Sarah – Page 46

Sarah May 12, 2013

Green fingers #motivationalmonday #spring carnival.

We have a small town garden, we live in the middle of a large city and don’t have the 500,000 you need to buy a house with a field size patch of grass behind our house so we have what we have..which is enough i might add…i aint moanin’

The OH and I are not exactly blessed with a love of gardening…neither of us naturally gravitate to tinkering with plants and flowers and there is often a little grave yard of potted plants along our windowsills and dotted around the garden. In fact during the winter we largely ignore the garden and lets face it the winter has gone on a LONG time this year.

This year the garden has been made even more barren by the loss of our adopted pink blossom tree which you can read about here. I still miss it, which is silly really but it has made me really nostaligic whenever i see a lovely cherry blossom in bloom.

Last week we had some sun, it suddenly started to feel like spring, heck i even went outside the house without socks on! *gasp* We spend more time outside when its warmer and so i start to notice our poor neglected garden. Which to be honest wasn’t looking as bad as i thought. It amazing what will just grow regardless. It would seem, rather happily, that despite our best efforts, nature still gets her best frock on even when the dress makers would rather be doing something else instead….bravo nature!

It was nice seeing the sun for a while. Feeling inspired to do more with our garden. Of course its rained and been cold for the past nearly a week so we are a bit on the back foot!! 😉

It was a taking some shade under the tree kind of day for the little sub-woofer.

This week continuing on the gardening theme my giveaway is a book for those of you who are green fingered…its a book by Gardener’s world Toby Buckland called Flowers.

all you have to do is fill in the rafflcopter as per and away you go. The winner of the LEGO dictionary was Sally Poole. PLease get in touch to claim your prize!

and dont forget to go and link up with the spring carnival and check out the mondayclub

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow:

Sarah May 11, 2013

#silentsunday

Follow:

Sarah May 10, 2013

#satcap fun at the garden centre!

Who needs a park when you can go to the garden centre? loads of fun! Bit scary if you met it coming round the corner though!!

So what do you think? can you caption it? Thanks so much for your comments and head over to the big MAMA to see some more.

Follow:

Sarah May 10, 2013

50 things. Number 46. #Countrykids #springcarnival

Flicking through the 50 things booklet from the National Trust, it was good to realise how much the kids have done already. I really love the idea of working through the booklet. The kids are really enthusiastic about it to which is all good. So far we are planning to get into some of the outdoors and have a go at some of the other numbers that we are missing out on.

I think last week my OH may have been cheating a bit when he lit a fire in an old wheel rim in our yard. Not sure that qualifies as cooking on a campfire. If you are interested in the 50things check out the website and also hop over to the boy and me who is running a linky on that very subject.

So this week i thought i would reflect on something that is one of the 50 things that the kids have done many times, largely because of my OH and his background in climbing. The kids are encouraged to climb safely, taking care about hand holds, being aware of how high they are if they are bouldering, going to climbing walls and becoming familiar with be-laying and trusting your partner.

They have climbed on walls, boulders, trees and of course all the other random things that children like to climb.

I think its great for teaching them how to trust their own abilities and also each other! All pretty good lessons i think. It sometimes gives me grey hair and our youngest has without doubt got the climbing gene that is FOR SURE. We were finding her on top of bunk beds when she was only just over a year old!!

Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Follow:

Sarah May 6, 2013

Composition #dadarazzi #photography101

This week instead of covering another technical aspect of your camera I though i would focus on a more artistic look at how we can make our pictures look desirable to the human eye.

Just before i start actually though, thanks so much for all your lovely feedback about these posts. The biggest thrill i get is that people say they are going to go and have a go with their camera. That is my aim. Not to come across as a big know it all camera person. Because I am so not. But just to encourage parents to get out there and capture life as it happens in their families. Like the Fool did last week, experimenting with shutter. This week im re-naming my mamarazzi as dadrazzi in his honour 🙂

Anyway..so this week its all about composition. What is it that makes you look at an image and go WOW.

As photographer we can control what the viewer sees in our image. That can be by using things like shutter/aperture and manipulating the light..but also how we present the image is important. Where is the eye drawn to in an image? How is it all coming together.

Here are a few basic ‘rules’ you can follow.

Leading Lines

This principle is based on leading your viewers eye to what you want them to focus on by the use of lines in an image. They don’t need to be straight, just needs to be something that ‘lures’ the eye to the object of interest.

Here are some examples..

you can use so many different things as leading lines..here are some train tracks…

or something simple like a path

doesnt have to be just for kids either..you can use leading lines for anything you want to draw attention to.

fences are really good for leading lines, especially for portraits. get your subject to lean in to wall and then you do the same and shoot 😉

can even be something like a shadow

Frame it up

Im not talking about putting your picture in a frame on your mantel. Although we ALL probably need to do more of that and give our crippled hard drives a break from storing all those images that never get seen! But no what im talking about is using an element in your scence to provide a natural border that draws attention where you want it. You can use anything from the outline of a door or window to a row of trees of cluster of bushes. Basically anything that surrounds your subject will pack a punch.

Look for negative

Not as in, think negatively, but as in think about the power of negative space in your image…nothingness. It really can pack a huge punch. It means an area of your image that has no visual content in it. Intentionally leaving some empty space around your subject can make a huge impact. Works well when following the rule of thirds…

and lastly – for now…

Get off Kilter

So you think that you always have to have your subjects standing up straight and all your horizons level. Well sometimes its good to mix it up a bit and shoot on an angle. A tilted photo can add visual interest to your scene. The thing is to make your slant obviously intentional and not so awkward that your subject seems to be sliding out of the frame. Similarly, incorporating diagonal lines to your photo can aid the eye in moving across the image, giving your image energy.

Here are some examples..