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Yesterday, after spending the weekend hanging around my flat I figured it was about time that I stepped outside and saw so light that wasn't generated by electrons hitting a phosper screen. I set out with my camera gear and just went for a walk around the local area. I visited places that I'd already been - the Three Brooks Nature Area and the local lake but didn't really find any inspiration.

I've had some time to process some more of the photos that I took last weekend while out with my friend. While looking for a way up to Racton Monument we passed a church. The Sunday morning mass was just finishing as we went past so we left to come back later when we would be able to park. I was hoping that we might be able to get some pictures of the stained glass panels in the window through one of the other windows from outside but amazingly, when we came back over to the church after photographing the Monument, the church was still open and we could get inside.

Last weekend I visited one of my old friends from Uni down in Southampton. On the Sunday we decided we would go out for a drive and see where it took us. While looking for something that was listed on my atlas as an 'abandoned village' we came across an interesting looking ruin on top of a large hill. It took a while to find somewhere where we could park and gain access to what eventually turned out to be a folly.

I finally did it - took the plunge an bought a new printer. I wasn't sure it was going to work properly as my computer doesn't meet the minimum recommended specification for running it but it seems to be OK so far. (You know your computer is old when it doesn't meet the spec of a printer!) I spent most of yesterday playing and have used all but one of 4x6's you get in the test pack that comes with the printer in the box. I've been putting a different sort of picture on each one to see how different things come out on the print. There's a couple of black and white portraits, a couple of high colours and some other stuff.

I've been playing with panoramic shots and have yet to find a satifactory way to display them. Underneath the 'read more' link is a panoramic image of the lake in my previous post. If all goes well, it'll be displayed in an IFrame. It's only 3 shots and the image is 91KB in size (I've made it a lot smaller than the original). I tried the SPi-V engine but didn't find it very satisfactory. If you've got a better idea of how to display it let me know. I'd be very interested!

It's been a long time since I posted anything but for a good reason - honest! Work has been manic the past couple of weeks and I've been putting in more hours than normal leaving me wanting to just sit around and vegetate at the weekend. The end of this week calmed down a bit so I managed to leave on time Thursday and Friday therefore this weekend I figured I'd use my 'perkyness' to take my camera out into the local area.

This weekend I spent exploring the part of the Cotwold Way national trail. I took some panoroama photos and some others that I am still sorting out but to keep with the stained glass theme that is currently going on I've uploaded a couple of panels I photographed while on my travels. The first is from St. John's Church in Old Sodbury. The church was closed but this panel is located in the entrance porch.

St. John's Church: Stained glass panel located in the porch of St. John's Church, Old Sodbury.

This time last year, I decided to pay a carpenter to replace six of my inner doors so that I could make stained glass panels for each room. The outside of the house has UPVC double glazed units so no opportunity for me there to add panels. I love colour hence what some may think are garish colours in some of the panels suit me and DH lets me decorate with whatever colours I like. The panels for the six doors follow. In some cases the glass colours have had to be sacrificed in order to get a clearer photo and most were taken with a white sheet suspended behind the door a little way.

I'd always been intrigued by this design which in some way reminded me of an Egyptian motif on a tomb. I liked the flowing lines and the many colours I could use.

I'm still experimenting with my pot melts and decided to try one with two extra holes in the bottom of the flower pot. I also stacked the glass in alternating colours with the largest weight of glass being blue followed by just over half the amount of red. I also added some white, orange and green small pieces and some black stringer, ( long thin rods of glass about the thickness of a pencil lead).

This time too I covered the kiln shelf in Boron nitride kiln shelf wash as the refractory to stop the glass sticking to the shelf. Previously I had used fibre paper which results in the reverse of the melt requiring more work to provide a smooth finish. So I eagerly awaited the result. After leaving the kiln to cool naturally for just over 16 hours the result is shown below.

It's not been a good weekend for me for photography. I went out yesterday with my camera, walking from where I live over into the Winterbourne area of Bristol and wandering around the country lanes and fields there. I only took 21 photos for the 4 hours or so I was out and 6 of those were related to a panoramic picture which is currently suffering from a photo join mismatch in the sky area where two power-lines don't quite join up. It's annoying as the rest of the photos go together well.