ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Friday 31 October 2014

MURKY. (31/10/14)

Saltire      The weather has been warm and wet. I’ve been trying for a much better quality cinemagraph by using a still image and then running the video behind it with a hole cut in the still. Visa versa is no easier. selecting the moving bit from the video and pasting it over. I can’t get it to work for several reasons. The major problem is incompetence, then making the exposure and colour match and finally getting the images to register as HD 2K video and RAW stills are different sizes and five times different in resolution. I suspect that I have a touch of man flu starting as I just don’t seem to have the patience to sort it.

I have the boiling oil, red hot rusty barbed wire and an alligator ready to repel the trick and treaters. It is a nasty heathen pastime is trick and treating and I will be Mr Nasty if they come round bothering me. I’ll cook the little darlings and feed them to the dogs. Shoot them with a silver bullet. Get some sweets and dip them in warfarin. I’ve plenty of contingency plans. I may have cheered up by this evening and will just ask them to spell accommodation, Mediterranean or diarrhoea  and give the literate ones an apple or better still some dried prunes, castor oil and figs mixed with that bio-pot yoghurt. I may print a little notice for the van door saying.

“This is the residence of a naughty Catholic Priest and Paedophile.”

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend. If this is slow to load then either ignore it or wait. It is 22MB. I was just pushing a bit to see where the limit for a GIF file is.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

RUMBLING BRIDGE. (29/10/14)

I’m back in Moffat. Yesterday I braved the A701 in torrential rain and had half a day in Kinross. I got my photo prints from Peak Imaging and a wonderful job they have made of them. I thought some other bugger had snapped them. They are printed on Fuji gloss photo paper, bonded to 3mm foam board and have a clear acrylic film laminate bonded over the top.

I’m thrilled to bits with them and will now use them as my primary printer for ever and ever amen. Their prints are not laser or inkjet but a cunning system which converts a digital image to a negative then exposes it to archival photopaper. They are guaranteed not to rust, bust, pick up dust nor buckle and never bend for a very long time. I printed at 300mm x 240mm with a 200mm white border and they work out at £40.00p a go. Not cheap but excellent value.

I find it daunting getting film or prints back. I have to have a swift dose of campanology before I dare open the parcel. The printers at Peak Imaging are good and do use their eyes. I resized an image once and forgot to adjust levels. He phoned up to ask if it should really be darkish. He even adjusted it for me when I said it just wants the white slider pulling in until it just clips a smidgen. Saved me e-mailing another monster file. Great I’m like a dog with two tails. They aren’t perfect but then I hate looking at my own work. I showed them to a half dozen folk in the evening. My sister said could do better, my brother-in-law said crap. I did sell one. I’ll have to get another printed now as the one I sold was a Christmas present.

We took the dogs, all four. Alf, Moll, Zoe and Rosa down to Rumbling Bridge Gorge in the afternoon. The rain had stopped and it was a grand little wander.

_MG_0738      The river Devon just upstream of the gorge. It is in spate but not too seriously.

_MG_0739                  It gradually narrows from a hundred or so feet wide to about six feet wide.

_MG_0740    Narrower and narrower and faster and faster it goes.

_MG_0741

_MG_0742

_MG_0746           Until it all spews through a gap about six feet wide and lord knows how deep. It then arrives at the triple bridge.

_MG_0744            They have built some wonderful observation platforms here but they were fenced off. Below the old bridge there is a slab of stone, it’s a hundred feet below and that was the third bridge. Downstream there is a cracking set of falls but they are difficult to get at.

I took these as snaps as I was walking in company. I’d like to get down into the thick of this place with a tripod and the works but it will be a three or four person climbing expedition. I’ll look which way the light falls in winter and try and set up for some video, sound and stills over a two or three day snapping session.

If you fancy using Peak imaging then give them a ring first as if you use their Pro service they don’t sharpen or colour correct.  You have to do that which means you must have a posh monitor and a Spyder to calibrate it. I like them as I can just write on a roll of film 1 STOP UNDER. I don’t know what they do but they come back middling perfect. I only developed film as a teenager in my parents bathroom. I thought it was my bathroom. Constant banging on the door with cries of I’m getting desperate from my younger siblings. Little wonder I had mixed results, bloody horrors are children.

