Simon Pattison Designs

Had a fantastic day photographing Simon's work. Simon is my cousin's boyfriend and he needed some photographs of some of his vases for a gallery in Paris.  The silver bowls he is hoping to sell so needed some photos of them for that, they gave me the most almighty headache.  Photographing anything shiny and reflective is a total mare!  I spent 3 hrs and used all manner of tricks to try and get something half decent (Simon has been sworn to secrecy about how hopeless I was!).  We had a break for lunch and then I photographed the brightly coloured vases, which I love and they were fantastic to photograph. As you can see:

A photographer's dream frankly.  And then we took them indoors and things just got better!

And then I was inspired and decided to have another go with the beautiful silver bowls.

Simon left with 28 photos on disk ready for his website and to send to the Gallery in Paris and I was very pleased that I solved the problem with the bowls!

Steve and I had a weekend off! I know, we were pretty shocked too, it was blissful. Today we decided to head over to Glossop where Steve used to go as a boy, it was the last stop of the bus from Hyde and he used to take his little sister with him.  He wanted to walk along the path they used to take and show me the stream he used to dam, apparently he bought cans of Tab that he put into the stream to keep cold to convince his much younger sister to walk back to the bus stop!

On the way over the tops from Holmfirth the views were spectacular as we had been blessed with the perfect day so decided to pull into the parking area to take some photos.  In photography light is all, timing is a close second - today I got both on the nail!

His photos will be better than mine, not least because I'm not in them!













Then back in the car and continued on to Glossop for our walk.


Tucked up like this I assume this is someone's pride and joy!




Wonderful day that we both really enjoyed.

Scrabble - High Key

Scrabble was stood on the window sill in the lounge barking like a loon and I suddenly realised that with my flash and a smattering of creative genius I could take some high key photos of him, so here they are!

Classic "who me?" Scrabble

Check those ears.

"Winsome" Scrabble

Playing with the light

Grandkids Mono

or

Exmoor

Had a fantastic week in Porlock Weir with Steve, took loads of photos but wont post them all just my very favourites.

Having this one printed to be framed.


This one printed on canvas.

And the rest are going in a photo book.











And this is our friends, Allan and Maria, watching the waves.

Celtic crosses & little bit of heaven.

Last of the Cornwall holiday pics.  Which is just as well as am off to Exmoor on Saturday for a few days away with Steve, I have been very lucky this year!
 
Was driving home from Minack along the coast road when I spotted a grave yard with lots of Celtic crosses, which I love.  Dad was very obliging and agreed to stop so mum and I could go and take photos, we have him well trained!



 




I knew what I wanted to do with this photo, cross lit and church in silhouette but I don't think I quite pulled it off sadly!

Then we headed back to my favourite place in all the world - Mum & Dad's house!


They have decorated the wall that runs along the path with souvenirs of all their holidays and its something my sister and I have joined in with, I love it! In fact the second wall hanging, the terracotta circle with the swirl in the middle (which my sister brought back from Spain for them) is exactly the same as the middle of the cross above, 3rd photo down. I have googled this to try and find out what the symbol is but can't find it. If anyone knows please let me know!




Its really quirky!


And their back garden, there is nothing nicer than sitting here with a gin and tonic listening to the seagulls and the helicopters from Culdrose flying over head. Bliss.

Minack Theatre, Cornwall

Not only did the sun shine on Monday but it shone on the Tuesday too, doubly blessed as Meatloaf once said. (I grew up in Cornwall, think yourself lucky that wasn't a Status Quo lyric).

So the Minack Theatre; one womans dream hewn from the unforgiving granite cliff face below her garden. I kid you not. Rowena Cade moved to Lamorna in the 1920's with her mother.  She was clearly a lady of great vision and the idea for the Minack theatre was born after she put on a production of "A Midsummer Nights Dream".  Full history, and one of my favourite photographs ever here - the portrait of Rowena sat in her wheelbarrow is wonderful!  Needless to say Minack has the most amazing back drop, I was last there when I went to see a production of "Macbeth" which I was studying for GCSE English, so that would have been around 30 years ago, eek!  Now there is a fantastic museum which details the history of the theatre, a cafe with quite possibly the most breathtaking view of any in the UK and a gift shop that sells Cornish Tablet, ingredients of which are Sugar, Sweetened Condensed Milk and Butter (9%), its not for the faint hearted, or those with type 2 diabetes as my dad discovered.

So onto the photos.

Not a bad place for a ham sandwich.

 This gives you some idea just how steep it is.

 

Dad was in charge of the lunch.

The sea was the most glorious colour.

Brave or mad? Either way I hope he caught something worth the effort of getting down there.

The seats were all fashioned out of concrete and are hand decorated and inscribed with the names and dates of productions.

Next year am going to try to get to an evening performance in the hope that I will be able to take photos as the sun sets, can you imagine?!  Knowing my luck will be lashing down and blowing a gale!

Aren't these beautiful?  And isn't in annoying when you know the name and it has gone clean out of your head?  Agapanthus, phew!

 

Bet this lot were having a FANTASTIC day in all that sun shine, blissfully aware that they were being photographed by dozens of strangers on the cliffs above.  I love being really nosey and peering in where you aren't expected, like this:

Zoomed in on a small area of the beach from the photo above!  Voyeur, me?!  Look for the pink surfboard in both pics to get your bearings!