365 Project: Photo 273

I got a bit bored this evening and so decided to make a mobius strip, as you do. This is obviously just a simple one made from a strip of paper. It contains one half twist which means that this particular mobius strip only has one side. It may look like it has two but if you were to set an adventurous ant off along its length it would return to its starting point without ever having crossed an edge. For more of a challenge I intend to make two interlocking double twist mobius strips out of a bagel using only one continuous cut some time this week. This may need several bagels....

YouTube is awash with cool mobius strip videos but my favourite one is this one by the always brilliant Royal Institution using super conductors to create a levitating mobius strip race car. Yes, really. In fact, if you want to watch scores of fascinating videos that amaze, entertain and, yes, educate, then you could do a lot worse than subscribe to the RI's YouTube channel.

365 Project: Photo 272

I went for a gander around St. Pauls's this evening....

365 Project: Photo 271

Nothing at all scary about finding this on your way to work....

365 Project: Photo 270

Off topic grunged up candles for you today....

365 Project: Photo 269

The latest research is suggesting that in twenty years or so we might be able to grow our own spare organs and blood products. Until then we need to donate as much as we can, you can get info from the National Blood Service.

365 Project: Photo 268

I love this building, One Whitehall Place. It stands between the Ministry of Defence and the Thames on the Victoria Embankment and is a not so little piece of Austrian baroque architecture in the centre of London. The central portion in particular reminds me of the Eggenberg Palace, albeit with a different colour roof. The interior of this building is, possibly, even more impressive than its exterior; check out these pictures for a flavour of what it has to offer; the staircase is especially resplendent.

365 Project: Photo 267

The sunset gave this building a wonderful orange glow. The fact that the building is also a sort of orange colour also helped.

365 Project: Photo 266

It's been a little while since I did a grunged up picture from Parliament Square.

365 Project: Photo 265

I find that the best way to relax and unwind after a long weekend at a wedding, staying up til 5am and travelling half way across the country is to help your friends rip out their old kitchen. These are the same friends I've been helping for the last few weeks and this is the last major job on the list. The existing kitchen was, ummm, disgusting; both in decor and the state of cleanliness. We weren't sure that the previous owner had ever cleaned it. When I was removing the kitchen cupboards I put my hand on the top of one of them and sighed in despair as I felt my fingers sink in to decades of grease. It was only once I had them down off the wall that I realised the grease had also become quite a substantial fly graveyard. It took a lot of cleaning for my hands to feel even vaguely hygienic again, and it was some two days before the brown staining finally disappeared.

This beautiful specimen was their extractor fan. We had no real idea whether it was still live or not so I was rather weary as I removed it. The all pervading yellow cast to the photo is not because my white balance was off, everything was just engrained with grease. That dark bit on the bottom right is actually a stalactite of fat: I didn't even know that could happen. The only thing more repellent than this was how it looked on the inside; I affectionately referred to it as the Devil's Anus.

365 Project: Photo 264

This is the train on which my friends had their 'sham' marriage today, as we're affectionately calling it. Asides from the nerve racking part of doing a Best Man speech it was a great day. Congratulations Simon and Clare!

365 Project: Photo 263

An old friend of mine got married today. Tomorrow they will have a lovely train-based wedding and big party but today, for the legal bit, they insisted on a small crowd and t-shirt and jeans only. From here we walked to a pizza place and then went down the pub and a damn good time was had by all.

365 Project: Photo 262

The theme was Morning Sun. Errrrmm, this is actually the evening sun but, hey, look at those colours!

365 Project: Photo 261

This is probably the best ever shot I've managed to get of the moon. This is this year's harvest moon as seen from east London with as much zoom as I can extract from my longest lens; which isn't much. Getting the lunar landscape in decent focus was really quite difficult and a lot more complicated than just focussing to infinity. The night was wonderfully clear and I was using my tripod and cable release so, with the equipment I currently have, I don't think I'll be able to better this. I guess I have no choice but to get a telescope.

365 Project: Photo 260

This is the Victoria Tower as seen from the eponymously named gardens. I think it's rather fitting that St. Stephen's Tower (Big Ben) was renamed Elizabeth Tower for the Jubilee celebrations; the two great matriarchs of the last two centuries standing either side of Parliament. Even though it is larger and more grand than its opposite number the Victoria Tower is much less well known. 

365 Project: Photo 259

Today's theme was What's In Your Bag. Most people I've seen have gone for their camera bag but I thought my other one might be a touch more interesting; I can't leave the house without having at least a couple of reading options. In my bag currently I have: satirical news magazine Private Eye; my textbook for helping me to learn Romanian; a pamphlet on how to help stop my stupid foot hurting; a recent edition of National Geographic; a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five; and the Science Journal is a notebook that I use to make Romanian notes in.