Have fun.

Monday 27 October 2014

HARDLY AMUSED. (27/1014)

Today has been vile, that misty rain that doesn’t sound like rain or look like rain but five seconds out in it and one is wringing wet. Tomorrow they are promising proper rain and wind which is a pity as I have to nip up to Kinross.

To cap it all I had to walk the five hundred miles…….I meant yards but if the Proclaimers can Pretenders to walk five hundred miles then I’m sure I should be able to……..Me and my big mouth; all for posh toffees, I did get some dead sheep at the butchers for supper. I have also stripped down my electric window on the van. I was having breakfast when water started dripping in so I assumed the window wasn’t closed. I pressed the button and lowered it a bit and pressed the rocker switch again and nothing happened. What a job. Two and a half hours later I got it all back together and working and the window is shut. To annoy me further the window was shut but the door wasn’t. Check the obvious first is the moral of this story.

The rest of the day has been spent cooking and playing with the USB microscope. I am thinking of focus stacking images from it but the stand it comes with is not really up to the job. It needs attaching to a macro slider so I started designing a holder which would attach to a quick release plate and then to the slider. I thought messing with particles and arty farty was hard in Blender 3D but designing something for 3D printing is equally challenging. When I’ve done it I’ll send it to someone I know at Penistone Railway Works for a quick once over and a print. I don’t know whether they can print internal screw threads, can’t see why not but if not I’ll design over size holes fill them with araldite pop the screw in and when it’s all cured I’ll use a soldering iron to heat the screw and I should have a reasonable threaded insert. Come to think I can buy thread inserts, I can buy them in lot’s of threads and with loads of different outside diameters and forms but I bet I can’t buy one.

As it is Adrian’s Images you have to have a picture.

20141027164541    I really enjoy looking down the microscope. This is a picture of spores at the bottom of a gill in a Hay Cap toadstool. It is at 500X and heavily cropped. It reminds me of fish eggs being fertilized. I have to include a picture even if it is a silly one. To section this I used an old fashioned safety razor blade. My kitchen Knife, despite much honing was not up to the job. I do look through a 4” magnifying glass I purchased in Lidl for under a pound. That, steady hands and clean living is almost as good as a microtome.

Have fun.

.

Sunday 26 October 2014

FAME. (26/10/14)

This is just a quick post as I’m having a break from Blender 3D. It is not easy using Blender for the things it does well, PS CS6 Extended for things that are easy in there, remembering to save in formats that are acceptable to both and remembering where I put them. I use a Transcend external drive which is a big help as it communicates via USB3 and takes seconds to upload and down load to it. To add to the complications I compile the finished bits in Lightworks which is very picky about what it deems acceptable. It’s all good fun and keeps my few remaining grey cells active.

Moffat is famous and celebrated for five things; sheep, toffee, tarmac, a mail coach disaster and sheep. In this post I cover all but the sheep. I leave covering sheep to the Welsh.         _MG_0737        This is the toffee. It’s boiled sugar with a vinegarish aftertaste. I enjoy it, I don’t eat sweets often so this much lasts me a year.

_MG_0729           The inventor of Tarmac is interred here. A few weeks ago I made a little video of folk using his invention. I’ll give it another airing in case you missed it and because it took me ages to do.

I find this story very moving. Two men died delivering the post. I don’t know what happened to the horses.

_MG_0732       Back in1831 it would have been a very prestigious job to be a postie. Like being CEO of Google is now. Mail coach driving carried greater risks but I’m impressed by the size of their headstones. People must have appreciated their sacrifice.

_MG_0730     I should have got a shot of the drivers headstone but it was raining and windy. I’m not made of the same stuff as these two.

Whilst in the graveyard I did notice these unusual table gravestones.

_MG_0728      The only other place I’ve seen them is at Bolton Abbey.

I am going to Kinross for a couple of days this week. I’ll call at Falkirk to see if the Kelpies are lit up at night then I'm spending till truck test time in the Borders. I’ll try for some arty farty shots in this old churchyard when I return.

