the essentials

it's been back to work this past week for me. that means less time to be creative and more time focussed on bringing home the bacon. but this past week I have started Photoshop - The Essentials course with Kim Klassen. the blog button is over there on the side bar ----> see?!

I was so impressed with Kim's easy way of explaining things in the skinny mini free course I did with her, that I decided that I'd take the plunge and do the essentials course as well. and I can say already I'm so glad I did. what would have taken me ages to find in manuals and books, I can watch and hear Kim explain in her short and concise videos which you can follow along with and go back to as often as needed. brilliant! I have only completed the first day's work and I would already highly recommend this course if you want to get into Photoshop.

stay tuned for updates.....I'm hoping to open a few new doors.

light fantastic

we have been away tripping the light fantastic....last weekend we spent three days dancing away at Bluesfest. so. much. fun. yet again we discovered some musicians we haven't heard of before and they were amazing. we also got to see some of our favourites from previous years and they were just as fabulous again. 

let me give you a little tip....if you haven't heard of Trombone Shorty you should look him up. he is a young New Orleans musician who has a big future ahead of him. we saw him last year and were blown away by his music. you can imagine we were very excited when we heard he was coming back this year. his performances are energetic and full of great music {....and he's a little bit cute to look at too!}

whilst at Bluesfest we saw lots of kids and adults playing with balls at night that changed colour. very pretty. so I had to buy some and a couple of nights ago we had a little play with them and the 7D. still have some tweaking to do with exposures, apertures etc but it was lots of fun.

what do you think?

autumn in the UK

autumn leaves on the grass near Buckingham Palace. can you see the squirrels hanging on the fence after the food?!

 autumn coloured lichen growing on the rocks at Land's End. it was actually more like winter down here....freezing winds off the Atlantic Ocean

 and to celebrate my last post welcoming autumn, some fireworks from Guy Fawkes night in Penzance....which also celebrated our final night in Cornwall...one of my most favourite parts of the world

I hope you've enjoyed my week of autumn celebrations....I'd love to hear what's your favourite time of year...

autumn in Budapest

Budapest is such a pretty city with some amazing architecture, the beautiful Danube river, history everywhere, and flowers on every corner and building. beautiful at any time of year but when we were there it was celebrating autumn....

autumn in Belgium

in Belgium we travelled to Namur, a small town about an hour's train trip out of Brussels. up on the hill is the town's citadel which is built on the fork of a river and provided a good vantage spot to watch for invaders centuries ago (hopefully they don't have to do that now!)

apart from some lovely old fortress buildings and tunnels there were pretty parks with lots of trees and autumn colours....

autumn in Prague

our trip to europe in 2008 was during autumn and we saw some of the most stunning scenery as we travelled to various countries. the autumn light in Prague was soft and hazy and the parks were covered in fallen leaves....

hello autumn

peace, quiet and rest is her message

tired scenery heeds her call

this gracious lady is Autumn

loveliest season of them all

{Pamela Summers}

 I know that officially autumn began last month but here on the north coast it's only just starting to cool down a little, so I'm celebrating this week

autumn is absolutely my favourite time of year. cool nights for sleeping, lovely days for getting out and about, and beautiful light for photography 

 but this year I'm missing these....my beautiful liquid amber leaves. the turn of colour on the liquid amber leaves always told me that things were cooling down and winter was on it's way. but last year I had to have it cut down along with two large gums in my yard. they were just too dangerous and I hated holding my breath every time a storm came waiting for them to drop their branches on the house....so now we are safer but I do miss their lovely leaves.

lucky I took lots of photos of them over the years...