autofantasia's photos with the keyword: &

For this week's Sunday Challenge , for which we had to use the online random point generator to generate (not surprisingly) a random point that we then had to visit and photograph. Sounds easy, but if you live in a rural location more often than not the random points were in the middle of nowhere and barely accessible. So, I reduced the parameters somewhat so as to hopefully get some points in town that I could get to easily and eventually it sent me to Friarage Street in Northallerton, which is where they are currently building a new Marks & Spencer food store. The shot I've posted was taken from the corner of the building site looking up at one of the gable ends where they've rather interestingly left many of the bricks protruding out. At first glance I thought they were all sticking out an equal distance, but on closer inspection (although perhaps not evident from this shot) I found that the amount they stick out decreases as you get nearer the apex of the building. I'll bet that was a fun job for someone and I can't help but wonder if they were left asking ... what's the point of that then? By the way, I've added a screen shot of this random point from Google into the Notes. Interestingly nearly all of those buildings have been demolished, including the bungalow (top centre) to facilitate the construction of this new store.

An early attempt at producing an image for this week's Sunday Challenge , which has the theme of favourite song or songs . It was going to be matched with "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedance Clearwater Revival. In the end though I realised I'd made a school boy error with this collage as I'd failed to realise the light was coming from the wrong direction for the it to be emanating from my 'bad moon'. So I produced another image entitled Don't Go Around Tonight ... to be my main entry and to go with the CCR hit. However, despite its flawed lighting I still kind of like this one so I decided to upload it anyway, but this time paired up with another rock classic, which I felt was equally appropriate. "Bad to the Bone" is a song by George Thorogood & The Destroyers, which was first released in 1982 on the album of the same name. I first heard it when I went to see John Carpenter's "Christine" at the cinema, which itself was based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King. However, you might have heard it playing during the bar scene in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" when the Terminator is first shown in his full leather outfit. To be honest it has been used in dozens of movie scenes and television shows over the years, but despite that I never tire of hearing it and I don't think I ever will. As with Don't Go Around Tonight ... my image is a composite of sorts. The building is actually from a shot I took myself in Harrogate during daylight, but which I 'tweaked' in an attempt to create the illusion that it was shot at night. As for my very own 'bad moon', the base image was obtained as a download from the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio and you'll find a copy of this in the Notes. You can find out more about this organisation and check out further images by following the link below: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov The skull element was based around work produced by Marc Gosselin on DeviantArt and again you'll find a copy of the original unaltered image in the Notes. You can see more of Marc's work by following the link below: marcgosselin.deviantart.com Thanks for the starry night sky must go a Wiki user called chensiyuan who took this shot, which is entitled "Vermont_night_sky_stargazing". You can find more of their images by following the link below: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chensiyuan You can listen to "Bad To The Bone" via the MP3 I've inserted above or, if you want to see the video to the song then follow the link below: youtu.be/_7VsoxT_FUY

Just another take on last week's Sunday Challenge which had the theme of front page news . Basically, the same design as before, but this time put over a timber background with an added drop shadow down the left hand edge of the 'paper' to try and give a more 3D feel to the final image.

This week's Sunday Challenge had the theme of front page news where we were asked to take one of our shots and then set about making it "look like the front of a newspaper" . Initially, I was rather stumped by this one, but then I remembered some shots I'd taken of an accident in Northallerton some time ago. Although I thought they were interesting images, and had had toyed with the idea of trying to see if any of the local papers wanted to use one, I'd never got around to doing anything with them. So I decided to dust one of them off and use it for this week's media challenge. Rather than use an online newspaper generator or template I elected to create my own front page in Microsoft Publisher, but I took my inspiration from the North Yorkshire News which is a local paper distributed free of charge to households across the region. I took careful measurements from a 'real' issue and scanned various elements of it so that they could be incorporated into my own design. The masthead/logo I modified slightly to transform it into the Northallerton News, while the adverts were just dropped in as they were. The biggest problem I had was trying to find fonts on my PC that were similar in style and size to those that are used in the newspaper I'd set out to mimic so to speak. I didn't bother at all with the banner running along the very top of the page, but did try very hard to match those used elsewhere. Once I had the layout looking the way I wanted it I next set about creating both my headlines before writing the article as best I could. If you check in the Notes you'll find a section of an original North Yorkshire News front page for comparison purposes along with a close-up of the article itself just in case the one in the main image is too small to read on screen.

As regular visitors to my photostream will know, I struggled greatly with last week's Sunday Challenge , which had the theme of high key . Thankfully, I found this week's challenge of low key much less stressful. And whereas last week I introduced you all to Gerald The Dinosaur, this week it's the turn of Harry The Owl who is one of three metal owls that make up an ornamental sculpture to be found in our back garden. He's the furthest to the right of the trio - hence him being called Harry ... the other two then are, as you may have guessed, called Tom and Dick. I took the shot outside after 10.00pm last night once it had got dark - heaven knows what the neighbours would have thought if they saw me. I had the camera on a tripod and for a change worked with manual settings throughout ... even the focus! As for the key light that was a small pocket torch that I had positioned to my right hand side behind a small board of MDF so as to stop any light spilling onto the foliage behind where I'd positioned Harry. Best of all as far as I'm concerned is that I've posted this pretty much as it came out of the camera. The only 'work' done on it was a slight crop and I 'dodged' the white in his eyes just a smidgen as I felt they were a little flat. So, there you go, not quite SOOC, but pretty damned close!

For this week's Sunday Challenge with the theme of doors . This is the entrance to St Michael & All Angels, which is located at North Otterington on the outskirts of Northallerton. Quite a pretty church, but spoiled a little by the way large areas of the surrounding cemetery are sectioned off with chicken wire fencing. Not sure if that's because of a fear of gravestones falling over say onto a child, which I know has become a health and safety issue at many old churches, or if there's some other reason. Sadly though, like many rural churches in this country it was closed and so I couldn't get in for a good look around. Follow the link below if you want to read a little bit more about this particular church: www.visitoruk.com/Northallerton/north-otterington-C592-V15639.html

The theme for this week's Sunday Challenge sounded so simple at first: leading lines . Simple, that was until I went out and started looking around for a suitable subject to photograph. Anyway, despite my best efforts this was the best I could come up with. Although perhaps not what you first think of as a "leading line" I felt that the chain, which secures the main gate onto the playing fields at Northallerton Rugby Club, did constitute a line of sorts and to me at least it draws your eye towards the main subject of the shot: the old padlock. There are also some other more traditional lines, albeit perhaps less obvious, that I felt also played their part in making this image a suitable contender for the challenge. There's the gap between the fence post and the frame of the gate that runs behind the padlock. Then there's the rusty spring on the gate itself that comes in form the right hand corner. As for the processing that was done using Photomatix. I only recently purchased this software, but I'm already growing very fond of it.