Aayawa

Fungi on tree

2009-06-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

Looking down can have benefits you can order a print from
my photobox gallery

2009-06-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

Newhaven Quay Edinburgh 2008

Magic hour before sunset. Converted using the Gimp

You can get a print of this from my photobox gallery

Colourful Autumn Den Haag 2007

2009-06-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

A magic Autumn weekend in Den Haag, Netherlands.
You can order a print in my Landscape album

Reflection 01

2009-06-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Flower ejecting pollen

2009-05-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Town Square Darmstadt

2009-05-29T16:11:00.001-07:00

Darmstadt, not the liveliest of towns and I had to work hard to make the vanilla town square look halfway interesting.

More of my pictures here

Coldest day of the year

2009-05-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Breda, Netherlands, just before Christmas 2007. That's not snow on the trees, it's frost that didn't thaw.

2009-05-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

The fountains were dancing that day enjoying the summer heat.

I managed to capture their joy with a long telephoto that muted the background.

There were rainbows then but no leprechauns

You can order a print from the abstract and artistic album here

I just wrote a new article on diamonds

2009-05-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

A rainy day in Cork and this guy rowing a boat as traffic roars unheeding over the bridge. A slight boost of the red contrast was all it needed

Reflections, Cork

2009-05-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

I took this picture in a failed attempt to walk around the Island on which Cork City is built. I still love the way reflections create a distorted reality that is often more real than reality. Hmm.... I'm beginning to sound like a native of Cork with their view of life that is usually more profound than it sounds. Even Dubliners however have a problem following the Cork accent. A lovely city and one I prefer to Dublin for most things

2009-05-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

Zurich on a sunny day. The colourised version feels much more powerful than the vanilla colur version.

This is mildly annoying as I like colour.

My latest articles here discuss Social control and diamonds.

Autumn Collection

2009-05-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

By the time I took this Autumn had about left for the winter. The leaves on the steps by the canal attracted me and this looked like a good case of a found arrangement. Later I boosted colour, Saturation and contrast.

I rcently posted an article on diamonds here

Cobblestones Utrecht

2009-05-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

A dull day in Utrecht, Netherlands. I liked the pattern of the cobblestones so I photographed them. On the laptop I adjusted the saturation and colour balance and found the pale grey cobblestones hid an amazing range of colours invisible to the human eye.

I liked to wander the canals in Utrecht but always by the time I got there it was getting late and I always got lost in the shopping complex near the station.

2009-05-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

A cold day in Switzerland. I had started a contract and the manager took an instant dislike to me despite having interviewed me by phone and terminated the contract.

What hurt was the lies she told about me.

After that a friend of ours toured us in Switzerland and I took this from the road. I later heightened the contrast in the clouds and got a result looked a bit like a Chinese painting.

I think it works partly because of the tiny cars and the mountains peeking out of the clouds

If you like my pictures you may also like my writing

2009-05-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

I went to Rijswijk in the Netherlands for an interview with a supplier to shell. It turned out to be a waste of my time asthey had filled the post but told me "They just wanted to see what I was like"

On the way back to the railway station I saw this wall. It had potential with all the portholes so I took a few pictures.

Afterwards I decided I wanted an Abstract and I turned it on its side and played with saturation and colour balance. This version worked best for me and a friend asked me for a print for his wall.

As an abstract it works because of the apparent movement of the staircase and the upward motion of the circles.

Coach and horses

2009-05-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

The coach happened to be going by and I managed to catch it.

Back home I used the curves tool in the GIMP to digitally cross process the pictre and eventually got a pleasing result with a timeless feel to it.

Photograph taken near Charlotte Square, Edinburgh on a gloomy day.

2009-05-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

Davao City, Philippines, 2007. I had about ten seconds to take this photo. I like the waterdrops on the main flower and the insect and the colours give it impact. If I were taking it again I would zoom in and change to a more vertical viewpoint.

2009-05-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

Antwerp by the Schelde. This person was in the middle of a passing group which I managed to capture. Later I cropped out the others and got this.

This was pure luck. I was still working out how to use the camera and happened to look up at the right moment.

Later this was accepted for the Hype street Gallery. So someone thought it a good picture

As well as taking pictures I write.
have a look Here

Old Rope

2009-05-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

I took this picture in Rotterdam when I was working in a nearby city in the Netherlands. I do not find Rotterdam a very appealing city (I like it for other reasons) which made it a photographic challenge. Boat owners sometimes cover the front of their boats with rope as protection against damage. I noticed the patterns in these ropes and of course took a few pictures. Back in my lodgings I converted the picture to black and white, added a touch of red to offset the coldness of pure greyscale and then burned and dodged a bit till I was happy.

For photographers I recommend the port areas where there is a lot of scope for both details and urban landscapes. Best times are the magic hour before sunset, which, as I normally wanted to leave Rotterdam around 7pm, made Winter the best season for photography

2009-05-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

I took this while working in Darmstadt. Darmstadt is not the liveliest of cities, and is being promoted as a place to retire. I had a bad experience with a client there when the agency I worked with went bankrupt and the end client refused to pay the contractors in case they had to pay twice when the receiver called for the invoice to be paid.

The picture itself was taken in the summer in the Old City near a picturesque church. I altered the colours in Photoshop ( I had not learned about the GIMP at that time) and it was later accepted for the Hype Street Gallery. It has proven popular with many people.

When I visited Heidelberg I climbed the 400+ steps to the Castle (Schloss) and then carefully made my way down the cobbled path (don't do this in sandals) and had a half litre of Lowenbrau Black lager (I have never seen that beer anywhere else) before returning to Darmstadt.

I think the picture works because of the composition, the flattened perspective and the colours. It has a timeless feel to it which increases its appeal.

You can find more about Heidelberg Here I only note that About 1,000,000 years ago, the "Heidelberg Man",the earliest evidence of human life in Europe, whose jaw-bone was discovered in 1907, died nearby at Mauer.