Alien World.

284/365 Alien World., originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Slightly spooky Christmas decorations at Harvey Nichols in Manchester. I'm not sure what happened but two pictures I've taken in one evening got explored. I thought it was thanks to the Sunday Night Phlow game, but it's not. This one got explored on its own even if at the bottom of the pile (last 50).

I should be extremely happy but, despite my reaction on Facebook, a part of me is saying "yes, so what?" Let's concentrate to get even better so it becomes a habit.

The Spaceship

285/365 The Spaceship, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Manchester, Royal Exchange Theatre. The Royal Exchange Theatre is a modern, spaceship like, heptagonal structure, inside the Royal Exchange which was once one of the largest trading rooms in Europe.

I used to go to the theatre in Italy, but I never really got into it, I thought the acting was stiff and didn't convey any emotion. Anyway I wasn't that sure of myself and didn't feel I could really say I preferred a good hollywood blockbuster to a venerated piece of Chechov.

Theatre in the UK is different. The way actors move and speak is more natural and engaging. On top of it the Royal Exchange Theatre is designed to create a better connection between the actors and the audience and I love the minimal scenographical settings the circular (heptagonal) shape of the stage imposes. It is like magic, the magic of the theatre of other ages that I've seen only described in books.

The external structure of the theatre fitted inside the Royal Exchange hall is also very intriguing as it looks like a spaceship had landed in there.

It Takes Two

284/365 It Takes Two, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Manchester, Exchange Theatre. The other day I went to see The Bacchae. Although it is possible to take pictures outside the theatre structure it is not really allowed to take pictures within the theatre itself but I managed a couple of shots before a mask told me off.

Up to now I've used only the manual mode in my camera. The manual mode is really good for static exposure conditions and for pictures that are setup (tripod or studio). However most of the other times it's slow and clumsy. The other evening I tried other modes:

1) TV shutter priority is not for me and I'm not sure in what conditions a mode that changes depth of field to adjust exposure can be used.
2) AV aperture priority is much more interesting as it regulates the exposure once the aperture has been set. In the late afternoon darkness it was over exposing and the street lights and shop windows were overblown. However together with the semi automatic modes I also finally tried proper EV correction. Up to now I did use it a bit randomly as an additional setting I could use to change the exposure, but in the other evening darkness, in AV mode, I finally understood what it is really for and how well the combination works to set the exposure in low lights for hand held pictures.

And they are on...

278/365 And they are on..., originally uploaded by afortiorama.

I get bored easily and I love different seasons. The switching on of Christmas lights is an event in Manchester at least since I've been here. But I think it is especially so since we have Santa Zippy in front of the Town Hall. I like Christmas and I like Christmas lights. They make the longer winter nights a bit more cheerful. That evening I also went to a photographic event at the Royal Exchange theatre. After it there was a folk singer singing old Scottish/English/American ballads some medieval. He was pretty good and a pleasant way to spend the first part of the evening with a glass of wine, without getting wasted. I spent too much time in the pub not doing anything else; I spent too much time hating it and keeping on doing it. I'm pleased now that I'm finding other things to do instead.

Dusk

277/365 Dusk, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Lyme Park, Cheshire. Near the tree there were two wildlife photographer waiting for the deer to come out. I asked myself if my passion for photography would make me sit in the cold and dark to really wait for the right moment. The answer is no for now. Still I envy them because they go all the way and they don't do half baked attempts at being good. They go all the way and they enjoy it.

On a more technical note I've noticed my laptop screen has a colder hue than the screen at work. For example at work the zombies blood is intollerably saturated while on my screen it looks ok. The same applies to the green and yellows of these Cheshire pictures. I'm looking at screen calibration but unfortunately the argyllcms/dispcal set of programs is bugged on Fedora13 and doesn't work for now.

Lyme Park

276/365 Lyme Park, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

I love the leading road that goes beyond. It seems to enter a fantastic forest full of promises.

Contorted

275/365 Contorted, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Disley, Cheshire. Different tree, different colors and different season but this branches reminded me of Van Gogh Almond Blossom . My picture lacks a bit of depth of field but I saw it today on a bigger screen and it's better than I thought. I often have this problem of treating aperture as secondary. I seem to pay attention to it only when I do macros.

Road ahead

272/365 Front, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Today I was told that my boss of 11 years (who stepped down from being my boss 3 months ago) has decided to leave for good. He is the person who hired me and let me grow; and although 3 years ago I grew too much and we started to have some tensions, we have gone through a lot together and I'm going to miss him. But life goes ahead, it doesn't stop and tomorrow is another day. Changes, changes, changes.

Psychedelia

265/365 Psychedelia, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Abstract created from hotel glass wall and windows. The original picture wasn't anything special. Vertical colourful lines. I rotated it and eventually also used a pinch&twirl tool in gimp to give it that twist. I started as a purist and now I'm roaming the possibility offered by the software. I foud myself reconstructing entire sections of the picture, applying various effects, disorting the image as I please.

Does this make my pictures better? All the most liked pictures in my stream are edited. Only the smiling eggs are appreciated in their nakedness. What to do? Better with the computer than with the camera? I do spend an awful lot of time on the computer, it might tell me something like: "Get your arse out of the fucking sofa and spend more time with the camera in oyur hands....

Emerald

269/365 Emerald, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

I still don't have filters. This one was achieved exposing for the sky and then using a combination of advanced tone mapping plug-in and plain brightness-contrast function in GIMP to bring out the green of the grass. For the tone mapping 2 or 3 layers keeps it real.

I sort of kept in mind that is easier to bring out the details from darkened zones than it is from burned highlights. In other pictures I haven't done so that well and I had to rebuild part of the sky in the direction of the sun.

Classic Britain

248/365 Classic Britain, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Manchester, terrace houses. It was a nice evening yesterday and going for shopping I brought my camera. I lifted my head and there was the moon over this classic row of houses. This is another picture that has been knocked into shape with GIMP.

I do not have any filter yet so I used the gradient tool to darken the sky and lighten the terrace houses. Darkening of the sky also brought out the plane trail that I hadn't really noticed when I shot this picture.

After I took this though I started to read about filters on the WEB and ended up buying a book about the subject.

Creature of the night

256/365 Creature of the night, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

I'm not sure why I'm starting a blog.

Anyway this was the halloween zombie walk in Manchester. The lady was actually surrounded by volunteers with bright yellow jackets with refractive stripes and she was underexposed. I had to do a heavy work of cover the bright jackets. I did it twice. The first time only using a paint brush without realising that I was leaving patches of almost black. The got incredibly highlighted when I tried to upload on facebook which has crappy resizing algorythm and which alters also the colors. So the first version was pretty crap. In the second version I did the opposite I covered her with a black layer, added a layer mask and then brought her out slowly. Still not perfect but at least there are no "invisible" patches. She was scary. I put this as my laptop background. She reminds me to be nasty when it is necessary.