than a blank page!

The Sum of Those Who Went Before

The Sum of Those Who Went Before

One of the themes on Delightful Aberrations' challenge this week was ancestors. I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this one!

We have a suitcase full of old photos in the loft, so I decided to hang these up as a backdrop and take self-portraits inspired by the old images.
I couldn't find enough of the pictures in the style that I wanted to use (I'm certain there are more somewhere, I just couldn't find them!) so this had to be on a smaller scale than I wanted!
Perhaps if I had more time and/or did this again, I'd use a bigger variation of photograph styles (ordinary photos, carte visites, cabinet cards, mounted prints etc) so I could make a bigger wall of photos!

Honestly I can't say for sure how many of the people in these old photos are my direct ancestors, or even in my family! But it's more about the effect,  I think.

My £1.25 unbranded camera remote worked very well for this shoot!

Destruction of Worlds

Destruction of Worlds

Prompts for this week's challenge on Delightful Aberrations included post and planet, which are the two prompts I picked up and ran with.

...or I would have run with them, if I hadn't spent the week with a cold.

So rather than take any new photographs for this week's challenge, I created a new image by combining some photos that I took earlier in the year.

I decided to interpret the 'post' prompt as being the word in it's prefix form, meaning 'after'. Combining it with the 'planet' prompt got me 'post-planet' and the result of my tinkering in Photoshop Elements was this--a constructed image portraying the end of a planet in a broken universe.

...huh, maybe next week I'll make something more cheerful!

A Strange Pair

Things That Grasp

One of the prompts for this week's photography & art challenge on Delightful Aberrations was pair.

A while ago, I read something in a book about how, when a number of people with schizophrenia were asked to group items together, their logic in categorisation differed to those the average non-schizophrenic would find most obvious. I don't remember many of the details but I think it was in Daniel Nettle's Strong Imagination, which I read two years ago (the book explored the connection between creativity and mental illness).

Things That Make Lines

Inspired by this, and remembering that the logic of those groupings actually did make sense, I sought out to make some unconventional 'pairs' of objects and photograph them for this week's challenge, the image titles being the object categories.

This was quite a challenge as I really had to stop and think about the purpose of an object, and consider what other objects serve the same purpose, but perhaps in a different way.

Things That Tell You Where You Are

My method of photography this time around was basically a piece of A3 white paper as a background, with a desk light slightly above (because it's winter, and the sun is nonexistent).
The light meant there was a bit of a colour cast on the images, but I fixed that with Photoshop, and then adjusted the levels and so on to make the photos more stark and contrasty.

Things That Add Colour

To summarise this week's mini-project (because that's what it was) into more arty-farty terms--

A Strange Pair is an exploration of the relationships between everyday objects.

Thinking up combinations for this was actually pretty fun, so I may continue this as a proper project at some point (and find a better way of photographing everything!) which will count towards another of my goals on The List.


You can see images from previous week's participation on my shiny new delightful aberrations tag!

Fading Gold

Fading Gold

Once again I joined in with the Delightful Aberrations photography & art theme challenge this week, and used the prompts quarter and gold.

This time, I wanted to do something a bit different to what I do normally, and create a final image made from several photos.
The 'gold' prompt made me think of the 'golden hour'--the hour before sunset or after sunrise when the sun is (supposedly) softer and redder than during the day.
So I combined it with the 'quarter' prompt and set off on a walk a quarter hour before sunset, taking a snapshot of where I was at every 1/4km I walked, and finishing a quarter hour after sunset.

The resulting photos were sliced up in Photoshop Elements; I went the whole hog with the quarter prompt and used just a quarter-width of each photo. To emphasise the difference in lighting (because in England in November the sky tends to be varying shades of grey) I added a golden-yellow to purple gradient layer on top, setting it to overlay and 46% opacity.
Finally, because I wanted to make this image more than just a bunch of photos slotted together, I added the glittering, slowly-fading golden smear across the bottom, using a photo of gold eyeshadow smeared across white paper. (Well why not make your makeup multifunctional?!)

I played around with lots of ideas for this one, even within the idea that I used. These were some really great prompts!

Colour Bleed

Colour Bleed

After a couple of weeks' break, I'm back to participating in the theme challenge at Delightful Aberrations.
This week had some seriously awesome themes! I opted to use the theme colour, and try something that would be abstract and quick to photograph.

I took the picture above by wiggling some embroidery threads in front of a piece of white paper. I shot several images using the 'burst' feature on my iPhone; unfortunately being an iPhone it means the resulting image was a bit pixelly, but I used Photoshop Elements to reduce noise and adjust the levels so that the colours would stand out a bit more! 

For an experiment, I don't think it turned out too badly!

Treasured Worlds

Sunrise Over Seashore

This week, one of the prompts on Delightful Aberrations' photography & art challenge was gem, and you can bet your life I jumped on that one!

Layers of Sunshine

I've got tones of gemstones/crystals, and they have such interesting patterns in them, so I decided to make use of my macro lens conversion kit and take some closeups of some agate!

Black Hole in the Blue Planet

 The insides/patterns look like little worlds!

As for how I took these pictures (because I don't have a lightbox or anything fancy like that), I used that handy tool, blu-tack...

No Faces, No Names

No Faces, No Names

One of the themes for this week's challenge on Delightful Aberrations was censorship. I had ideas straight away, but some required Many People (I know many people, but many people that do not have time at the same time...)
So these ended up being my final images this week.

