Rough-ish, Smooth-ish

This month's photography subject was rough/smooth.  Turned out to be not an easy theme!

My choices seem to be rough-ish or smooth-ish!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

Spring has sprung!

The theme for this month in our photography group was Spring. These are my photos taken in my back garden.

This next photo is actually two photos taken one after the other and edited together.  I had to zoom in a bit on the right to be able to capture the rainbow.  I wanted to show a typical Spring day with the sky either side of the tree.  Nice day on the left.  Not so good on the right.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Framed

The theme for February's Snapshot Girls was Framed.  It took me a while to think about what I could do.  These are the photos I came up with.

The first three are new photos.

Paper collage grid

Me

A snowy day through the bedroom window

Now we move to much older photos from my vast archive!

Sydney Opera House from the inside

The garden through the arched doorway

A cat on a narrowboat

Framed by a tunnel

A narrowboat framed by a tunnel

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Lots of playing with photos

I have been playing with online editing of a few of my canal photos.  I use a free online editor called Lunapic.  As well as Microsoft Publisher. This post has a lot of photos.  And I mean A LOT!

I used these photos

And now - drum roll please - the edited ones

I also made up several A4 sheets of assorted photos like this one

I have folded these A4 sheets into zines.  I love zines as you can tell

I also printed onto tracing paper and ohp acetate sheets.  Lots of collage fodder ready to work in my sketchbook.

Well done if you got this far.  Actually I only put 19 photos after all.  Fairly average number for me!!!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Shadows

Continuing with Essence of Identity one of the suggested activites was to go for a walk and take photos of shadows.  However since we hadn't any sun here for a few days I used photos I had taken some time ago for the photography group.  I put some of them together in a montage.

The second part of the activity was to right a poem or a story about your photos. I wrote a poem.

Shadows 

What hides in the shadows?
What lurks behind the lines?

Lines drawn by the sun
through metal fencing
Charcoal grey on pale grey tarmac.

Straight lines. Diagonal lines.
Sharp point on shadows
that have no sharpness.

Straight line fencing
along straight lined paths.
Yet, in amongst the shadow lines
Shadow plants linger,
soft and curling.

What hides in the shadows
of our minds?
What lurks behind the lines
drawn on our foreheads?

The inner critic.
The voice we know that lingers,
soft and curling
And lurks behind our creativity.

Pull down the thoughts
Take captive the voice that impedes our way
Let nothing hide in the shadows
Let nothing lurk behind the lines.

I'm really enjoying writing poems at the moment.  I don't know where it will lead - if anywhere!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Another course

Yes I know!  I do too many.  But this one with Fibre Arts Take Two is a Masterclass and is called Essence of Identity.  It's about finding out more about yourself so you can put  more of yourself in your work.  I feel it builds on the mentoring sessions I had with Christine Chester in 2017.  Can't believe it's that long ago.

One of the modules has been to look at elements and principles of design - which ones appeal to us and which ones we use.

I went through some of my photos and put them together to demonstrate LINE (see above) and SHAPE (below).

 TEXTURE

 And DECAY which is another form of texture.

And you can probably see - if you didn't already know - that I'm attracted to neutral COLOURS and pale blues.  Also rust and orange!

I've also looked at my own work and where the elements and principles are in that but I'll share that another day.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Orange is not just a fruit

Just to cheer us up during these dull, dark days here are some of the photos I took for the photography group.  Our theme was colour.  I chose Orange.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice