Finding Shapes - Circles & Triangles

I'm still looking for shapes. In the first two, it's very obviously circles. The first one comes from the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, and like the blue windows I've posted before, the photo is not from an exhibition but the building itself. If I remember correctly, this was the ceiling of the lift. Isn't it like dozens of tiny moons gathered together? All I did to the image was some cross-processing in Lightroom.

Lunatic

Again, my second picture was taken on the same trip, still travelling towards Britain. We were boarding the ship in Ijmuiden, and from the gangway one could look out from these circular windows. When I looked out, I saw even more circles - the windows of the terminal building. This was another picture which I only slightly processed in Lightroom, that's all.

Boarding in Ijmuiden

The third photo is yet another travelling shot, and just happens to be from the Netherlands like the previous one. This was taken at the Schiphol airport when we were on our way to Birmingham to Crufts Dog Show last year, and it has received only minor adjustments in Lightroom.

Local Presence

The next picture takes us back to Finland, although not quite home this time either. I took it on our barbershop singing course in Orivesi a year ago, from the veranda of the lovely Singing Cottage there was - the charming old building was all for the twenty or so of us for the four days we spent there. The hill it stood on diminishes in the picture, but still you can see the twisted shapes of the pines on the slope of the hill and just about discern the fields and woods. What a wonderful place it was, I seriously hope to be able to visit it again and sing the harmonies with old and new friends.

Summer View

Resources:
- texture Word by Kim Klassen

Sharing this one at Kim's Texture Tuesday.

Instagram-ish

At BL day 54 was declared Instagram day. This old fart had to dig up what that meant. Instagram seems to be this online photo-sharing thingy where you upload your phone pictures and apply some filters on them. Oh and all the pictures are square. I tried it out, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how to use it on the browser. Obviously it's meant to be used only by phone, so I decided it wasn't for me. Anyway, for the challenge we were to try out some instagram-ish photoshop actions on our photos, and there was a scavenger hunt as well. As you might expect, I did the hunt in my archives again, but restricted myself to using photos from last summer only.

Also, when I started playing with the actions Kim suggested we use I was not awfully impressed by the way they were made - they didn't open a new document, as many, or create the action as editable layers, as many others I've used, so I had to use the history tool to go back to the original if I wanted to try out the action. Sure gave me good practice in using the history tool! In the end I decided I wouldn't be using only the given actions but some others, too.

There were five themes for the scavenger hunt: something pretty, something blue, something borrowed, water and dreamy. For the pretty one I chose a picture I took on my birthday as we were driving back home from Helsinki. We stopped at this new lay-by service place, and they had this little thing we call maitolaituri in Finnish. Literally you could translate it as "milk jetty" - it was a place where the farmers would leave their milk churns by the roadside where they could be collected by the dairy deliverers. There are none in that use anymore, but I thought this thing, although new and non-authentic, was pretty and nostalgic and definitely worth a photo.

Something Pretty

Resources:
- Instagram filter action by Daniel Box
- framing action by Paint The Moon

My "something blue" photo is a photo taken by the river on a walk with the dogs.

Something Blue

Resources:

- Instagram filter action by Daniel Box 

- framing action by Paint The Moon

For "something borrowed" I chose a photo of our dandie Justiina, whom our friend Nunnu borrowed to cuddle with. I photographed them after the ring at the Terrier Specialty show, basking on the grass in the sunshine.

Something Borrowed

Resources:

- Instagram filter action by Daniel Box 

- framing action by Paint The Moon

The next prompt was "water". I had two I liked and couldn't decide which picture to choose, they were so different but they go well together. They also reflect well the difference between the dandies in them, the two sisters Justiina and Marleena. Justiina is approaching the water carefully and suspiciously and barely wets her nose there, whereas Marleena happily wades in the water, enjoying the refreshing coolness on a warm day. What the picture doesn't show, however, is her constant rushing in and out of the water. She has recently discovered that one can actually play in the water, but her sister still thinks water is only good for drinking.
 

Tasting the Water

Resources:

- Instagram filter action by Daniel Box 

- framing action by Paint The Moon

Wading in Water

Resources:- CoffeeShop Vintagram action by Rita @ The Coffee Shop Blog

- framing action by Paint The Moon

The last prompt was "dreamy". Here I ended up choosing two images taken in Lappajärvi during our DDT Club Show and summer camp at the beginning of August. The first photo is of a folly right on the lake shore, the other one is a shot to the lake - originally I tried to shoot the gull sitting on the navigation mark, but it turned into a shot of the type "there-is-a-gull-there-just-try-and-spot-it".

Folly on the Lake

Resources:
- action Watermelon Blues by Sarah Lynn Cornish

- framing action by Paint The Moon

Lakeshore Rushes

Resources:
- action Pretty Hazy by Sarah Lynn Cornish

- Instagram filter action by Daniel Box 

- framing action by Paint The Moon

Lots of dogs and water in these pictures. Yes, we had a nice summer.

Blue Skies Smiling at Me

For Beyond Layers Day 20, the fourth day of the Colour Week, I collected blue skies and other things from our trip to Salzburg at the end of July. It was a wonderful holiday, we enjoyed all of it, even the part where we first got soaking wet in a sudden thunder storm that started during an open-air concert in the Mirabell Gardens, rushed into one of the buses we usually took and then realized it was not going where we were, and when the wind blew Better Half's brand new Panama hat onto the pavement and a friendly young man managed to catch it…

I loved skimming through the pictures for some beautiful and memorable blueness, most of it the sunny kind, although there are some watery bits as well.

Helsinki-Salzburg, July 2012

Resources used:
- template by myself
- gradients by Digital Phenom
- background texture by Bashcorpo
- brush from Real Brush Strokes Set by Doodle-lee-doo

Salzburg, July 2012

Thank you for the resources:
- template by Scrap'Anges

- gradients by Digital Phenom

- background texture by Bashcorpo
- brush from Real Brush Strokes Set by Doodle-lee-doo

What an absolutely amazing summer we've had this year. It's been rainier than I ever remember, yes, and cold too, but there have been these beautiful sunny days and it suits me perfectly that there haven't been these long heat waves. And it seems we've been travelling the whole summer.

Let me see now. First I went to Scotland with the students, then we flew directly to Salzburg to the World Dog Show without me even getting home but meeting Better Half at the airport. After that we drove to work a dog show where I worked for the weekend, only a couple of hundred kilometres but anyway.

Ok, in June and the beginning of July there wasn't too much of driving together, as Better Half was off most weekends to a show somewhere, but at the end of July we first drove to the Club Show for four days, then to the Chamber Music Festival for a day and then flew to Salzburg again for the glorious week. Coming back, we had the little party for my birthday and then rushed off to another show where I worked for three days, a couple of hundred kilometres again but we drove home every day. There was another show the weekend after that, only about 100 km away this time, and this takes us to last week.

On Wednesday we first drove about 600 km south-west for Better Half's judging test, on Thursday northwards again, where we visited Better Half's sister and the zoo, then on Friday there was another test in Central Finland where we found our way along nice country roads, and then home. And this round trip of 1,200 km or so I actually got to drive all the way. Better Half usually does the driving, as my eyes are rather unreliable especially in the dim or dark, but now we drove mostly in full daylight and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Between the trips, we have alternately worked like mad and just relaxed. Yes, it's been a great summer.