Times Are Changing!

This is an image from the depths of my Flickr archives. I had forgotten all about it until someone commented on it recently. You will recognize it as one of the pics I used to create my blog header:

White Lace

Well, things are certainly changing at Flickr!! They shocked everyone yesterday by introducing a whole brand new layout. I've heard a fair few complaints and moans about it! Many of us are creatures of habit and don't embrace change readily...we resist it. What do I think of the New Flickr??

♥ I LIKE IT ♥

It is going to take a bit of getting used to. But the pictures are bigger, better and much more beautifully presented. There seems to be a lot less emphasis on comments now and more on the actual photography. I like that. Comments are great and I appreciate each and every one of them ~ but they're not the "be all and end all" for me.

If you are Flickr user, what do you think? If not a Flickr user, use the link and let me know what you think!

   

Bygone Days

Bygone Days

A collection of vintage items from bygone days ~ a vintage camera, a vintage receipt, old paper work and some vintage postcards. All memories of the way things used to be! I have processed this image with one of my own textures. Click the link at the bottom of the post if you would like to try out my textures on your own images!

    

A Somerset Icon

Evening At The Lighthouse

The nine legged lighthouse at Burnham On Sea, Somerset ~ a Somerset icon.

  

Views Of St. Ives

A few more photos of my recent visits to St. Ives, Cornwall, UK

Beautiful Harbour View

A beautiful view of St. Ives lovely harbour with Smeatons Pier and lighthouse. Also you can just see the Manacles on the right side of the pier ~ old wooden stumps, the remains of a long gone jetty.

Smeatons Pier

Solitude

Someone completely alone with their thoughts on the beach at St. Ives

A touch of spring in St. Ives:

Spring Blossom

Red  Leaves

Lacy Bluebells

♥ Thank you for visiting ♥

  

A Vision of St. Ives Through Lace

I had a lovely weekend in St. Ives last weekend. The weather was again very kind ~ I have been very fortunate. I took around 200 photos ~ the beauty of digital photography is that you are much freer to experiment and just delete what doesn't work!

Sepia  Lace St. Ives

A lacy view of St. Ives harbour.

Blossom in St. Ives

Blossom Post Card

These two images are blossoms I photographed in Chy An Gweal gardens, Carbis Bay, St. Ives. For those of you who may know the area ~ it is directly opposite Tesco's!

Do you like the lacy textures? Well, Saturday afternoon my sister, Carolyn (Love Stitching Red) announced that she needed lace textures and moaned that "there aren't any on Flickr ~ I've looked. Come on Texture Time ~ sort it out!"

I checked on Flickr too and whilst it's not fair to say there aren't any ~ there are some ~ they do seem to be in short supply compared to other textures that are available. So having established that there is a "gap in the market" so to speak, we set about doing something constructive to rectify the situation!

Layers of Lace 1

Off we go upstairs, Carolyn disappeared for a moment and then reappeared with a HUGE box of lace. Before I could say a word, she took the lid off and tipped the entire contents out on the bed. And then she disappeared again, leaving me staring bewilderingly at the mountain of lace that had just appeared in front of me.

"Well, I guess I'd better get on with it" I thought to myself. I started to sort through the lace and began photographing it.

Neutral Lace With Flowers

I should explain here that my sister, Carolyn, is a mixed media textile artist. You can view her work here at Carolyn Saxby Mixed Media Textile Art. This is why she has such a huge collection of lace ~ she likes to use it in her art work.

Cream Lace

I must have spent nearly 2 hours photographing lace. After we had our tea, I then spent all of the evening on my laptop processing lace photos, whilst watching Britain's Got Talent and The Voice on the TV!

Lacy Post Card

At the time of writing this I have done 8 lace textures in total. Some are just plain ~ exactly as they were photographed and some I have grunged up a little. All are FREE to use under a Creative Commons Attribution license and you can download them from Texture Time or just click on any of the images to take you directly to the texture. I will be uploading more to Texture Time very soon.

Vintage Sepia Lace

That's all for this post ~ thank you for visiting. I do have more St. Ives photos to share but I'll save those for another post. 

  

St. Ives and Withy Pots

I'm off to St. Ives (again!) very early tomorrow morning for the weekend ~ I'm so looking forward to it. We have had such lovely spring weather this past 2 weeks ~ I hope it holds out for the weekend.

St Ives ~ Textured

This is a textured view of St. Ives harbour ~ the tide just starting to creep back in. The textures are of course my own. I used 2 of my newest textures ~ Pale Spring Meadow and Sepia Spring Meadow ~ and they can be downloaded from Texture Time. As always they are FREE to use if you feel like trying them!

Here is the original photo, which I happen to like very much ~ but I do also love the soft muted colours and textures of the textured version:

St. Ives ~ Tide Coming In

How textures can change an image! On my last weekend to St. Ives, in the harbour was a local Cornish man named Richard Ede. This is what he does:

Richard Ede ~ Withy Pot Maker

He is a traditional Cornish Withy Pot maker! What's a withy pot? It's a lobster pot. This gentleman is one of only 5 people left in Cornwall who still make lobster pots the traditional Cornish way. 

From a business point of view, I can see the financial sense of mass producing these in a factory but wouldn't it be a terrible shame if such a lovely traditional Cornish craft were to die out! I hope there are some locals who are willing learn and keep up this tradition.

Withy Pots ~ Lobster Pots

That's all for now ~ I hope you all have a great weekend ~ I'm certainly looking forward to mine!

   

Two New Free Textures

Following on from yesterday's Jar Project photos ~ I have created, so far, two new textures from my jar photos which you can use for FREE in your photography/artwork, etc.

Water Stained

Paint Stained

Do give them a try ~ you can download them from Texture Time and download instructions are on my Free Textures page of my blog. If you use them and you would like to show me your work, please leave a link in the comment box and I will have a look!