Some of those purchases I was talking about!

A boy using his new camera.

Illustration of the lens.
The first one is the Kodak Autographic Camera
(the link is to the instruction manual-the internet is a wonderful thing!)
All I saw in the charity shop was the beautiful worn leather case. I had a quick look but waited until I got home to investigate. It is a beautiful thing! It concertinas out of the case and has all sorts of satisfying little controls to twiddle. The photo the other day was taken through the lens-I have no idea how to do ttv (through the viewfinder) photography so that was my version!
In the back of the case it is described as a 'pocket camera'.Maybe my Oxford Bags will have the pockets for the job.
(What I imagine the boy above would be wearing)

The camera was first patented in 1898. It has a wooden film spool and would take either postcard size plates or a film on a roll that was backed with red paper. The picture above is of a little door that opens. It is fastened with a little metal pen. You would open this door, peel back the red paper and then you could write directly onto the film, and your writing would appear when the film was developed. (Hence 'autographic')


The instructions explain why this was a good idea for the amateur-

'The Autographic Record as a Guide
Many amateurs have distinctly improved the quality of their work by making notes, at the time of exposure, of the prevailing conditions. As. Bright light, 1/25 sec., stop No. 8, which, by the way, can be easily abbreviated to: B. 1/25, 8. By keeping such records the amateur can quickly find the cause of failure, if any. By comparing negatives and records he will soon get a line on his errors and when he knows what his errors are, he can easily rectify them. It is obvious that the best way to make these records is autographically - on the film, at the time.'

This is all very well-but what a faff! I like the way it says 'the cause of failure, if any',
conceding that even the amateur may be able to succeed!


The other purchases take less explaining.

Loved the colours of these cups.

The gold boxes contain incense and look lovely with my temple dog! I bought the card recently too-the one on there is eighteenth century-I am not sure about my broken one though. I have had him for a long time, and he is one of the things I always find room for somewhere.

I think these are napkin rings.

They are bone china and from the Philippines.

They add to my growing collection of faces.

Flint Faces

OOOOOOOkLAHOMA Where the wind comes whistling down the plain, and Shadow Shot Sunday

I only recently discovered what SOOC means-straight out of the camera-if you are like me and don't know! The photos in this post are all SOOC. I seem to spend so much time in photoshop I thought I would give it a rest for a few days! I have been really terrible at de-cluttering this summer, despite my big plans. I did the back room then just gave up! I also can't seem to keep away from charity shops for very long. I have bought some great things over the summer though, and above is evidence of one of them. I shall explain soon-though you can probably guess what it is! You can see my big felty mouse, who has stopped reading the manual and is looking after a weird felty footballer who is injured, or pretending to be.

This bench is one of the great things I bought-ebay, and not very much. It is a perfect doll prop, an excuse I use for myself quite often when out shopping. Seated on the bench are some dolls I made last week. I will explain another day too! The sun obligingly came out and gave them their shadows.

Cassie enjoying the sun and making a lovely shadow. I love the way she has got her big paw in the air.

Male and female dancers in Oooooooklahoma which I enjoyed on the telly today whilst ironing, and tapping my foot along! I love musicals but Andy really doesn't, so luckily he was out!

Below is a film of part of the main song-brilliant!

For more shadows from around the world, visit Tracy at HeyHarriet here!

Haiku My Heart

An erudite mouse

Lives in my house, just reading

Technical journals.

For more haiku, visit Rebecca at Recuerda mi corazon.

Were Horses Yellow in Those Days?

I went to the Tower of London yesterday with my Dad and Joan, for her birthday. It should be called the Towers of London, as there are 22 of them-not all remaining, but the memory of them is there. My favourite tower names are Bloody Tower (appropriate), Brick Tower (literal) and Cradle Tower (sounds fairy-tale-like). The exhibition of armour is interesting-I love seeing actual things that actual historical figures wore-it helps me to believe it is all real! We saw an exhibition about Napolean and Nelson a few years ago and they were both tiny! Enery the Eighth was average height. I don't know how they got on a horse with all that weight.