Have a good week.

Saturday 25 October 2014

BALLS. (25/10/14)

Here we are in Moffat. Would Mark like some toffee? If so he will have to e-mail me his address again and before Monday as I have to go to the Post Office on Monday. I'm leaving Tuesday and haven’t got time to hang around waiting for the Posties to get in gear. I ought to offer this treat to anyone else in the UK. Three toffees posted for the first correct IDs. Trevor will be the judge and he can have a tin full. All toffees will be checked by the dogs for purity and efficaciousness…..Just kidding about the dog bit, my dogs don’t like toffee. If they find one they have a suck then spit them out. Good as gold are the dogs and better than new are the toffees.

The weather is mixed but looking a whole lot worse for tomorrow. Not to worry I have a couple of projects on which between them will take several wet days. One is a much posher cinemagraph and the other is a short video in 3D. Not 3D where folk have to wear silly specs or squint but, 3D as in, I can use a virtual camera and pan and track round the scene that I have created; it doesn’t help that I also have a lot of particles involved. I’ll get there. I can remember the time when I had trouble drawing a 3D fence post. Neither project is going well but I haven’t run out of ideas so am happy playing. Happier than the state of the art laptop I bought only months ago. Twenty months ago to be fair. I can see father Christmas getting a begging letter.

“Dear Santa,                                                                                          Please may I have the 5K monitor from the Apple Tree along with a Pro computer from the same tree. Updates and upgrades for the rest of my life and a new truck to pop it in. While I’m on, I’d love the new Canon video camera and a nubile young porteress to carry it and all the damn gear that goes with it. You may think I’m being greedy but look at the price of a RED Camera System. 

Hope the reindeer are fit and well.                                                                                   

Yours hopelessly, Adrian.”

My laptop hasn’t stalled yet but only because I split projects into little bits, 50GB little bits and then render them out. The big problem is if you don’t start with high resolution images you get fuzzy out even for the internet. This is a man who regularly adds grain to cover his incompetence…..Did I say that? I did. I should have said, to improve the viewing experience. Nothing like a bit of Gaussian Blur to cover ones editing.

Here are yesterdays pictures……The balls.

_V0G7563     Earthball. Scleroderma citrinum. The powder spilling out are it’s spores. There must be millions of them.

_V0G7567      This one I can’t identify. It is only small as you can seen by the moss which is Tortula muralis.   It is a bracket fungus and not a polpore.

_V0G7565       Earthball.

_V0G7570       A forest of Tortula muralis. If you click and hunt around you will find some minute flowers. I’ll have to get closer and have a look myself.

_V0G7564       Earthball. The moss I think is Polytichum commune. Pine moss I call it but then I am not a mossologist.

_V0G7568       I know what this is and this is a young one. It’s a….Wait……A Many Zoned Polypore.It is a bracket fungus which could confuse folk. Coriolus versicolor.

_V0G7571        Earthball.

_V0G7573        When I found these I said yes I’ve got a perfect shot of The Deceiver. Laccaria laccata. I spent most of last night checking but I think it is something else. Deceived me they did but that’s not hard to do. It’s growing with moss on a fallen beech log. The earth round about it was very wet so wet that the water squeezed from my knees and down my wellies then came back, missed my groin and soaked my tummy. If I just had an iPhone I could have got up sooner. Cannon gear is heavy. I really do need a porteress.

Have fun. I am away to cook pork chops with all the trimmings.

Friday 24 October 2014

MUCH THE SAME. (24/10/14)

_V0G7554   Yesterday I posted this mushroom and guessed it was an Orange Birch Bolete. TREVOR suggested I check out Brown Birch Boletes. I went out and walked the half mile there and back to collect it. It was raining. Thanks Trevor. It took me ages to find as it had been kicked over. Out of interest or to add interest if you click and enlarge it just to the right of centre at the top of the stalk there are a couple of tiny aphids.

Got it back and taking up my trusty metronome, that should read microtome; not to worry it was neither it was my kitchen knife. I cut it in half or as scientists say, bisected it.

_V0G7560   I left it a while but it didn’t bruise purple.

