I caught a heart faery in my kitchen last night Day 28

Oh, I'm photographically bored ;-P Weather is light grey so everything is nondescript and non stimulating.

I've remembered I need a birthday card design for my mother, so here it started.

It ended with me trying a soft suggestive image into which I really should photoshop a woman's body. No time, sadly. I will keep it on my to do list. Here's the fairy:

I'm sure you've guessed this is actually a flower. Greeting / birthday card 1:

Card 2:

"This is DEFINITELY the biggest one!" "Hmmm *not so sure*" Day 27

I wanted to do some street photography today if you can call the Bosporus a street ;-D

Daily goings on along the Bosporus include fishermen and vessels/ships. Mostly ships are big or huge while fish are small or smaller. That would not stop a typical fisherman to brag. I liked the expressions on the faces of these two. They seemed to be saying: {the right one} "This is DEFINITELY the biggest one!" while the other one would reply "Hmmmmm" and think not so sure. So, are they talking about the ship or about some fish?? ;-D

I like that there was a bit of colour available on this bleak, really cold [started as rainy] day.

By the way, I took this sitting in the slow traffic along the Bosporus and liked it. Composition cannot be helped, with parked cars on the sides of the road and trees overhead I had very limited options + a window of 3 sec to shoot this.

I pulled this through Nik filter that makes it resemble an old analogue shot. It made the colours deeper. I love how I can make the shots look like analogue but keep the benefits of digital, only problem is that SOOC has to be worked on in this case. 5 min job.

I keep passing you by all the while I should be thanking you Day 26

All the things I take for granted, all the things I ignore, all these things and creatures I should be thankful for... The tree, for example, I pass thousands daily and never think about breathing, writing, heating... Well in the summer I think of shade and definitely notice if there's none around but that's about it.

When it rains, the bark gets washed and shows more colours. The texture is simply amazing, I wish I had sharper lens with me (and that it wasn't raining so I wouldn't need that high ISO).

Oh, yeah, this one I needed to pull through Photoshop to make the tree (some ;-D) justice. I played with layers to bring the colours out - just to pull them back to what they're in real life. Sometimes digitals exasperate me - colours just wash out. Then again I would not be doing 365 if I had to use the darkroom daily, would I?! And that's not the only reason why I love my Canon D ;-D

Thank you tree.

Baby baby it's bleak outside Day 25

Nothing to report today ;-D

I was doing everything else but thinking about photography (much). Shot the bleakest photo of my life [on purpose] but the result is SO bleak that I wouldn't dare upload it as a free standing pic!! It's not even desaturated! Then it was late and... well what's handy and right in front of my nose?? My mouse was wearing jewellery tonight :-D

This looks crispier and lighter (shadows are not so deep) on my computer, gets darker when uploaded.. oh, well, tomorrow is another day ;-D

The purpose of balconies ;-D Day 24

I like Arnavutkoy, the wooden waterfront mansions (yalis) are just gorgeous as are some villas further in and up the village (funny how districts in Istanbul are mainly called villages, especially along the Bosporus... koy [umlaut on u but, again apologies, not on my keyboard] actually translates as village). These yalis are just so pretty, with details, decorations, carvings, arabesques, one even sports a turret...

I like how the shadows resemble lace.

I though it's funny how there are clothes being aired on 2 out of 3 balconies - unusual I tell you.

Perspective corrected in Photoshop.

When darkness falls I bare my heart to you I show my soul Day 23

The title, by the way, is meant to be read as if I'm saying it, not he.

Apologies for late uploading.

I shot this with a little "theme" on my mind. I was cruising around "too dark" "low contrast" "darkness" and I ended up with a low key image (i.e. on the darker side). Soft light from a ceiling light fixture coming trough the door and I'm lurking in the shadows on the left from it - well yes behind the door ;-D

Grrr, this was tough and I'll have to redo it, with a more strobist approach (NOW that's terrifies me at the moment and I'd never be able to hold him down while testing strobes and since I don't have experience, he'd run away to more important things to do. I have to publicly thank him for assistance and patience while I was happily learning by doing). Next time. Anybody volunteers for posing?? I promise, I'm very gentle ;-P

Oh, a list of things learned:
a) carefully choose your exposure, even with RAW files, too too dark is just too dark, no way to pull those pixels back
b) do not apply noise filter (add noise) and then clone out light pollution from a candle in the distance, cloning/repairing etc. seems to kill noise and makes the whole darkness seem weird. So clean up fist, then add noise. Even better, make sure there's no light pollution etc.
c) don't take crisp sharpness in darkness for granted (now this is a problem I have to solve..)

All in all it was a great experience :-D

Dancing, yeah Day 22

I was looking at my belly dancing "scarf" and thinking...

I don't do selfies (self portraits) - so here is the 1st one, need to start. You get to learn 2 things about me: I mostly wear black and I think dancing is fun, furthermore belly dancing is a great exercise.

Billy Idol comes to mind

... well there's nothing to loose

and there's nothing to prove

I'll be dancing with myself

...

Dancing with myself

If I had a chance

I'd ask the world to dance..

Shot through milky glass door, light comes only from my bathroom light. Not corrected at all, only 2 shots combined in one in PS.

Strange how my brain cannot grasp the obvious when editing at 1:30 in the morning. I flipped the left pic  so I'm dancing with myself ;-P

The first posting is now a sequence and the second more about mood...

Is there such a thing as portrait of a dog? Day 20th's 2nd choice

Meet Noor, the sweetest, gentlest dog I've met, a playful giant (the breed is called Scottish Deerhound).
Love her!
I think it's so curious that this comes out as a close up portrait, I don't know if it means anything at all to all of you who've never met her, but to me this is a candy for my soul.