J and I went back to the Bluebell Railway at the weekend, it was a lovely sunny day although the light was really harsh so I didn’t actually get many shots to speak of.  I quite like the colours and shape of this one, I’ve called it steam pipe but I’m pretty sure it actually carries oil or something – it looks too thin for steam.

And lastly – the obligatory telecoms related picture – This is a “loudaphone” from the driving cab of an electric train of some description (I should have made a note really)

As far as I can tell, this is for the driver to communicate with the brake van, although I can’t really find much information about these on google.

I was trying to avoid the obvious technology based interpretations of “plug and play” for this weeks challenge. I might possibly have gone one step too far away with this one as the plug isn’t in shot – but bathtiome involves a plug and a certain amount of play – so it works for me.

In other news, I need to renovate/descale/re-chrome my bathtaps.

At least, I think it’s looking South.

This is the first time I’ve tried using Hugin to stitch panoramas, and I’m really quite impressed by the job it does.  This was shot hand held, and is only three images.  I would have got better results if I’d locked the exposure (but I didn’t really think to) and that wiggly join in the sky on the right would be less visible.  Next time I go up there, I’ll do it properly and go for a full 360 degrees.

I’ve got a massive version (It’s 2MB and 6709 x 1665 pixels) if anyone is interested.

Oh, and sorry for the post-flood!

This is Royal Fort House in Bristol, as seen from the top of the Physics Tower.  This is my first real attempt at “tilt-shift” post processing, it sort of works I suppose.  It looks more like I’ve got greasy fingerprints on my lens than the intended “model village” thing.   Still, it was more successful than my panorama stitching attempt from the same shoot.

Being the physics building, they’re also got a radio telescope.  Rah!

I was going to take some photos of the warning signs on the side of their small scale linear accelerator, but I thought that was probably better left alone.

Jonathan and I went for a wander at lunchtime. We found some ducks.  This is possibly the best photo of a duck I’ve ever taken, and I wasn’t even looking through the viewfinder.

This weeks photo challenge is “Plug and Play” – and I had to get this image out of my head so I can crack on and do something better. For those who are going “ruh?” see the IMDb page for 1990s classic film – House Party staring “Kid n Play”

I’m sorry.  I will try harder during the week.

For this weeks Photo Challenge, I spent some time today wandering around with a cardboard box over the lens of my camera.

The idea was that by having a frame visible in the viewfinder, it eliminates the ability to crop the photo afterwards – forcing me to pay more attention to the composition of the shot before I press the button.

This a really interesting exercise, and found that I was setting up shots and then abandoning them – without wasting a frame -  shots which I would previously have thrown out at the edit stage, or tried to rescue in post processing.  It’s definitely a technique I’ll return to in the future.

As you can see from this shot of Ian, we probably looked a little odd wandering around the center of Bristol at lunchtime today  (not that I’m saying Ian looked any more odd) it was a lot of fun though.  I can see the lunchtime photowalk thing becoming a habit.

Anywho, that’s another challenge done.  I wonder what the next one will be…

At least, I think that’s what this stretch of the River Avon is called.  I went out for drinks after work last night, I wasn’t really in the mood for it (haven’t been capable of socialising all week really) but I’m glad I went.  I got a bit more sociable as the evening went on – so thanks everyone who dragged me out, it was the distraction I didn’t know I needed.

The photo above is a bit blury, but it was shot hand held as a 0.5 second exposure (I’m not that happy with the contrasty look it’s got either – but it’s the best I can get out of the image in post).

I’ve never wandered around this bit of Bristol with a camera before.  I think I’m going to go back some time over the next month to try to bag a sunset (although I’ll take a tripod next time)

Edit: I took this as well, and it sort of works.

That’s one flaming hot chili! Ahem. Sorry.

Anyway, it’s my entry to the Photo Challenge which this week has a theme of “fire”.

For those interested in the lighting (both of you!), there’s a Vivitar 283 with a full CTO gel on it at about 1/4 power, gridded with a a grid made from a cereal packet and some black straws, camera right just glancing off the front of the chili to light the fork and the front right edge.

The rest of the light is coming from a piece of rolled up kitchen paper soaked in lighter fuel and pinned to the back of the chilli.

My house now smells of lighter fuel and burnt paper.