_V0G7558

_V0G7557    I am going for Brown Birch Bolete, Leccinum scabrum.

I then left the other half on a bit of paper for a spore print but it was empty and left nothing much at all. It was microscope time.

20141023171701      It’s pores or tubes at 500X.

20141023172133      The bit where the tubes join the cap. They are empty.

20141023171101        Tubes on their own.

This morning we have been out after more fungi and I found a colony of Common Earthballs. They were all long past their best.

_V0G7572       This is one of the best. I’m going to guess Scleroderma citrinum. What the green stuff is I don’t know but have seen it on them before. I have lots of pictures of these but will have a look and see if they are worth posting.

I’ll finish off today with these.

_V0G7577      Spangle Galls under an Oak Leaf. These are part of the life cycle of the Gall Wasp which part I’m not sure. I brought one back and had a look under the microscope.

20141024110004      This is the outside that you can see in the first picture at 500X. Beautiful, I’m glad I had a look.

20141024110107       This the other side. Very pretty for a backside.

That’s all for now, have a great weekend. Tomorrow I’m heading north to Moffat.

Thursday 23 October 2014

CHANGE. (23/10/14)

It is still warm but very humid. I wasn’t very happy with yesterdays waterfall pictures so this morning I decided to go looking for fungi. They are well past their best but I did get one beauty so that cheered me up.

_V0G7546

_V0G7548     I tried to clean this up but bits kept falling off so I decided to leave well alone. I think it is an old Large Pine Polypore. Phaeolus schweinitzil. It was growing on a dead pine root. The pound coin is all I had for scale. Pounds are 22mm or 7/8” in diameter. It has an earthy smell.

_V0G7554

_V0G7555    This is an Orange Birch Bolete. Leccinum versipelle. I now think this is Brown Birch Bolete. Leccinum scabrum. Thanks again TREVOR. I now have it back in the van and have taken lots of pictures with my posh new electron microscope. Did I say electron? Yes I did; I meant electric. Most Boletes are edible but there are a couple that aren’t and I find them all difficult to identify so have never eaten one. None are deadly so next time I find more than one I’ll give them a try.

After an hour wandering about I was within a few hundred yards of the van when I found this.

_V0G7549

_V0G7550

_V0G7551      Birch Polypore. Piptoporus betulinus. It’s a cracking example and perfect. These are edible but very bitter and you wouldn’t want to eat one. They can be infused and the tea drunk if you find you have worms. Here is a young one.

_V0G7552

_V0G7553  All these were taken with a Canon 100mm macro lens and ring flash aperture was f11.

That’s all for today any corrections to my notoriously bad identifications will be gratefully received.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

WATER; PART TWO. (22/10/14)

The pictures that follow are all Watendlath Beck and Lodore Falls were it not for the light rain I could have spent all day here.

I think the pictures are a bit cluttered and messy but here goes._MG_0711  Watendlath Beck from the bridge at the back of the hotel.

_MG_0715   Lodore Falls. The following are all 2s exposures.

_MG_0716

_MG_0717       That’s all for today.

No it isn’t; I did another cinemagraph, I nearly forgot it, perhaps it would have been better if I had.

lodfalls       That’s all for today.

 

WATER; PART ONE. (22/10/14)

It’s a dull windless day and spitting with rain. This morning we wandered and waded our way to Lodore Falls. I’ll split this post into two. I have lots of pictures which surprised me as it didn’t look at all promising when we set off.

_MG_0707    The River Derwent with Skidaw in the cloud.

_MG_0709        Our route was flooded. I thought it might be and debated whether to risk wellies or opt for trainers. I chose wellies and was lucky as the water came within a couple of inches of the top. I hate walking in wet wellies.

_MG_0722       The dogs had to paddle and swim. This shot was taken on the way back and for once the level had dropped an inch. Usually when I commit to a flood it rises. I can get back via Grange but it’s a mile or so on the road and I don’t enjoy walking on roads.

_MG_0724       The rain still held off.

_MG_0720       Almost.

_MG_0703        A Dead Tree.

The next part will be all pictures of the wonderfully named Watendlath Beck and Lodore Falls.