May project for my U3A Photography group.

Hi everyone i hope you are all well and not too damp during these watery days we are having here in Essex. Still ! the much wanted rain has been a blessing for us gardeners as you can see by my lovely Auricular.. They are my VERY favourite flower. These were also a great  favourite of the Victorians. They liked to display them on staging to protect them from the rain as it spoilt the flowers. As you can see my staging is very primitive, but as i only have a small collection the rustic shelving suits me.

 At last months U3A photography  meeting we explored both manual and automatic setting on our cameras. At first i found it quite hard to understand, but after a while it seemed to sink in.

To see how much we had learnt we were given an assignment to do for the next meeting at the beginning of May. The assignment was to take two identical photos so i chose to take the photos of my Auriculas. The first one using the automatic setting and the second one using the manual setting.

This photo was taken on the automatic setting.

  
 This photo was taken on the manual setting.
I set the aperture at 4.5 and the shutter speed
at 1/200.

I don't know about you , but i can't see any difference between the settings. How ever i'm  pleased that i am able to take photos using the manual setting .

My Rainy Day Patchwork Project

Hi to you all and a Happy Easter despite it being a rainy Easter Monday.

As a dedicated gardener here in drought Essex, the rain has not come quick enough, but it has given me a good excuse to spend the day doing some craft work.
I chose this Easy Star Block which Joy from my patchwork group introduced me to.

 
A Tutorial for the Easy Star Block.

Stage one.

Stage two.

Stage three.

Stage four.

Stage five.

Stage six.

Stage seven.

Stage eight.

This image was taken by holding the finished piece up against the light.

I'm not sure what to do with this piece of patchwork yet. Maybe a small cushion or a large pincushion........xx