Syria

Syria is on my mind today, massacres are taking place, according to Paul Conway the photographer who was with Marie Colvin when she died in Homs. He was reporting from his hospital bed in England.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/homs-children-waiting-to-die-says-uk-photographer-7499734.html
The Russian determination to block any resolutions at the UN may have some root in their desire to maintain a naval base in Tartus from which town is a main route which runs directly to Homs. There is also their well documented sale of arms to the Syrian government.
A strange piece of news on Twitter today was while the International Red Cross was unable to access Bab Amr for, so called, security reasons the State television was conducting interviews there which, as stated on twitter, is surreal.
There is nothing surreal, however, about the rumours of execution and the flattening of this area of Homs. Spare a thought for the terrified people who have nothing to do with any part of this conflict and simply want to continue living their lives.

using time to make pictures

Roses are it. Confined to the house and so playing around with flash and shutter speed. Net result quite pleasing.

Early Morning on a Beach

Early morning walking the beach and finding that someone had been there before me

Editing a picture

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Posting this image because this a picture that I edited using blending modes in Photoshop CS3. The previous shot was pretty blown out in the sky, so I selected the sky and changed the blend to multiply. The difference was immediate, I took the opacity down a little until I was happy with it. I did something similar with the clock but took the opacity down a lot. I also selected the dome and used overlay as the blend and again took the opacity down until I was happy with it. I cropped the photo down to get rid of clutter and to see more of the sky. Et voila, a shot that I'm now very happy with.

On the Lines

On the Lines, originally uploaded by hornettennyson.

The possibility of standing in the middle of the road and not being rolled over by a large people carrier is rare in London. It shows that the city was at a standstill because I was able to take my time getting shutter speed right in order to get this shot. Only one car slid carefully up the road and kindly deepened the tyre tracks for my picture click on the picture takes you to my flickr account