So, what do you do when you go all in with two pair and get called and beat early in the poker game?

You take photos of the game for the rest of the night.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – I need a book on flora and fauna.

My daughter got the shock of her young life today when she tried to eat one of the apples I’d been shooting.

Those lovely apples? They’re nectarines…

OK, before I get into this, does the background in this shot look ok on your monitor? On mine it looks black, but I know it’s not. I masked and painted out a fair portion of it, but I have no idea how to tell if enough is enough.

If not, let me know?

The HDR version of the red apples from yesterday wasn’t the only version of the picture I ended up with.

Whilst the original unedited picture had some merit (to my mind anyway), I quite liked this slightly overblown red version too…

I know a lot of people curse HDR and I’ve had a bit of a love hate relationship with it over the last two years myself. But sometimes the photo cries out for it and sometimes, like this, you kind of half expect it when you’re shooting.

The apples are sitting on a piece of black Perspex (which I finally got round to picking up, thanks for the tip Paulo) and lighting is just natural window light.

Camera was on F/16 and shutter speeds were 0.3sec, 0.5sec and 0.8sec. HDR was performed in Photomatix Pro and then a bit of curves and shadow adjustments in Photoshop (yeah, I now at some point its not a photograph anymore…)

At some point in the process it’s lost the sharpness of the original images which is a little annoying. It was all shot on a tripod, but I’m not sure if that was enough, my three year old was bouncing about at the time!

OH, one question. Does anyone have good tips for getting dust particles of Perspex? It was a nightmare to get this shot without little flecks of dust!

I really need to pick up a flora and fauna book.

I' think this is a chicken. Though why I spent yesterday at the zoo taking photos of chickens is anyone's guess…

It does seem to have a certain attitude though.

Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller

Things have been hectic of late. So much so that I could feel the world getting me down, my temper getting shorter and my attitude starting to suck.

I decided a day off was in order. A day off taking pictures I thought.

Well, I’ve spent my day off playing with my camera and watching TV and reading books and all those things. It’s been good.

Sometimes you really do need to take some time.

(And if that isn’t the cheesiest way to introduce a shot of a watch, I don’t know what is!)

If you’re thinking about playing in the Food challenge, here’s a little food for thought:

Vegan Yum-Yum

My enjoyment of the colour challenge, not in the least tempered by my unexpected win, makes me want to play again.

So, if you’re interested this time the theme is Food

It can be in its raw state, prepared state, whatever you want as long as it relates to food.

Usual rules apply. There are no prizes (apart from kudos and the right to pick the next theme) and it is just for fun.

We’ll aim for all submissions by the 5th August, with judging over the subsequent week.

If you played before, please play again and if you haven’t played yet, please do!

(edit: Correction made to satisfy the grammar police. Honestly, you'd think he would have more to do 48hours before B-Day!)

After a bit of reorganisation, it seems the peoples photography exhibition is on again in Dublin this year. It also seems it’s already sold out!

I’m reliably informed that Dermot has booked a place for me along with him and his sister. So if you’re in Dublin over the weekend of the 29th and 30th August, look us up.

All I need to do now is work out which images I’ve taken in the last year that are worth displaying, get them printed (if necessary), mounted, arrange a hanging structure, book a hotel for the weekend, buy all the clips and ties and strings I’m likely to need…

No rush, plenty of time…

I mentioned I was in Galway this week. Well, the weather was a bust from a photography perspective – and I was in a grump anyway.

Sometimes it’s better I don’t pick up the camera.

Anyway, as I was checking out of the hotel yesterday morning, they were getting ready for a wedding party later that day. The manager was putting flowers into a vase, and while she was running through payment I decided to see if I could take a shot of one of the flowers on the hop.

I think its a Chrysanthemum, but I know as much about flora as I know  about fauna so…

Anyway. The lighting in the room sucked, so since flash and off camera cord were to hand, I tried a little unusual lighting by illuminating it from below and just left of the camera.

Considering I had all of two minutes to grab the shot before going to work, I quite like it.

Firstly, sorry for the delay in following the colour challenge up. I’ve been away most of the week in Galway on business. Twas very wet and dull.

Oh, and there was work to do.

Anyway…..Colour.

I ended up with 5 entries for the game and a 6th arriving after the judging was finished. It’s about the number I’d hoped for given this site is only really followed by friends and a few others. (What, you thought millions of people read my drivel???)

The five shots submitted were:

1. Colour – Stuart

2. Dahlia – Darrell

3. Paint Pots – Paul

4. Poppy - Gordon

5. Shoe Maker - Dermot

All in all, some nice pictures.

After voting the paint pots picture won. I was lucky enough to have taken this. I’ll post some details on taking the shot in a subsequent post.

I’d just like to thank everyone for taking part. Hopefully you found it as interesting a challenge as I did.

If people are up for it, we’ll start the game again in a few days. One of this months contributors has suggested we spice it up a little by not only submitting pictures, but by trying to match the image to the submitter…

(All pictures above are copyright their respective owners and are produced here with their permission (I hope!). )