Summer League final 2011

Summer League Denbighshire . As far as I am aware the Summer League is the only football league in the UK where players MUST come from the town / village that they play for . More info on the league available here : Summer league home

Peacock fluffed up

Peacock at Ruthin Castle . Will post link to story when it appears online

What a fabulous looking bird 

UK Passport Photos and ID Cards

NOT great examples of passport poses

I recently got asked to do some passport photos of my niece and nephew . I wasn't sure how to get the dimensions right but found this great Passport photo maker online : PORTRAIT BOOTH


With a little cropping correction you can get up to 8 passport photos for the price of a 6 x 9 photo ( 38p at today's price )


 UK Government guidelines for passport photos available on this following link : UK Gov guidelines on passport photos


I don't want to sound patronising ( That means talking to people in a condensing manner ;) ) , but unless you really know what you are doing there are many photo booths and pro photography studios that will take these pictures at a relatively low cost . Going to these places may take the stress out of being delayed or denied passports / Visa's because the quality of the image or dimensions are incorrect . It may however be a good alternative for NUS / NUJ / NUF cards that may not need such strict adherence to guidelines 


Have a go and see for yourself

Bangor City vs HJK Helsinki UEFA Cup Round 1

What a scrum .....

Away fans celebrate goal 

Bangor playing HJK Helsinki . Bangor will now go through to the round 2 with a 3 goal deficit


Bangor did have several refereeing decisions go their way but with many ( and legitimate ) calls for pushing / shoving / rugby tackling in the area falling on deaf ears . Good luck in the 2nd round

Llangollen International Eisteddfod 2011

Small flavour of the children's peace message and Parade of Nations this year in Llangollen  2011


The International Eisteddfod has been going in Llangollen since 1947 and plays hosts to many nations over the weekend in various competitions and events . The highlight for me is easily the parade through town . Always drums booming and music playing with a great crowd to cheer the performers on . If you get the chance you really need to do it at least once to get the experience of it . It can get quite emotional with people from all different races and backgrounds mingling with each other before, during and after the parade

Catterpillars

Bit of a mess around with some Macro shots ( Don't really do macro that often but you do get nice images if you have a decent subject ) . Anyways these little buggers have absolutely decimated the cabbage leaves this year . There are literally hundreds of them chomping their way through leaf after leaf . 


I did see a Robin nearby when I was taking photos . I'm sure he'll not go hungry with this much food about for him .

Seals off the coast near The Nova Prestatyn

Leaving the gym on Saturday I decided to go have a wander along the sea wall as the weather was so nice


Looking out I saw something that looked like the back of someones head bobbing up and down in the water . On closer inspection I saw it was a seal , ran to get my camera from the boot of my car and luckily managed to get this shot before he was way too far out to get anything other than a spec in the sea


In all my time spent on and around the sea wall this is the first time I have ever seen them here let alone get a picture . ( The seal was way beyond the distance where I could get a really decent shot of him but just close enough to get an ok crop ) . Walking further up I saw two seals together . I hope this is a sign of things to come and will certainly be keeping my eye out for more in the future

HDR Rubix cube from Fisheye Lomography camera

Ok Proper and normal pics after this as it is in danger of turning into a HDR blog , I really don't want that

MMA and MUAI THAI CAGE FIGHTING in HDR .... Stick with it

A while back my mate Al told me a story of a friend of his :

His friend  was busy scoffing down slice after slice of his 24th birthday cake


After several slices he was told by his mum not to eat any more or he would be sick 




I can only assume that now being 24 the friend thought he was old enough to make his own decisions and as he could eat more cake , he would , ignoring the advice of his mum

Creepy house HDR from Disposable camera

I really should get a life and not just be messing about on this new toy ... ( I have done other things as well this afternoon / evening ) but now I have found out how to use the program I'm just getting a little carried away .


So it seems that to get a very sharp image you need 3 differently exposed images ( Arguably in RAW format and on a tripod ) 


While I accept this is true the above image is a before and after HDR image I took in Victoria ( Vancouver Island , British  Columbia , Canada ) about 5 years ago  with a disposable camera that I only had developed about a month ago ( See below post )

Disposable camera pics post

Well I am a fan of budget photography and really this is a good case for that . YOU DO NOT NEED A FANCY UP TO DATE CAMERA AND EDITING SOFTWARE TO MAKE GOOD PHOTOS !!! . 

The disposable camera was probably £3 ish , the developing was £4 and the software was a free download . So that's £7 TOTAL for a HDR Image !!!! 

The original image was dragged into Photoshop ( Elements ), lightened and saved , darkened and saved , then both with the original were dragged into Luminance HDR 2.0.2( Freeware )


Enjoy your photography and don't think you need money to take good snaps. It can actually be more rewarding and challenging trying to do it on the cheap

The free software can be downloaded here

 Free HDR software download

I take no responsibility if there are any viruses or whatever associated with this . I only provide the link for research purposes . The software is at no cost but feel free to donate via Paypal as some people have gone to a lot of time and effort to develop this software


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