The Lake District

The past weekend was spent on holiday with my friend Christine in the Lake District. The Lake District is situated in North West England and is a popular tourist destination because of its beautiful scenery of lakes and mountains. (Didn't that sound just like a quote from a travel brochure?) Having seen beautiful photographs taken by my friend Sandro when he came back from his trip there, I decided I had to go look for myself and all I can say is – the Lake District is absolutely awesome! One weekend is not enough to take in all the sights, especially if you intend to do some hillwalking (or fellwalking, as it is known here). The map above shows the walks we took, to High Sweden Bridge on Saturday and Wansfell Pike on Sunday. It rained almost the entire day on Saturday, resulting in washed out photos but the climb on Sunday was thankfully in sunnier weather. The third red dot at the bottom of the map is the Ambleside YHA, where we stayed, right next to Lake Windermere. The photos below show Ambleside YHA, Lake Windermere and the view from the top of Wansfell Pike, which at 482 metres isn't high enough to be categorised as a mountain (in the UK, it needs to be 600 metres or higher), but it sure felt like one during the steep climb up! The view at the top is definately worth it, though. Beautiful hills, valleys and lakes. It was a great getaway for the weekend, and I’m already thinking of going back! :)

Summer Rain

Ok, now I understand all the comments people make about English weather. It has been raining every day for so long that I cannot remember the last day it did not rain. This past weekend was Veterans' Day Weekend in Bradford and I was looking forward to it because I wanted to watch the Spitfire plane flypast, but it rained the entire weekend so I did not bother going. I'm guessing the flypast was probably cancelled. It was cancelled due to bad weather during the Haworth 1940s Weekend when it rained then, and the weather this past weekend was much worse. This morning was really windy but there was no rain and I thought to myself - oh good, a day with no rain. But nope, it started raining around lunch time. At least it has stopped now and the sun is out.

My Digital Art - Part 3

This is one of my favourite photos from my Haworth trip. It's one of the few that I think may pass for an actual 1940s photograph as there is nothing in it to indicate it was taken in 2007. I removed the colour, added the film grain, and painted in the faded borders to create a more dated look.

Netherlands Dance Theater II

On Friday night, I went for a performance by the Netherlands Dance Theater II at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, where I work. Netherlands Dance Theater II (NDT2) is a comtemporary dance company founded in 1978 and presently consists of sixteen dancers between the ages of 17 and 22. NDT2 was originally a training ground for young dancers before they move on to the main company, Netherlands Dance Theater I, but since its conception, it has developed into an internationally recognized company of its own. From the performance I saw, it’s easy to understand why. These publicity photos are from their first dance. There were 3 altogether, all incorporating simple props and costumes but choreographed in very artistic and original ways.

Haworth 1940's Weekend - 20th May

Every year around this time in spring, there is an event in the beautiful village of Haworth situated on the edge of the Pennine moors in West Yorkshire, England. It's the 1940’s Weekend, a time when everyone dresses up in 1940s clothing, British and American soldiers walk the streets (along with a few Nazis), vintage cars and buses travel along the roads, and Winston Churchill and the Queen can be seen giving speeches. Newspaper boys and scouts in 1940s uniforms walk around selling newspapers dated from that era. Songs from the 40s can be heard playing from loudspeakers on rooftops. It’s like going back in time!! Really, really awesome!

I took the steam train here on Sunday from Keighley station and spent the entire day just looking around and taking photos. I originally wanted to see the WW2 Spitfire fly past which was supposed to be held here the day before but it was cancelled due to bad weather. I then found out there will be a Veterans’ Weekend from the 30th June to 1st July in the city centre of Bradford.... and guess what plane from the Battle of Britain will be doing a fly past then? Yep, the Spitfire :)

My Digital Art - Part 2

This photo of Emma was taken against a plain white background, and then composited unto the peeling paint backdrop.

Edited June 2008 -
Looking back at this pic, I felt like removing this blog entry as the entire effect just looks wrong. I have no idea what kind of effect I was hoping for at the time! But then instead of deleting this, I thought maybe it'll be interesting to tweak the original image a bit and see what a comparison with an edited version would look like... so I've included a new edited version below. More pleasing, I think, but still very amateurish... you be the judge.

My Digital Art - Part 1

These are just some images I created using Photoshop, something I do once in a while when I'm bored. I don't think they're artistic enough to be called 'art' but I didn't know what to call them ('fruits of my boredom'?) so unless I come up with something better, they shall be known as 'my digital art'.