Yes we go all the way to Italy and photograph doors and windows, but no one does doors and windows quite like the Italians:
Three things stand out from the trip: Lemons, Gelati and Bougainvillea
Limoncello
is a lemon liqueur produced mainly in southern Italy. It is made from lemon rind, alcohol, water and sugar, but no actual lemon juice.
15 lemons (choose thick-skinned lemons that are easier to zest)
2 bottles (750ml) 100 proof vodka
4 cups suagr
5 cups water
• Wash the lemons and carefully zest making sure not to get the white part underneath the rind as its too bitter and will spoil the lemoncello
• In a large glass jar add one bottle of vodka and add the lemon zest, cover and let it sit at room temperature for up to 40 days in a cool dark place
• In a large saucepan, combine sugar and water, cook until thickened 5-7mins. Let it cool and add to limoncello mixture. Add the additional vodka and rest for another 40 days.
• Strain and bottle, discarding the lemon zest. Keep in the freezer until ready to
serve.
Taormina
Located on a terrace of Monte Taurowith view to Mt Etna, Taormina is full of antique and craft shops, delis and designer boutiques.
Syracuse
The cathedral in Syracuse was originally a Greek temple. Inside you can see the huge 5th century BC Doric columns.
Agrigento
The Valley of the Temples is the ancient Greek city of Akragas.
Sometimes the most simple things can make a great image. Here is a pic of our new shower curtain (with a little bit of photoshop help to bump the colour up)
Ive come across this artist, Nicola Hensel. Her work seems to be a combination of drawing and collage. I wish I could see bigger pictures to get more of an idea of how she works, there seems to be fabric in there.
My first attempt at a blog post :) A selection of pictures from a walk we did in Arundel this long weekend. Shot with the little plastic holga lens I had modified to fit the digital camera, and then a bit of photoshop work. Used a new lomo technique I found online, think I prefer this one to other Ive tried: Vignette: Make a freehand selection with feather set to about 80, invert. Create a levels layer and darken the selection. (Didnt use this step on some of the images) Colour saturation: Create a new layer and fill with black, change the blending mode to Hue and opacity about 40%. Sharpen: Change image mode to lab colour. Select the channel window and click on the lightness channel, then use unsharp mask. Change back to RGB.
This is the basic version. The full tutorial is here:
To finish I added texture from other images with layers, blending mode set to multiply, colour dodge, overlay and vivd light work well too for different looks.
