December Calendar

Despite the fact that many people have been talking about Christmas since September, we are now only just about to enter December. As a big fan of autumn I am always dismayed to see people wish it away so fervently, so I for one have been embracing it.

I do like the winter though, and always enjoy Christmas – when the time actually comes, and not for months beforehand.  I don’t decorate until around the Solstice and it all comes down at least by the New Year. I’m no humbug, I just like to keep it in its place and enjoy the rest of the time for what it is.

I hope you like this year’s final free to download calendar page – this time last year we were enjoying a rather unseasonal snowfall.  The Christmas card industry would have us believe that this kind of scene is normal for the time of year, so I’ve given in and hope you will enjoy its icy goodness from the warmth of your own home or office.  You can still download the previous months’ pages (see below the main image).

Here I usually announce that the next page will be available at the end of the month. However, for 2012 I will be posting calendar pages that I have created for my good friends at Inner City Pickle in Cardiff.  The pages will have lots of lovely images of the locally produced and sourced fruit & veg that Eira uses for her amazing jams, pickles and preserves – a truly local and ‘green’ business in the heart of the city.  I hope you will enjoy the calendar pages wherever you are.

If you sign up for updates on new posts, you won’t miss them.  You can see more of my photographs on my Bēhance portfolio (as well as some of the floral and decay images from the 2011 calendar pages).

To download, free to print for your own use, just click on the image below, and thank you for visiting this year.

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November Calendar

Eeek! I’m late with this one. The end of October was so hectic that it completely slipped my mind. My apologies.  I’ve been out and about photographing more stained glass – look out for several posts about this on my other blog very soon.

I hope you like this month’s free to download calendar page – back to decay (which is what the autumn is all about after all) and a moody shot taken in a Berlin cemetery.  You can see more of my photographs on my Bēhance portfolio (as well as some of the floral and decay images from this year’s calendar pages).

You can still download the previous months’ pages (see below the main image) and the next one will be out towards the end of November (promise!).  If you sign up for updates on new posts, you won’t miss it.

To download, free to print for your own use, just click on the image below.

January  February  March  April  May  June  July August  September  October

Cano Cafenol – how do you take yours?

Chunky Cano Cafenol Cruets by Rantz

Today Hipstamatic launched two new films to go with the recent ‘free’ Chunky lens that marked New York Fashion week.  If you missed that one don’t worry, it’s part of today’s release.

I’m not yet convinced about the Blanko Noir film – that will take some more experimentation – but I do like the soft qualities of the Cano Cafenol.  It’s described thus:

Almost as tasty as a cup of morning joe. The mysteriously aged darkness in the Cano Cafenol film is a delightful alternative to sepia processing.

I was expecting a general sepia toning, along the lines of some of the black and white films offered by the app.  I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised to find that it loves colour too.  The sepia is a gentle hint; an atmosphere.  If we’re too hip for rose tinted glasses, we can at least be moody.

Chooks by tony_the_bald_eagle

Cano Cafenol subtly alters the colours, giving a general sepia ‘air’ – in some cases almost as if the image has been hand-tinted.  It seems to work equally well with soft and sharp shots and across several lenses.  So far today, most of the shots I’ve seen have been with the Chunky lens as that’s still a novelty.  It’s a good mix.

I particularly like the border on this one.  I’m a big fan of the Kodot (in its former Verichrome and its current XGrizzled state, which is now part of the standard issue) and the BlacKeys B+W borders, so that will be no surprise.

I have curated a gallery on Flickr with some of my favourite (so far) Cano Cafenol photos from today (and in some parts of the world, yesterday).  There’s still room to add more so I’d love to see what you’ve taken and hear what you think of these new additions.  Also, how do you pronounce it? Feel free to post links with your comments below.

 

Quick snap taken in my kitchen

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Yellow Fever

It seems that everyone’s moaning about the winter at the moment.  The problem is, I think, that they started moaning about it in December when we were just getting over Autumn.  No wonder everyone’s so fed up.

So I thought I’d put out a cheerful and encouraging post today.  Spring is on its way! Yes I’ve seen the signs – little flowers are starting to pop their heads through the hard soil and buds and catkins are appearing on trees.

