Category Archives: personal

memes, personal, photography

3-28-10 Meme


3-28-10 Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

I haven’t done the weekly Flickr meme for a while, for no reason other than it just hasn’t happened. Anyway here are this week’s 12 questions and answers:

1. Do you zip or button first? Button, but only if there’s no Velcro
2. What are you listening to right now? Nothing
3. Which band did you last see live? An Elastic Band
4. What book are you currently reading? A pile about 4 feet high
5. Give one reason why you would hate a person. Stupidity
6. What is your favourite type of music? Medieval Latin Church
7. What food do you dislike? Egg custard
8. Would you rather be a vampire, werewolf, or zombie? Vampire
9. Have you ever smoked? Yes
10. If you were rich, what is the first one of these you would hire: Personal Chef, maid, masseuse, chauffeur, or trainer? Maid
11. What defines you? Y chromosome
12. What do you think of Africa? Boring

1. Belly Button Cow, 2. ‘garden of dreams’ original ink brush pwn sumi-e drawing/painting, 3. A random selection of scattered elastic bands with experimental post-processing, 4. Pile of Books in Prague Library, 5. Stupidity Sign, 6. The 15th Century Ranworth Antiphoner, 7. egg custard tart, 8. София, България. Събота, 25-ти юли, 2009., 9. Yes / Close To The Edge, 10. Sexy Anime Maid, 11. Phalluzoïde ou l’Origine du Sex (Please do not touch, lick, stroke or mount this artwork), 12. www.flickr.com/photos/crustydolphin/2430434405/

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

history, personal, photography

What Cannot Speak Cannot Lie …

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When I was with 94-year-old my mother last weekend, helping her pack up to move into residential care, she gave me a fairly awful black and white photograph of the parish church in the town in which I grew up.  The church is St Mary the Virgin at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.  Recognising the style of the print I know the photo was taken by my mother, probably in the early 1970s, from the park opposite the church.  What’s more she printed it herself on her home-made enlarger.  Just the fact that she made the enlarger and got semi-decent prints from it is in itself amazing!  But that’s my mother: at one point over the weekend I asked her if there was anything she hadn’t ever made; she had to think and finally the only thing she could come up with was canework.  If it’s anything much else to do with art and craft she’s tried it – I salvaged from the bungalow a box full of her pottery and several portfolios of paintings, many dating from over 60 years ago!

Anyway here is a straight scan of the totally nondescript 11x16cm print …

Not being one to waste a good image having scanned it, I played around with it in Paint Shop Pro (which for most things I find easier than Photoshop).  Here is the scanned image dressed up as an 1840s Daguerreotype and then as an 1870s Albumen print.

What a difference five minutes work makes.

When I’ve got my new photo printer I shall have to send, or take, my mother copies.  Knowing her she will then frame them!  Having moved her into the care home last Monday afternoon, I went to see her at 10am the following morning.  I found her with a small table already set up, a Stanley knife in her hand, in the middle of reframing a photograph of her late dog.  Yes, she’s 94!

memes, personal, photography

Thing-a-Day : The Full Monty


Thing-a-Day : The Full Monty, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Having completed this year’s Thing-a-Day challenge — something new each day in February — here is the complete set, in order. Sadly thew quality is a bit variable, but it does provide an interesting look back over the month (well the bits I’m going to tell you about anyway) and it was an interesting challenge to try to do something inspiring each day.

1. Thing-a-Day 1 : Self Portrait, 2. Thing-a-Day #2 : Water_Tablet, 3. Thing-a-Day #3 : Postbox, 4. Thing-a-Day #4 : Tree Yoni, 5. Thing-a-Day #5 : Cheese & Onion Muffins, 6. Thing-a-Day #6 : Yellow Tulip, 7. Thing-a-Day #7 : Haiku, 8. Thing-a-Day #8 : Study in Construction, 9. Thing-a-Day #9 : 3 Giraffes, 10. Thing-a-Day # 10 : Sunrise, 11. Thing-a-Day #11 : Blue Anemone, 12. Thing-a-Day #12 : Collage “Retail Therapy”, 13. Thing-a-Day #13 : Red Wine, 14. Thing-a-Day #14 : 60163 Tornado, 15. Thing-a-Day #15 : Spring Meme, 16. Thing-a-Day #16 : Boys on the Tube, 17. Thing-a-Day #17 : 62nd Larch in Winter, 18. Thing-a-Day #18 : Haiku, 19. Thing-a-Day #19 : Supermarket, 20. Thing-a-Day #20 : Cyclamen, 21. Thing-a-Day #21 : Haiku, 22. Thing-a-Day #22 : Newsletter, 23. Thing-a-Day #23 : Aboriginal Art, 24. Thing-a-Day #24 : Off My Trolley, 25. Thing-a-Day #25 : At the Dentist, 26. Thing-a-Day #26 : Mother, 27. Thing-a-Day #27 : Crazed Window, 28. Thing-a-Day : Done!

You can find all the Thing-a-Day entries at www.thing-a-day.com as well as some entries in the Thing-a-Day Flickr Group.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

memes, personal, photography

My Friends Meme


My Friends Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to use the first names of 12 friends and see what we get.

So I chose: Gabriella, Sue, Stephen, Rob, Tom, Christine, Malin, Ziggy, Prue, Les, John and Katy.

1. Don’t Go Yet, 2. Sue W., 3. tempest three, 4. Very sticky flip-flops that don’t flop!, 5. Naked Bill But Still Beautiful, 6. In A Dream With You, 7. encadrée, 8. Angelic Fruitcake, 9. Parisian Stories 5 – The Brawl 15, 10. NYC – MoMA: Pablo Picasso’s Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery), 11. INTO THE SUN. PAINTING BY JOHN P. BUTLER, 12. Katy Kitchen

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys