52/52 The Festive Season draws to a close

Another year over - whooooosh...!!! Where does the time go? We will be taking the tree down over the weekend, every year it looks different; we have a choice of colour schemes and Jodie chose this year. We have a system, and I am a control freak - but I am so much better than I used to be! I imagine in most families it's the Dad who does the tree lights, but in our house it's me. The strings of beads are one of my favourite decorations. The bauble featured is one of my favourites too.
All back in the boxes until next year...

Come take a look at my new blog (yeh - another one !!) which starts tomorrow :0)

51/52 The Miller's Son

We went to see a production of Puss in Boots at the Guildhall Theatre in Derby. Here is the miller's son played by Samuel Martin. It was very well done with only a narrator who also played various instruments and sang, and two actors playing two or three parts each! Costume changes were a challenge, put they pulled it off. Not wanting to be conspicuous I took the Canon Powershot A560 point and shoot, so capturing a decent image was also a great challenge. Maybe next Christmas Santa might bring me a G12...

50/52 Star lights

These new star-shaped Christmas lights reminded me of a phrase from a children's story, No Matter What by Debbie Gliori, that we had read out at our stillborn daughter's funeral in 2001: Love, like starlight, never dies.  A mother fox explains to her little focub how she'll always love him no matter how grumpy he is, even after she's died, and points out the stars in the night sky, that they died a long time ago, but the starlight still shines.

Love, like starlight, never dies.

Its one of a small number of Oliver's childhood books, since read with and enjoyed by Jodie, that I'll probably never part with.

49/52 Capturing the Light

This was captured at an event called Capturing the Light, held at Westonbirt Arboretum. There was some snow/ice on the trail as we walked around in the dark, gingerly stepping from one installation to the next with over a grand's worth of kit in hands! I didn't fall, slipped a couple of times, and came home unscathed. It was an unusual event, the talk by David Clapp was of great interest - he shoots in moonlight! Wow! Something tells me I won't be trying it, middle of the night and all that... zzzzzzzzzzzzz

48/52 Snow Cat

Our recent new arrival is curious enough to follow us outside into the snowy garden, even though he rushes straight in as soon as we do! Here he sits in one of my footprints, the snow comes half way up his body, so he must get a cold tummy. Me, I love the paw shaking ;0)

47/52 Petals

This is a rose that was in a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I was given the flowers and Mark was given a bottle of single malt whiskey at a special dinner for he and a large group of his colleagues to celebrate their 25 years of service. Neither of us drink whiskey :0}

46/52 1-2-3-Whoosh!

We have this thing, when I have my studio lights up for a session, Jodie comes and has a load of pictures taken, we mess around and have some fun. Here she's throwing her head to spread out her hair after a 1-2-3 count. She's been growing it for almost 2 years. It had been plaited whilst damp the night before so had lovely texture to it. I love this shot.
Collage necessary ;0)

Jodie doesn't need glasses - she wants to wear some though, and a friend gave her these frames, so we popped the lenses out. The eyes are cropped from the shot top right and show my silhouette in the catch-light from the Rotalux Octabox, such detail - and such beautiful eyes...
I've been learning a lot of new skills - Scott Kelby is teaching me how to do more creative things in Lr and he's a great teacher. Its not perfect, but for a first go, with much book reading (The Adobe Lightroom3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby) I'm pleased with it. (Well hey he's a big Ps and Lr cheese, having his books is almost like having him right here showing me what to do!)
 

45/52 Leaf Cul-de-sacs

Late on a Saturday afternoon Jodie and I went for a walk in Allestree Park. We collected some leaves and looked at the pond and the animal enclosure, but we'd missed the best of the afternoon, it was dropping cold so we didn't stay long. I was struck by the detail in this leaf, between the veins look like a housing estate on google maps.