A bit bored...

As the title says really...

I have a stack of things I 'could' be doing and a stack of things that I 'should' be doing, I just really can't be arsed today to be honest. So I decided to do some photo editing instead.

There has been a distinct lack of photography on my behalf just lately. A lack of inspiration, enthusiasm, subject matter and lenses have all paid part in this matter. (Turns out that two lenses were included in the road kill along with my camera). I have now replaced the 28-70 lens and am awaiting the arrival of a 28-200mm lens (to replace the roadkill 75-300 - although I think I might miss that last 100mm - but we'll see).

So anyway.. last night at our camera club meeting we had a lighting and inspiration night. We got to use our cameras at last. I wasn't overly enthused about going after last week's disasterous (for me) meeting where we had to endure 8 slide shows of one guy's trip to China. Whilst some of the shots were very nice, the majority were snaps that included his wife, and he wasn't the most enthralling narrator in the world. but c'est la vie.

So, camera at the ready and off I go. I'm still at the 'newbie' stage in our camera club as this was only my 5th week, but because it was a practical night there was a lot of interaction with other members. They obviously know my face now and it ended up being a really good laugh.

I also had an inpromtu ego stroking session when one of the long term members (30 year member) came over to me for a chat, saying he'd been meaning to do so for a while now. He told me how impressed he was with my photography and that I really shouldn't be in the beginners competitions, I should definately be in the experienced category.. woohoo.. thanks for that.. huge smiles. Oh, and I won the raffle too.. added bonus of a nice bottle of red wine.. except that I don't drink LOL. Ah well, I'm sure it will make someone smile when they open it at Christmas.

So I decided this morning to edit a few of the shots I took last night. I wasn't really impressed with any of them. It's just not in me at the moment to get good shots.. grrrr. Although one of the photographs did sort of call to me but it wasn't going to be a basic edit. The guy (don't laugh) had a 'good' face. And I knew exactly what treatment I wanted to give it. I've been wanting to try this process for a while now but never had the right shot, but this one really did seem suitable. Having seen some excellent Draganism work like this one done by Kim Ayres I thought I'd try it on this shot.

So here is my first attempt. I think he looks a little bit dirty, like he could do with a wash LOL, but it is my first attempt and I really could do with practicing some more, but I'm quite happy with the results for a first time.