Vesna Armstrong Photography

September brings asters which I like very much. They are so colourful and pretty with their numerous tiny petals and different colour centres. They are also inexpensive and last long. This year for a first time I came across phlox - the little pink flowers that smell gorgeous. I paired them with red asters and used my old milk churn for some vintage looking still life images. I thought I'd use a different approach for each shot so the first one is a set up still life, the second one "found" still life (my kitchen window as it was at the time of shooting) and then I went for a very simple, minimalist look using a single flower and a small milk bottle.

Just a couple of pretty sights you can see in nature in September. Wish I had some scissors with me to cut and take a few thistle stems home. They would look lovely in an autumn theme still life. And I love sedum. It starts changing its green colour about this time of year and ends up being any of the most gorgeous deep pink and red colours later on in autumn. The first image I processed with a couple of textures and actions and the second one is more or less straight out of camera apart from one or two basic tweaks.

I finally have solved the issue of backgrounds for my still life work. I could not find anything small enough that would be suitable for my tabletop work to buy. All photographic backdrops seem to be designed for portraiture work and are much too big for still life. It took me years to come up with a solution. I bought a cheap curtain pole at work, removed the rings and ask G to fit it above the chest of drawers I use as my tabletop. I also bought a white and a grey bed sheet that I can easily and quickly throw over the pole to create a backdrop. They are long enough to cover the top of the chest of drawers too if I want the background and tabletop to merge into one in the image. And when the pole is not in use I simply wrap a silky scarf around it to make a feature of it. Quite pleased about it all. Just need to buy a black sheet too and my makeshift bakcground collection will be complete.

I like to regularly create still life images but I must admit I have really struggled recently. I would prepare and set up a combination of elements, shoot a few frames, look at the result and then discarded it all as I just would not like it. And time after time I would dejectedly put everything away and tidy up without having a decent image in hand. I looked on internet for inspiration. I sort of lean towards classic still lifes consisting of more than two elements and that is the main reason why often it is not easy. It can be difficult to achieve a happy set up where the elements work well together. Then it occurred to me I can also get that vintage and rustic look by shooting just one or two objects at most. I started looking at simple, even minimalist still life images, primarily those by Jill Ferry  whom I always admired very much, and slowly I could feel my mojo coming back to me. All of a sudden ideas started filling my head and I felt a rush of excitement as I usually do ...

I had this image in mind for quite some time and finally got to create it. I love antique chairs in photographs so I decided to use my bedroom chair. I took it to the small  bedroom because  the light there was better with the window facing the spot I could place the chair in. I thought my military boots and grey hat would make a good composition placed under the chair and hung off the chair back respectively. The boots look old but they are not really - they were made to look like that. I was not sure about the light to start with, I was hoping for some soft sunlight maybe, but when I took a first couple of shots I quite liked the lighting with the shadow on the wall framing the chair. I processed the image with two of the new Flypaper Pastel Painterly Textures  I bought the other day. They are beautiful, subtle textures and I am very excited at the prospect of using them on my images.

I love lavender. This year you could  buy it for a first time in bunches at the local supermarket for a £1 each and of course I could not resist. I had a rather big embroidered cotton lavender bag that I bought at work so I decided to dry the lavender and fill the bag with it. And, as usual, a picture had to be taken. The bag is now hanging off the headboard of my bed and it smells lovely!

Just as we thought we had a proper summer here in Yorkshire this year the weather changed for worse and all of the August has been rather rainy, windy and chilly, and all the summer feeling completely gone. The images below are memories of those beautiful July days. Glorious days followed one another so one afternoon I made a quick and unplanned trip to the country just to capture those lovely summer moments.