Sherborne, Dorset, UK, late December 2009

William McDermid doing his stuff - he's an amazing magician, baffling, self-confident, great at parties. Once again, I'm playing with slow shutter and flash to freeze at the same time.

Sherborne, Dorset, UK, late December 2009

Bookshelf items noticed in passing for the umpteenth time

Sherborne, Dorset, UK, late December 2009

That festive period between Christmas and New Year's Day... a Sunday pub lunch (hooked on blur/shutter), and late Christmas cake, which I hated as a child but have since grown to love

Pond Ice, Sherborne, UK

A fascinating discovery: pond ice 1/2-1" thick, cracked with the heel of my shoe, reveals nice (polarised?) light patterns in the fault lines

Weymouth, UK

Happy New Decade!!!

Seagull

Reflection

Window frame

Sherborne, Dorset, UK, December 2009

Morris Dancer's splendid jacket

Ancient High Street architecture, Sherborne

Ivy

Morris Dancers, Sherborne, UK, December 2009

More of the local Morris dancers doing their thing for the amusement of all

Christmas Preparations 2009, Sherborne, Dorset, UK

Merry Christmas everyone!

Getting crazy with the combination of slow shutter speed and flash, to both blur and freeze motion in the same frame. Top: rotating the lens. Middle: moving it sideways. Bottom: zooming in!

Interestingly, some of the tree lights we put up are revealed to be flickering at a very fast speed, which is why they are not smooth lines but dotted ones. By the way, we DID also have fun putting up the tree...

Counter...

... back to normal already so it was probably just a blip, thank goodness.

Counter reset...?!

I noticed with great displeasure the resetting of my 16000+ viewers from 199 countries to... 12 viewers from 7 countries, this morning. Contacted NeoWorx to request that the old totals - still existing for my blog on their site - be returned. Frustrating!

Morris Dancers, Sherborne, UK, December 2009

Slow shutter speed reveals the action of these wild guys. More to come.

Great new vacations site

http://www.thatvacationfeeling.com/

Check it out.

Bournemouth and Sherborne, UK

LOVE the smell of salt air. And that of fresh bread, for that matter

London, England, November 2009

Maple leaves near my cousin's house, Canada Water Underground

London, England, November 2009

Welcome, at 17000 visitors, to Jersey's first!

My maternal uncle David's 80th birthday party, for which he traveled down from Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago; including his daughter, her husband and his 4 granddaughters and others. Great time.

Back Soon

You wouldn't know from the last few posts that my wife and I were going through a crisis last week, but I had posted them well in advance. Then, on November 23, after a couple of days in hospital in southwest England following days of severe stomach pain, she had a miscarriage, and we lost our baby. Too small at 18 weeks to know if it was a boy or a girl, even. So we've been grieving with all this.

I'll be posting regularly again soon.

Random Set

Three leftover shots - have I posted the last of these before?

My friend Mamuka K'apanadze at a recent exhibition of his paintings in Tbilisi, October 2009

Autumn leaf, Sherborne, UK, November 2009

Restaurant courtyard, Brasov, Romania, 1992 (scan from slide; have I posted this already long ago?)

Southwest England, November 2009

A couple more of my girl - in car and phone box windows, the former with me as an added bonus reflection

Southwest England, November 2009

Windows as natural frames - a favourite subject of mine; that's Lali in the lowest shot

After Rtveli, Kakheti, Georgia

Rather forlorn-looking vines after the bunches of grapes have been cut off; and corn sheaves tied in cones - autumn has arrived in Georgia