Yellow is a colour that is prevalent throughout the spring, summer and even autumn, and yet it is perhaps most closely associated with the onset of spring.  It may be because of the “host of golden daffodils” that appear in our woodlands, parks and gardens, and even on the high street outside florists, greengrocers and petrol stations.

Yellow is seen as a positive colour.  To me it lacks the warmth of orange, but it certainly does brighten things up.  On the other hand it can be a warning. We use it on our signs to bark instructions, warn of danger and send out signals at a distance. In nature it can mean poison, particularly when teamed with black.

Traditionally its ‘opposite’ (on the colour wheel) is purple or violet, but this pairing often jars the senses.  The orange/blue pairing works well, but yellow/purple and the red/green do not seem to share that harmonious relationship.  However yellow is complimented well by blue, as can be seen in the centre image of the yellow flower against a blue sky.  It’s all about light rather than colour wheels.

Yellow has a broad range of ‘types’ as with all the colours I’ve discussed so far.  It can veer towards orange or to green in hue. It can be a subdued ‘mustard’ yellow (supposedly the fashion colour this season) or scream at us with fluorescent versions.

Whichever way you perceive it, you really can’t miss it and I hope you find the collection below cheerful. Spring’s not far away.

I have curated a Flickr gallery to accompany this post.

Why not sign up for updates on new posts?

You might also like:

• Turquoise is all in the mind
• Arsenic Green
• Photographer’s Blues
• Oranges Poranges

 

Oranges Poranges

I find orange a wonderfully warm and joyful colour.  I love red, but that sometimes can be a little cool or harsh.  Yellow is fabulously uplifting but for me it is a definite spring/summer colour and I am definitely not a spring/summer person.

Orange is rust and the beauty of fire; it is the colour of thousands of vibrant flowers; it is my favourite late afternoon autumn sunlight on a warm terracotta wall.  With its counterpart, blue, it really pops as part of the most successful pairing of complementary colours.

As mentioned in previous musings about colour, orange is no stranger to disagreement.  Is it yellow? Red? Brown?  That might depend on your mood or your outlook.  For some it is school dinner carrots, for others it’s golden syrup pudding.  I know which I prefer.

Native Americans associate orange with kinship and it is the preferred hue for Hindu swamis and Buddhist monks.  It has associations with Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving (is this because of the colour of pumpkins?), and is often regarded as a positive and optimistic colour.  There are some who would say it is merely the part of the spectrum that exists between 585 and 620 nanometres. #FFA500 to them!

Orange is also the favourite colour of fellow photographer and Flickr friend Jennifer König.  She is moving house and that’s why I’ve chosen orange today.  And if you’re wondering about the title, you may be too young to remember H R Pufnstuf!

I’ll let Wassily Kandinsky have the final word:

Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow.

I have curated a Flickr gallery to accompany this post.

Why not sign up for updates on new posts?

You might also like:

• Turquoise is all in the mind
• Arsenic Green
• Photographer’s Blues
• Yellow Fever

Photographer’s Blues

I’m working on a new blog post but in the meantime I thought I’d share another colour collection with you.

Several years ago, when I was still using film exclusively and before I’d even heard of Flickr (can you imagine a world without Flickr now?) I started to photograph things that were blue.  It was the beginning of a new relationship with the colour for me.  I never really liked blue.  It was my grandmother’s favourite colour (we lived with my grandparents) and there was a lot of it around the house.  It was her colour.   Not mine.  I never wore it, never chose it for furnishings, never sought it out.  This wasn’t a deliberate shunning of blue, but it just wasn’t ‘me’.

In some ways, my ‘blue’ project was all the more interesting for that reason.  It was brand new to me and I collected it fervently.  For a couple of months it became a bit of an obsession – I saw it everywhere.

Proper cobalt blue is described as a ‘cool’ blue and technically it is.  However, as is the case with all colour perception, we are rarely (as observers) all that ‘technical’ about it, and my collection below inevitably shows some ‘warmer’ (towards purple) variations on the theme.  As designers or printers, of course, we need to be more discerning in our descriptions, but we’re not going to get bogged down with that here.

It seems a little clinical on school books and ‘important’ signs, but jollies up dull things like doors and machines.

This blue is now my blue. How do you perceive it?

Some images from my blue collection. One of these was taken on film - when it all began.

You might also like:

• Turquoise is all in the mind
• Arsenic Green
• Oranges Poranges
• Yellow Fever