Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Geometric Shapes

This week Cee from Cee’s Photography has asked us for our geometric shapes.

This image is actually a mattress.  A couple of weeks ago our neighbour was clearing out her house.  The tenants had done a midnight runner and left everything behind. I mean everything.  I even scored a sofa and easy chair out of it. Anyway these mattresses were lined up on the fence.  If you don’t want to waste money on taking these to the rubbish dump you just put them out on the front lawn, and any good stuff would be gone by the end of the day.

This mattress wasn’t that good so that it took a while for it to go.  But I loved the shapes and patterns on it.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Geometric Shapes

https://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/geometric-black-and-white-challenge-goes-out-out-of-this-world/

https://nowathome.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-geometric-shapes/

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Phone Numbers

Good morning from a frosty Hastings day.

This week Cee at Cee’s Photography  has asked for photos of numbers.  What photo to use.  I was using the phone and saw all the numbers on it – so I just took a photo of it and edited it in Photoshop.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Numbers

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/cees-black-and-white-challenge-no-6/

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Mushrooms up close

Good morning from a grey, wet and miserable Hastings.

Even though the weather was lousy yesterday I still managed to get out and find some photos.  Actually I don’t have many rainy day photos as it has hardly rained over the past few weeks.  Even with no rain we still got some mushrooms growing in the lawn, thanks to heavy dews in the morning.

I don’t know what my neigbours think when they see out in the rain down on the ground taking these photos.  All in the name of art. And for Cee’s challenge at Cee’s Photography

Today I am excited as my daughter Ruth is coming up to visit me for the weekend.  They have a mid semester break so she is now on the bus on her way.  It seems a long time since she left but it is only 2 months since she left.  We have some photo safaris planned as she is doing photography at university – hope the weather improves somewhat.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Close Ups

English Spring in Close Up – Monochrome

Cee’s Black and White Challenge:Telephones

Good morning from a sunny Good Friday in Hastings.

I have spoken before of experimenting with the grunge affect in the dark room, long before it became a preset filter for Photoshop.  This photo was part of an exhibition I had in Austria and Italy back in 1994 – 1995. The theme of the exhibition was Nostalgia.  I was with 3 others.  Tony went around taking photos of old buildings.  Gerhard was a doctor and took photos of his oldest patients while Maria took coloured photos of different festivals that was a tradition in Austria.  I was, obviously, the only foreigner and the only one to experiment so radically for my images.  My concept was because I was so far away from my home country that the phone was a connection to my past.  It was deliberately out of focus because looking back can be fuzzy – with memories not as clear anymore.  Well sort off.

I went through a lot of paper and chemicals to get this affect.  I experimented with different  papers before finally coming up with a heavy grainy paper from England.  The photo was taken deliberately out of focus and slightly over exposed when I printed it.  For the sepia affect I experimented with using different textured fabrics soaked in the sepia toning and laid it over the image to get the grunge affect.  I don’t know how many different types of fabric I used before I got this final image.  This was such a long winded process so that I am so glad that we had digital processing now.

This is for Cee at Cee’s Photography‘s challenge this week which calls for telephones – old, new, vintage, cell phones.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Telephones – new, cell, vintage, etc.

https://ritvasillanmaki.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/cees-bw-vintage-telephones/

Telephone Boxes – soon a thing of the past

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Cee’s Black and White Challenge: The Piper

Good morning from a cool Hastings morning.  Autumn has hit us hard after the storm.

This week Cee at Cee’s Photography has asked for musical instruments, people, sheet music or audio devices for her black and white challenge this week. This was a hard one for me but then I remembered this photo from last year.  I always get goosebumps when I hear a lone piper.  This piper was shot during the ceremony to commemorate the 1931 earthquake.  He walked up the length of Heretaunga Street piping and people just stopped what they were doing to listen.  So it was an eerie silence with just the sounds of the pipes.

Please excuse the graininess. It was taken with my iPhone 5S and then heavily cropped.

 http://ceenphotography.com/2015/03/19/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-music-people-instruments-sheet-music-audio-devices/

Musical Ljubljana

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Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Photos of Cameras

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Good morning from a grey Hastings day.  At the moment it is the lull before the storm.  There is a category 5 cyclone heading towards Vanuatu at the moment and then it heads towards New Zealand.  That is the highest category that can be given.  Yesterday we has some much needed rain which has now stopped, but we have been warned. The East Coast where I live is expected to bear the brunt of it.  Last year we had a big storm, but this is supposed to be huge.  I have just heard that it will be the strongest storm to hit us.   I will take it as it comes.

This week Cee from Cee’s Photography has asked for all forms of cameras as well as the people behind the camera.

A couple of weeks ago I used a photo of The Spirit of Ecstasy for my Monochrome Madness entry.  As you can see she was a very popular lady.  The same happened with Rene Laliques Eagle’s Head.  I think this car was an early Silver Ghost.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Any kind of Camera or Photos of Photographers

https://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/black-and-white-camera-use/

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Things made out of plastic

Here is my challenge for Cee’s black and white challenge.

I was thinking of what photo to use.  The only thing I could think of was plastic bottles.  So yesterday I took this photo of a half empty drink bottle on the table.  The table cloth was floral.  In colour that table cloth was very distracting.  Then when I edited it to black and white I found this eye.  In colour this is lost. Edited in photoshop (not very good but I am getting there.)

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Things Made Out of Plastic

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Cee’s Black & White Photography: Wheels

Good morning from a cold but sunny Hastings morning.

All week I have been posting photos from the Art Deco Weekend.  I seemed to have taken photos to suit all the prompts this week.  And this photo for Cee’s challenge is no different.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Wheels

I actually don’t mind the lady sitting in the front as she gives some idea as to how big this old steam engine is.

I gave it a light sepia tone to it to give an aged feel after I had added some grunge affects with Fotor to blur out the background.

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