Chiaroscuro

Day 5 - Chiaroscuro

Noun
1. The artistic distribution of light and dark masses in a picture
2. Monochrome painting using light and dark only

From Italian - chiaro (clear) and oscuro (obscure)

Having a nightmare...chose my word this morning, when trying to distract myself when the ICT examiner arrived to moderate my coursework - I let him have my office and I had to find somewhere to work...then I couldn't work, so I distracted myself with choosing my dictionary word! However, the nightmare has come from having to choose a bloody photo to post...I'll come to that in a minute.

I came across this particular word which I had never even heard of before, and I thought of a fellow blipperwho is particularly adept in this technique in terms of his photos - and who has been a MASSIVE help to me in terms of pointing me in the right direction with beginners HDR stuff, using software to tweak my images and suchlike - it is very much appreciated chuck ;-)

So, having come home from a long day, which was topped off with an hour's detention with my naughty boys who I mentioned yesterday, I was super energetic (no really I was) - because despite it being a long day, its been an excellent day. All of my kids have now passed their GCSE ICT course so its been a really uplifting afternoon going and finding them to tell them. Made more sweet by the fact that two of the kids who have secured the pass (Grade C at GCSE) are special needs kids, but who have slogged their guts out for the last two years for me. I just wanted to hug them.

(And on a side note, my exam moderator was fantastic, really helpful and told me that his other job is as a Funeral Director. That was a really intriguing conversation let me tell you!)

I digress - after tea, I took my camera, tripod and Corin out on a walk...Corin spent his time dodging the midges (they love him - he's obviously very tasty) and I kept stopped to set up camera, taking on board the advice from my photoguru.

Have subsequently spent the last two hours merging images for HDR processing, and farting about with negative images, tinting, monochrome, levels, blah blah blah and as a result I have too many images that I am happy with.

But this one was joint favourite with one of a spiral staircase that I took for Corin (because he asked me to because he likes architectural stuff). Why my favourite - because its just wrong and random and looks ever so slightly hell-ish...I think my mind always wants to wander back to dark places, even when I am happy.

Rejects - the Mono set


Improving HDR stuff

Have a top night everyone - its bathtime for me now, with a whiskey (to drink, not to bathe in), then sleeeeeeeeeeep.

Comment catchup over the weekend - now the pressure is off with coursework for a few weeks.