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A couple of weeks ago, rather than going on a big photographing and walking trip I decided just to travel down the motorway a bit and stop at one of the picnic areas. I eventually settled on the picnic area near the junction of the A420 and the A46. There's a nice patch of grass on a hill which gives a nice view of the surrounding countryside. After taking a couple of photos here I then decided to walk round the edge of the grass and see what there was to photograph in the surrounding undergrowth. What followed was a sort of minature safari which was an enjoyable way to spend about an hour in the sun. I've only just got round to sorting through the pictures and I've put a few up here for you to look at.

Over the last week or so, I've been frantically trying out different colours and types of glass both from bought Moretti rods and Bullseye ones together with all the various bits and bobs of stained glass left over from other projects, including Bullseye fusible glass and Spectrum fusible too. I've also looked at what in the house I could use to create different shapes in the glass before buying any presses or mashers. I've discovered that a good ridged barrel shape can be made from rolling a bead along a fish slice and a stainless steel paint scraper can be used with a marver to flatten a bead from front to back. At first I was disappointed that some of the paler colours such as pink and white streaky opaque or pale blue and white opaque came out smokey coloured as well as the oranges, greens and yellows but after trying to work further out from the flame of the Hothead, the colours stayed true. It does seem to take longer to make the bead though. I had contemplated getting an oxygen supply for the torch to improve the combustion but decided to try working further from the flame first of all. I'm glad I did as I've spent far too much money on glass and tools this month.

I wanted to experiment a bit more to see what happened to some of my store of stained glass when made into a bead. I cut strips 1/4 inch wide and about 9 inches long. When my offcut of glass was smaller, I cut short strips and held the end with a pair of heavy duty pliers. There were some surprising results, not least that a pink and white streaky opaque glass gave a grey bead even when overlaid onto a base bead of white. Some results were better than expected colourwise and the shaping went not too badly too. The barrell shape is the 1st bead on the fourth row and the flattish egg shape is the last bead on the fourth row. I have kept notes of what glass went into each bead, whether one colour was overlaid onto another. I attempted to keep compatible COE (Coefficient of Expansion) glasses together, but time will tell after the beads are kiln annealed.

After waiting too long for one Company to fullfill my order for a torch, I phoned Tuffnell Glass in Yorkshire last Tuesday PM and the torch and ancillary equipment was delivered Thursday morning, so very good service from them. I got a tank of propane gas on Friday from the local camping store and we sorted out a temporary place for me to torch on Saturday. The beads in the photo following are the result. Basically I played, trying out first Moretti glass rods and then some Bullseye fusible. I even tested some Spectrum fusible and waterglass to see what would happen to the colours. I kept notes because although most of the non-Moretti colours produced dark/greyer/beigey shades, I could see that such odd colours might come in useful some day. I even melted a piece of Kokomo brown and green streaky to see what happened. The squarish beads in the picture are the result. I also made some twisties for the first time and used them in a few of the beads. I cooled the beads in vermiculite for the time being but when I have a few more, will put them in the kiln to properly anneal. At the moment, I am standing to torch but have to take a rest after each bead as my back muscles go into spasm, (old injury).

As I've been trying to archive images off my hard drive this week to free up more space for pictures I've come across a lot of images that I'd 'forgot' about or put to one side to deal with later. One of these is a picture of my brother Mat which I took this Christmas. He was just sitting on the stairs watching TV while I was sat playing with the settings on my camera. I realise that I already have a portrait of my brother Edd on this site but no picture of Mat so without further ado....

This morning, as it was a clear night, I decided that I would try and see if I could take some star trails. I've never taken any before so I went out as a learning experience and to become more comfortable with being out on my own in the middle of no-where in the dark. I took the car to increae my illusion of safety and parked up on a small lane slightly to the north east or where I live. Although there was still quite a bit of ambient light around as it was a crecent moon there were still a lot of stars to be seen with the naked eye. Whether they would come out on the camera or not I was unsure of. I started off with some quick exposures, mainly because despite it being a back road and I thought, pretty deserted, one person drove past while I was taking pictures and one person rode past on a bike! My exposures in these two cases were not so much 'I'll expose it for x seconds', rather 'there's light coming, close the shutter'.

One of the cool things about where I work is that we sometimes get a random flypast of various different aircraft which is cool if you are like me and like planes. Last time it was Harriers and Spitfires. Today it was the Airbus A380. I went out onto the grass leading up to the start of the runway with some colleagues. The weather has been miserable all day with scattered downpours and dark clouds. Everyone was hoping that it would stay sunny long enough for a good view of the aircraft.

This is another panoramic image that I took while trying out my new tripod head. It was taken in April. I've fiddled with it to try to give it an 'older look' but it was mainly taken just to use my new tripod. I think if I was to take this again, I would get someone to pose in period farmer costume, maybe with one leg resting on the hoe and chewing a piece of straw. Anyone fancy dressing up for me?

It's been a while since I've updated so I thought I'd make an effort with this post.

Around the end of April I obtained a new panormic head and legs tripod combination for my camera to aid in taking panoramic shots so that they line up properly when you try to stitch the multitude of images together. I decided that I would head out in my car and look for anywhere interesting that I might try out my new 'toy'. The tripod needs setting up accurately for it to work properly so it was also an opportunity to test out the settings that I'd figured out to see how correct I'd managed to get them.

My brother Edd had his brain imaged as part of a study that he is involved in. He's added them to his site for others to look at. His brain looks 'wonky' and even though me and my other brother probably joshed him around a lot we didn't do anything that would deform his brain (I hope!). I wonder if all brains look 'wonky' when imaged and that the views we see on television have had the Photoshop treatment - the equivalent of the models in magazines getting airbrushed to make them look prettier.

The only downside to my bro's imaging is I have now lost the ability to insult him about having no brain - he can prove that he has (even if it does look slightly wonky ;-))!