Runner Up Prize for Great Dorset Steam Fair Photograph

Great news yesterday! John entered a photograph he took at the Great Dorset Steam Fair into a competition being run by The Vintage Spirit magazine. They contacted him to say that his photograph (the one above) has won a runners up prize of one year's free subscription to the magazine.

I am totally chuffed for John! The photograph will appear in the next edition of the magazine, although it is certainly a publication with a pretty limited readership I would guess!

So, he'll be able to sit on the train with this magazine in true geeky style :)

Photographing Needlework

Although it is my husband, John, who is the photographer in the family, I thought I'd have a go at photographing some of my needlework pictures yesterday.

In particular, I tried to photograph the picture I am most proud of. This is a very large gobelin stitch needlepoint picture which I think was called 'Midnight in Winter'. It is a kit I got from the Gobelin Company based in Germany. They don't supply this particular picture any more so unfortunately I can't check the name and I didn't keep the counted chart pattern ...... well, I'm not going to do it again, that's for sure!

I fell in love with the picture the minute I saw it in the catalogue but it is a biggie! It's 72 cm deep and 43cm wide and on quite fine count fabric, requiring 9 stitches per cm. Mind you, with these particular kits, one gobelin stitch is actually two physical stitches, so really it's 18 stitches to the cm. It is completely done in different shades of blue from the very darkest blue-black to off-white and white itself, and it shows some sheep in a field, with the silhouette of a tree to one side, all illuminated by a full moon.

However, photographing it proved to be difficult! Although it is framed behind non-reflective glass, I could still see reflections of the windows behind me. I tried everything! Standing to one side improves things but it is more difficult than I thought!

I'd also like to try to photograph stitches up close ........ but I can see this will also be a challenge!

I will have to search on the Internet for advice!

Birthday Boy!

And, of course, I couldn't forget Minstrel!

Taking photos of Minstrel can be a challenge, what with him being a black and white cat! So we don't have as many good ones of him as we do for Flossie. His eyes are the most vivid green which this doesn't really capture unfortunately.

Had we realised that he was a boy when we first had him, we would have called him Sylvester as he looks just like him! He has the Tuxedo colouring with white down his front and the white paws and if he sits looking at you, the long-haired fluffyiness around his mouth makes him look just like Sylvester. Truely a handsome chap!

My Birthday Has Come and Gone!

Saturday 19th June was my 51st Birthday and we spent the weekend away at a hotel near to Winchester in Hampshire. We had a great time.

OK .... John did take lots of photos but I don't have them to hand at the moment!

Still .... it's sometime around now that it's the 4th Birthdays for Flossie and Minstrel. We don't know their exact birth dates as their mother was discovered in someone's garden with a new litter of kittens in late June 2006. However, the lady in whose garden they were found obviously went to great lengths to socialise the kittens as they are both the friendliest cats ever!

So ..... another photo of Flossie instead of me! :)

On the specific day that this was taken, I had noticed Flossie was sitting still for once and the lighting was just right! I didn't dare to get up myself to get the camera as I knew she would move, so I called John to take the photo. Luckily, she stayed still and this is the result. I think it must be my favourite photo.