It would also appear I need to give my coffee table a polish.

365 Project: Photo 258

I was at a family party tonight, which vaguely fits the theme of How I Relax; in any case, I had a lot of fun. This is my cousin's snake as modelled by a friend of hers.

365 Project: Photo 257

This little dude was hanging out in the car park outside my flat. Weirdly, he didn't run away when I passed close by and actually followed me briefly.

365 Project: Photo 256

On the Table was the theme. This was taken at a friend's wedding, not of those mentioned.

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I knew my legs were long but this is ridiculous....

365 Project: Photo 254

Off topic again today but I couldn't resist this sky above Westminster, a beautiful mish mash of clouds and contrails.

365 Project: Photo 253

Inspired by Elma Fudd, this hunter is not all that good at hunting....

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Totally off topic and I probably don't need to explain what it is of....

365 Project: Photo 251

The crescent moon was wonderfully thin tonight; and, if you look carefully, up and to the left you will spy the planet Venus. The focus is a little soft but this was handheld so not too bad.

365 Project: Photo 250

Infuriated. No, that isn't the theme of today's photo, it's just how I feel. This is actually my second attempt at writing this particular post because, for reasons unknown to me, no matter what I did, I could not get this damn photo to upload properly. It always just appeared as a plain, black, rectangle. The fact that I now have it uploaded is not, sadly, satisfying. This is the unedited version of the shot, the edited version had blacker blacks, I'd removed some of the red cast and boosted the saturation a little so that you could actually make out the colour of the stars as opposed to them all just looking white like they do here. Most of the stars were yellow and blue and provided a beautiful example of the variety of colour of stars that are out there. I suppose it's a good thing that I finally got the photo up but I am very, very frustrated.

365 Project: Photo 249

When I first saw this mini figure's face I immediately thought: serial killer. Then, when I paired him up with an axe, the look was complete. This shot actually took quite some constructing. The first problem was making the tiny figures appear vaguely life size. In of itself this isn't too hard, but it brings with it numerous associated problems, the primary ones being the more obvious 'shineyness' of the plastic and the narrowness of the depth of field.

The light in the area in which I was shooting (hunched on the floor by the coffee table) was, at best, poor. So it was that I needed my external flash gun. It's a powerful fecker though and so I had to dial in a lot of negative flash compensation. The sheen of the light off the face of the unwitting victim here was about as reduced as I could get it. But now my perp was well lit, too, and I knew I wanted him in partial shadow to help highlight that potent silhouette whilst still being able to make out the maniacal look on his face. This necessitated the construction of a custom made light screen i.e. a propped  open DVD case.

The real pain was the depth of field. These guys are only about three centimetres tall and my aperture had to be rather wide to throw the killer far enough out of focus. This meant, however, that my plane of sharp focus was only a few millimetres deep, if that. I had to delicately push the two of them around, millimetre by millimetre, perfecting the composition and depth of field. It took a long time and, even then, her face is still a bit soft. In any case, I had been visualising this shot ever since I walked out of the Lego shop and I was pleased to have got it.

Try not to have nightmares.

365 Project: Photo 248

Soft. This is a close up of a very soft cushion on the sofa.

365 Project: Photo 247

It's not often, these days, that I have a dinner made for me and so this was a rare treat, especially considering it was a home made curry. If you look back through the blog you'll notice that I don't do pictures of food; I don't really get it and I'm not very good at it. Given that the theme was Indulge Yourself, and this was made by a kindly work colleague, I thought I'd set it down for the record. Cheers, Tina. 

365 Project: Photo 246

So, I got home from work and sort of just ended up playing with my Legos and dinosaur....

365 Project: Photo 245

Yes, I was playing with my Lego again. Yes, I probably looked crazy clambering about and laying down on the jetty. Do I care? No; I had fun. Explorer dude had fun, too. 

365 Project: Photo 244

This one actually took some doing. I was bored so I wondered into the Olympic Park to see if I could get a nice foreground for the sunset. For the first time in ages, though, the sunset was a rather muted affair and so I failed. As darkness fell the lights in the RUN sign outside the Copper Box became more prominent and so I tried to work with them for a while. Then it occurred to me that, although I'd been there for nearly an hour, I hadn't seen a single soul run by, just an endless procession of cars. All of a sudden a bus went by and I realised I could try to set this shot up - light trails and a juxtaposition of theme between the vehicle and the sign. Unfortunately, it was Sunday night and I had to wait for 35 minutes for the next bus. And so I waited. And waited. And waited. I passed the time by practising with cars and eventually the bus arrived and I got my shot. Annoyingly, I didn't have my tripod to hand so I think the focus is a bit soft but there was no sign of the proverbial second bus turning up and so I called it quits.