Stu's Tuesday Challenge #20 - Viewfinder Optional

Stu's Challenge this week

From Syl Arena’s Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School…

17. Learn to think of the viewfinder as optional.
If you don’t regularly make photographs without looking through the viewfinder, start today. Learn how your lens sees without looking. Become more spontaneous. Hold your camera up over your head - like a paparazzi. Shoot from the hip (literally). Go for the worm’s-eye view. Stop chimping the LCD after each shot. Try this. Cover the viewfinder and LCD with tape — except where the histogram shows (so you can make good exposure decisions). Then shoot for a day or a week without ever looking through the lens. I’m sure you will come up with many great images that show you the world in a way you haven’t seen before.

So there’s your challenge. Take a bunch of photos without using any kind of viewfinder or checking the images on the rear screen afterwards. Post your best one of the week!

Well this was fun! Although shooting without looking through the viewfinder did mean a lot of shots of things at some very odd angles and not getting in the image what I thought I was getting! I decided to get down to ground level and this is my favourite of the ones I took this week.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #19 - Weather

In by the skin of my teeth!

Our Challenge this week is:

This week, your task is to capture the weather. It doesn’t matter if it’s sunny or raining, or snowing for that matter. Try not to just take a picture of the sky… look for some other subjects to go in the frame to support your choice of conditions.

With the bank holiday weekend coming up, there should be lots of opportunity for storms, rain, hail, sleet…

We had some great weather for this challenge in the days leading to Stu announcing it, since then it's been nothing but sunshine. Which has been lovely, but not brilliant for getting any dramatic weather shots. So with a little artistic licence, this is my weather shot.....

Raindrop

Up-date on The Greyhound

Thank you all so much for asking after The Greyhound, and my apologies for not up-dating you.

The Bile Acid Stimulation test came back normal. Which is good. Sort of. But it still leaves the question of what is wrong with his liver unanswered.

The Greyhound had been getting much calmer than normal in the weeks leading up to this but I had put that down to the fact that he is starting to grow up and mature. Wrong! My vet had put him on a course of antibiotics and liver strengthening pills and one of them certainly did the trick because he was back to his normal bouncy, idiotic self. Because of this, my vet decided to hold off on the biopsy for a few weeks and redo the bloods once he'd finished his course of tablets.

And that's where we were. Until yesterday. When I got home last night he had weed in the house again and the amount he is drinking is also on the increase. So I need to speak to my vet again today and see where she wants to go from here. Whatever the problem, it's still there and I think the biopsy is going to be inevitable.

Hello? Hello? Anybody there?

Hello Blogland!

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here lately but I've had rather a lot on my plate and blogging has had to take a back seat for a while. Plus I had some stuff in my head that needed sorting out. Actually, it still does need sorting out, I just don't care quite so much these days. Not in a "don't care" don't care sort of way, just that I am trying to be a bit more chilled about things.

I have a habit of over-analysis sometimes. I have a pathological need to know why my thoughts and emotions about issues I might have take the direction they do and why I'm thinking what I'm thinking in the first place. It ends up seriously stressing me out.

I also get stressed out about things that I need to get done - and don't. I'm having a few problems with my thyroid medication at the moment which is leaving me with an over-whelming feeling of intertia.

So I am taking a step back from my thoughts and concerns, and I am trying to look at them more objectively. I am trying to be rational about them.

I have found a quiet place in my head that I retreat to when I find myself going into analysis mode. Somewhere that is blocked off from my more irrational feelings. Somewhere where I can see things a little more clearly.

And I do believe it's working. I am feeling much more comfortable in my skin and with my thoughts. I am much more at ease with myself and I find that the less stressed I am about things, the more I seem to get done.

Two birds one stone then. Always a bonus.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #17 - Decisive Moment

Stu's Challenge this week

Fast shutter speeds are the order of the day. Capture that split second in time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for ever.

This week, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to capture a frozen image of a moment in time. An image that will never be seen exactly the same again. That point at the peak of the action.

OK, not my best ever effort for a number of reasons but mainly because the first idea I had didn't come off and I ran out of time. So I was back to using what I had around me. Oh. That'll be a Lurcher again then!

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #16 Creepy Crawly Close-Up

Stu's Tuesday Challenge this week is

Your challenge is to take a picture of a creepy-crawly - spider, insect, etc. Preferably a real one, and preferably close-up enough to make out detail. Preferably artistically pleasing rather than just a documentary shot.

Oooh goody! Time to get the macro lens out then!