miss marie's miscellany

Sparkling

Fun with sparklers at Sunday night's bonfire party!

Yorkshire days 3

An awful weather forecast unfortunately necessitated a day indoors. We headed to Bradford to the National Media Museum, for a good look round.

 The museum has exhibitions of film, photography and TV, as well as a shop and an IMAX cinema. We started with an exhibition of the history of photography, with cameras galore  from its beginnings to the present day.

I particularly liked these 'ladies' cameras from the 1920's, made in lovely colours which Kodak Eastman hoped would be an enticement to get more women interested in photography.

On to TV Heaven, with lots of models used to make lots of old favourites

There was a mock-up of a TV studio where you could read the news and do all kinds of amazing things in front of a blue screen.......here you can see my nephew T surfing and my dad in the background about to do his Huw Edwards impersonation!

Some groovy old television sets

And TV cameras

There was also a great exhibition of animation with wonderful drawings and models from late 19th century to the latest 3D examples. My favourites were these models used in 'Jason and the Argonauts'

The set from 'The Wrong Trousers'

and Wallace and Gromit themselves!

 On to the photography; 2 excellent shows, a wonderful exhibition of the photographs of Don McCullin, so powerful and thought provoking and another exhibition entitled 'Animalism', exploring the place of animals in modern media; my favourite in this was a wall of portraits of different primates; the human characteristics were very striking and strangely beautiful (sadly, but understandably, no taking of photos allowed at either of these).  Some of these photos are available to view online, as well as archives of many of the museum's photographs.

We spent the whole afternoon here easily, there was so much to see and enjoy; in the words of Wallace and Gromit, it was a grand day out!

After the rain

Black and white

I thought today I'd have a change from colour and go monochrome. My camera has a setting so I can take black and white photographs and I quite often take 2 pictures of the same thing, one colour and one black and white, as I find it interesting to note what stands out in each variation; similarities and differences. I particularly like the way trees look when they are photographed in black and white. In autumn and spring, the detail of knarled trunks and branches seem exaggerated;

This next tree, the only one I photographed in summer,  looks like it's about to fly.

And this one looks almost like a person,arms outstretched. (If you have read or seen Lord of the Rings, you'll know what I mean if I say Treebeard)

This tree is a deep orange brown colour, but in this b&w version the absence of colour means the markings and shine of the bark are much more eye-catching.

I also like the the timeless quality that black and white photos have. 

Hope you enjoy these!

Days like this

Warm spring sunshine. Just the best feeling.

Gorgeous green 4

Waiting to be planted in my garden

Blooming in the garden

A bit of calm

Green fingers!

I hope you have enjoyed all this greenness! I'd love to feature another colour theme in the coming weeks......I wonder which I'll choose?

Musical notes

I saw this next to the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, when I visited there recently. I like the way it cheers up this blank wall, and brings the music, from within the hall, outside too.

Parisian interlude

I went to Paris last week! My trip was only for 3 days but I managed to pack in as much as possible.

 

Some of the most famous sights

Some window shopping. Old perfume bottles

Delectable cakes

These candles are so colourful

Some interesting architecture

La Defense arch

 Sculpture in the Tuileries

 

Bridge over the Seine

 

Dali exhibition

 

 

Shopping in Galeries Lafayette

 

What a wonderful city!

Salutations

Hello, and welcome. I start with trepidation, but excitement....I've wanted to write my own blog for some time now, but have contented myself with lurking in cyberspace and reading many blogs which I enjoy, until now. At last, I feel ready to let my voice be heard, and I hope you will enjoy reading about my life and loves, thoughts and observations.

My first photographic offerings are some images from my garden taken over the last week or so, as spring works its magic. I love my garden! It doesn't look very loveable at the moment, still recovering from a cold winter, but so many things have started growing recently, 

 

crocuses  

snowdrops  

 

daffodils  

 primroses

 

hellebores  

that it already looks more beautiful than I'd hoped for, having done no gardening whatsoever for the last 3 months.

 

Enjoy!