Vesna Armstrong Photography

This lovely farm opened to the public lies near the Leeds-Bradford airport. February is obviously not the best time to visit it but I like to see the same place in all seasons anyway. It was a cold, dull and quite a windy day and the only animals I saw outside were chickens, geese and a couple of wallabies. There is a barn whit pigs and rabbits too. Apparently, in warm weather there are many more animals including prairie dogs. There are also two beautiful fishing lakes where you can catch quite a big carp. Despite the wintry weather you could see an odd stalwart fisherman here and there wrapped up in windproof and waterproof clothes like the one on my photo. I loved the tall grasses at the lake. For me it was worth coming that day just to photograph them. And the farm shop with all the organic, home grown produce is always great to visit (and buy some goodies!).

There is no good florist anywhere near my home so when I happen to get to one I spend a lot of time in there looking around, smelling, touching and yes, creating my bouquet. On this occasion I was looking for a few twigs rather then conventional flowers with a view to dry them and put them in the vase and on the plinth in the corner of my bedroom. There are a few methods of drying flowers and I have chosen one of the simplest, the one that worked for me in the past, and that is to put the flowers in a couple of inches of water and then just forget about them. My favourite are the little white ones, called wax flowers, and they are the only ones I know the name of in this bouquet. Not all flowers dry well and it will be interesting to see what result I am going to get here. Anyway, whatever will have to be thrown away will be replaced with something new until I get a full and amazing display of dry flowers.

This winter has been completely uninspiring for photography and I am so glad it is nearly over. No snow, no frost, no fog, just winds and rain. So instead of going out to take photos I focused on doing other things, mainly doing up my house which I love as much as I do photography. And there is always some photos in the archives worth "dusting down", editing and sharing. This one I took two years ago on my walk around the village of Hartshead in West Yorkshire. I remember being totally bowled over by the sight of this farm bathed in the mellow winter sunlight. I have never been a great fan of blur in photographs but lately I have seen a lot of photographs on Flickr taken with Lensbaby which have inspired me to try using blur in Photoshop. I feel it works best with simple compositions. It throws unwanted detail out of focus thus emphasizing the simplicity of the image and drawing attention of the viewer to the shapes, colours and interaction of light and shadows. It also creat...

You know that spring is just round the corner when daffodils and irises appear at your local supermarket. For me daffodils are most welcome and cheerful flowers because they are the first ones to come after a long winter. I have to buy them straight away and I keep buying them for as long as they are in season, the more so because they are so cheap. I did plant some daff and other spring bulbs at the front of the house last year for a first time ever but they are only just beginning to show their leaves. I have no idea if they are going to flower or not, if they are, it is certainly not going to be so soon. So I put my shop bought flowers in a vase and on my dining room table. Yesterday afternoon the room was filled with some lovely sunlight so I grabbed my camera quickly as I knew it would not last long. I decided the light on the flowers was a bit too harsh and contrasty so I drew the lined voile curtains to create a softer, diffused light. As usual I wanted to create a vintage, old ...

A belated post of my walk along the Leeds - Liverpool Canal. I love going for a long invigorating walk with my camera at the start of new year after so much eating, drinking and partying over the holidays. I usually choose just an easy walk close to where I live. You have to remember that countryside here in Yorkshire is way too muddy at this time of year for any enjoyable walking so a flat walk along the towpath of the canal seemed like a perfect choice. These pictures are not great, just nice but average shots of a huge photo enthusiast. I am happy to have taken and share them here on my blog though not on my Flickr page too. I have a brand new computer now and I gave all these images just a basic edit in the Photo Gallery, the pre-installed software every computer comes with. I am really pleased that this one has two handy features my previous Photo Gallery did not have - retouch and straighten. Now I can do all my basic editing without opening Photoshop. All in all I am very pleas...