... & tables & chairs.

When you think of France one of the first things that comes to mind is cafes & restaurants & the atmosphere that goes with. Now i love food, there's no denying this ... from filet mignon to all you can eat wings & part of what i love about food is the whole dining out experience. Yes to me it is an experience ... seeing what's on the menu, thinking through the options, what sounds good to me, an appetizer, entree & desert. It's about finding that perfect table, enjoying the ambience of the restaurant & relaxing. & of course having someone do all the work for me kinda helps. Anyways france has a wonderful restaurant culture, & i can't go to france without eating ... A LOT! So anyways here's some photos of tables & chairs from various restaurants in Provence. 

Leave part seven: Stirling

We headed to Stirling for the day, a change & somewhere the hubby has never been but am just going so post the photos & let you imagine how our day went (with the one little detail you see below). Hope you're all having a wonderful week ... i am of course counting down the days until vacation! 

A minute or so after taking this photo (the grave stone above), the clutz that i am fell over my own feet & skinned my knee, ripping my favourite jeans in the process. For anyone out there who ever wondered it hurts more now than it did when i was 5! 

photoshop actions ...

I was introduced to the wonderful world of photoshop actions last year by my friend Jen Kiaba. It was love at first sight. Simple put they are a way of changing the tones & feel of a photo through a series of actions in photoshop, done all at one time. & they are so much fun. I love messing around with the free ones on the web (check out websites such as Coffee shop & The Pioneer Women) & customizing them for my own work.

As a photographer i firmly believe that composition is the key to a good photo, & photoshop is a tool in creating stunning images but it needs to be used in conjunction with the actual process of taking a photograph. I personally feel it is wrong to use photoshop to "remove" an object from a photograph because you don't like it there (& trust me when i say there is a whole lot of debate on this subject) & actions can & do sometimes push the boundaries. But i feel that where you are using them in the same way you would use a camera, a lens, light, or the old school dark room it's ok & all kinds of fun.

Anyways back to actions two of my wonderful talented photographic buddies have recently been creating their own actions & me being me well of course i volunteered to take a look. On the butterfly below i used an action by Elle Moss called "dreamland" (for more information check out her blog) minus the "optional blurry edges" just because i felt for this image it didn't work (this is the fun on actions).

& for the chairs i used "dark dreamy glow" created by Jen Kiaba that i have fallen in love with (it creates such a haunting feel to many of my images for some reason) & totally transforms what would otherwise be two wooden chairs stood in the corner.

Inspiration.

Recently i became a member of a small group of crafers, all of whom have shops on etsy called "Inspiration Avenue". The member of this group all work with different mediums & come together in essence to discuss their work, & inspire each other. Today they are having a blog party (which i still don't understand totally) but having only just joined i missed out this so instead i am just going to write a little about inspiration & what inspires me.

The dictionary defines inspiration as something that inspires an individual whether it be to write poetry, paint a picture or in my case take a photo. It can be something inspired, like an idea or an action that results in that inspiration or even another artist who's work inspires you.

So what inspires me ...? It can be as simple as the place i end up in, like the images in this blog. I would never have known about this place if it wasn't for a couple of guys i go running with, but seeing it i loved the abandoned feeling it had, it was new & interesting to me. Other times my inspiration will come from fellow photographers, greats like Ansel Adams & William Egglestone or just the photographers whose work i see everyday on Etsy such as Tali Schiffer-Oren, & Andrea Despot whose ideas & individual skills have left me wanting to break out of my safe little box & try new things.

All this being said the rest is up to me ... to explore new roads, change my direction & find new, interesting, unique & of course random things to gain inspiration from, photograph, show in a way they may never have been seen before & hopefully become the inspiration for others.