autofantasia's photos with the keyword: heart

For this week's Sunday Challenge , for which the subject title was heart . Right up until yesterday I thought I was going to need to dip into the archives as I'd been unable to find a suitable subject. Then during a visit to Ripley Castle we had a wander around the gift shop where I spotted a lovely heart shaped mirror hanging in the corner of the window display. The light wasn't all that great and I was struggling to get a clean shot, but having ran it through the processing room for a few tweaks I think it works okay. Also for Sight and Sound ... what else but Blondie and "Heart of Glass": youtu.be/gbnbMMCfyoc youtu.be/WGU_4-5RaxU youtu.be/aa911_8TP2s

Yet another challenging, no pun intended, week as far as The Sunday Challenge was concerned. The theme this week was selective lighting, meaning as I understood it a situation where the photographer controls the light. So I came up with a few ideas, one of which resulted in me spilling a tray full of Coca-Cola over my workstation. I hasten to add that was not part of the plan and no photographs were taken! Anyway, of the three themes I came up with, I've decided to use this little lady here for the main challenge entry. We've had her for many years and she’s stating to show her age with a couple of pieces from her derrière missing completely, but from the front sat on our kitchen window sill I think she’s still rather cute. I took this shot with my macro lens, which I have something of a love hate relationship with and with manual focus … a thing I rarely do with any great success. To give you an idea of scale the little bear is just over 5cm tall: 2 inches in old money. I had it sat on my desk with a piece of black card serving as an infinity curve. It was late at night so the room was in total darkness. Lighting was provided from the left with a small Maglite torch and from the right via an even smaller Cyba-lite, which I had shining down a piece of cardboard tubing in the guise of a home-made snoot. That’s the joy of TSC , it pushes you to try new things: to tackle new subjects and to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. I mean, this time last week I didn't even know what a snoot was - lol.

Another from the series of shots I took for the recent The Sunday Challenge , which had the theme of At The Market , but which also extended to cover shop displays. This beautiful bowl was crying out to be photographed, so I hid the price ticket and moved away adjacent items to try and create what I hoped would be a striking image. The shop in question was Origins on the High Street, which has loads of stunning and interesting items of homeware. If you're ever in Northallerton it is well worth popping in for a look around or check out their website: www.originshome.co.uk