Censor Them All

I wanted to show censorship both as an act and as a person. People are the cause of censorship, and maybe Censorship itself is censored, in that we are not always fully aware when something has been censored--think of all those scenes left on the editing room floor, those paragraphs deleted, that we never know exist unless they're directly addressed.

Anyway, that's it photography-wise for this week. My brain is fuzzy with a cold, so hopefully this makes sense!

Working With Hands

Men At Work

Usually, I try to take photos for the theme challenge on Delightful Aberrations.
But after skipping last week (no time) and having no ideas for photography this week, I decided to break with tradition and draw something this time around!

I used the prompts record and site, and practised drawing a hand in the process (because I still can't draw hands...)


Though I drew this in a different notebook, I may cut it out and stick it into the sketchbook I bought for Goal 01:

001. Fill a sketchbook with artwork/studies of only one subject

Though I haven't written about this goal much, it's one I started a while ago!

It's actually been an ashamedly long time since I attempted to draw any, but here are a few I've drawn using photos from Google image search as a reference:

 

 

I found that I like drawing with biro. If I make a mistake (which I have done in Every Single Picture) I can fix/hide it, rather than rub out part of my work and spend hours redrawing the same line over and over until I get it 'right'.

Of course, drawing from a reference picture is much easier than drawing in other styles. Am absolutely not sharing my halfassed hand-doodles today!

...this post was meant to be for the theme challenge, but ended up being more about goal 01. Oh well!

Two Heads are Better Than One

For the theme challenge on Delightful Aberrations this week, I opted for the theme head...

Admittedly I'm cheating a little, because I snapped this picture before seeing the new themes, though it was on the same day as they were posted online, so it totally counts.

I had some other ideas when I saw the list, then promptly forgot what they were. I'm remembering now, when I don't have the time or energy to do anything!

So here are a couple of heads from Arundel Cathedral, where I went last Saturday.
Didn't edit the picture much, just altered the levels and turned the saturation down very slightly so that the different coloured stone in the doorway wasn't so prominent.

This might not have been the photo I wanted to create for this week's challenge, but I like this one!

Blackberry Squash

Blackberry Squash

Once again, I participated in the weekly art/photography theme challenge on Delightful Aberrations!
This time around, I opted for the pressure theme.

I recently bought a wide-angle/macro conversion kit for my camera, so I was eager to try it out for this challenge!
The final image above is formed of six seperate photos, which I cropped and adjusted the levels of to improve the colour quality.

I created 'pressure' on the blackberry by sandwiching it between a white paper and a piece of glass on a table. Once I had set the camera focus, I pressed down on the glass to increase the pressure, whilst shooting in continuous mode, thus capturing the changes in the berry as it became squashed under the glass!

If not for the fact it's a waste of food (and would make a bigger mess to clear up), I would have used this a vice and squashed something bigger, like an orange or an egg. But blackberries were the less wasteful, less messy option--plus I got to use my conversion kit!

A note on the conversion kit: I figure it won't be as fantastic as an proper lens. But it was £10, which is nothing compared to the £150+ that a whole new lens would cost, so it was an easy choice really!

I See...

A Tall, Dark and Handsome Man

Week 20 of Delightful Aberrations' Photography & Art challenge has - in celebration of reaching its 20th week - doubled the number of prompts for the week--and also the time given to fill them!

I opted for the themes predict and affair.

Originally I'd hoped to use my camera's image overlay feature to create a final image without even having to open Photoshop.
However, the images didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped, so this is the result of one camera-overlaid image, with two more overlaid in Photoshop (and a little erasing).

This image turned out pretty cheesy and cliche, but it fits the themes.

All my other photography for this challenge, plus a couple extra, can be found on my photography tag!

Shiny Penny

Shiny Penny

This week, I picked the theme penny for the challenge on Delightful Aberrations.
Once again I feel what I've churned out is kind of uninspired, and once again I neglected to use my shiny camera in favour of snapping pictures on my phone.

This shot was a bit of a happy accident really, as I managed to turn on the flash (which is a bad idea 99% of the time) and it caused a reflection of the penny onto the paper I was using as a background!

I did take some other photos like this but they didn't turn out so well, so I'm calling this done.

The Silence of the Shadowbug

Wings

As usual, I wanted to participate in the theme challenge on Delightful Aberrations this week.
Problem is, I'm having a bit of trouble with inspiration as of late.

Tongue

Despite that, I ended up working from three of the themes, and ended up with two ideas.
These first two photos were taken using the contrast prompt, with the hook prompt added in for the second image.
These photos are of shadows on a white background. Since my camera wanted to interpret the entire picture as different shades of grey (?!) I edited it in Photoshop Elements to make the colours more accurate...then decided to go the whole hog and whack that contrast right up.

For my second idea (which sprung to mind after I'd edited these photos) I used the quiet theme.

I.D.

Ever wonder why someone is quiet?
Thoughtlessly-spoken words pile up, evolutionary survival tactics like negative bias storing them for further use--

Children should be seen and not heard.
Haha, loser.
You're boring.
Be Quiet. 
 
Such words are easily forgotten by the speaker, but not by the recipient.

I chose to combine four photos into a modern photobooth-style image because those thoughtless, unkind words all contribute to what makes the whole person.

...wow, I got pretty serious there didn't I?!
These photos were taken with my phone, because I'd already put my camera away after taking the first set.

I don't think any of the ideas I've used this week are particularly new or inventive, but I was determined not to skip another week of this challenge!

Maybe I'll try to do something more creative (or more uplifting!) next week.