A member of the Queen's Guard guarding away.

His one and a half pound hat is a doddle compared to the armour.

In the armour exhibition there are a group of carved horses belonging to kings. Three of them are shades of yellow-this one being the brightest. The title of this post is what we overheard a little boy asking his Dad. A very good question I thought! Joan started talking to him and we also found out that he thinks he will be clever when he is eleven, but isn't yet!

When I downloaded the photos this ghostly face appeared!!!!!

Enery the Eighth looking at his armour and that of his horse.

Here he is again-in a case of wooden carved Kings.

All the pretty horses.

This is the book I am reading at the moment-

another Cormac McCarthy-and very enjoyable so far.

The best thing about the day, we all agreed, was the boat trip on the Thames Clipper. I don't know why my film has come out this small, but it will give you an idea of how fast it was! If you are ever here, or live here and have not been on it, go on it! It was very exciting. 30 knots. This is about 35 miles an hour. We were beaten by a cormorant flying past low to the water at one point!

The worst thing about the day was the shocking cost of a flapjack. £2.50! How can that be? Needless to say we didn't have lunch there. We went to a subway-which I have never been to before and was quite fun. I didn't realise you chose all your fillings and got big wodges of salad with it too. Oh-and if you want to see the crown jewels, get there early before a huge queue builds up. We didn't see them!

Brought to you by the colour red

Early summer magic.

Circus style lettering on a puppet box.

Layering transparent layers.

Red tin.

On the Boardwalk

Lightbox

How to make a better one-and the crucial final thing I didn't do-the bendy piece of paper! I can add it though. You might need to click on the photo to read the writing, though it is a pretty obvious process!

Little proto-type lady for ladies in dresses photographed in the box. I de-saturated this photo then added colour to the face. The pink and black outline makes her look 1950s to me, and like she is in a powder room. I have made loads more of the legs and am going to make some more little people later. The head is made from a cotton bead, attached with a button as an anchor. I drew the face with gel pens and coloured pencil.

Assorted collection of red and yellow objects, also photographed in the box.

I like the way the background is not distracting,

even if there are shadow lines from the edges of the box.

Fossils

As promised the other fossils I found on Friday.

Bivalve shell and wood. Pyritised is the description on the website I looked at.

Shadow Shot Sunday

Two more pictures from yesterday.

This seaweed is such a lovely green and obligingly blew in the wind when I held it up. I reminded myself of Candice Marie in 'Nuts in May'.

If you have never seen this film I would recommend it!

The steps down to the beach.

Visit HeyHarriet here for more shadow shots from around the world.

Fossil Hunting Friday

Today I went out on my own, to a place I went to when I was a child but not since. I suddenly remembered it, and googled 'beach with sharks teeth kent'
which took me here. Here is Herne Bay in Kent, specifically Beltinge and Reculver. It was cool when I set off in the morning, and as I imagined walking around on mud I wore my boots, jeans and a shirt. By the time I was walking along the beach it was boiling and I wished I had brought my swimming costume! I had to walk a long way to find a loo, then back again to where I thought I would find fossils. I sat on the beach for a while to cool off and it was so peaceful. It is a lovely beach with cliffs, rock pools and good views. I wandered around looking unsuccessfully for fossilised sharks teeth. I was asked by a lady there with her family if I was fossil hunting as she thought I might be some kind of expert-must have been the boots! I had to disappoint her, but her son didn't care, he just rushed up and proudly showed me his bucket of crabs!

As I was walking back, having given up on finding anything, I found the thing at the bottom-looks like a tooth which is what caught my eye, but is in fact a claw of a crab-I think. But, it was right next to the thing above which is a tooth-I think! It is certainly a fossil! I was so excited to have found something! Then I went on to find lots of fossilised bivalve shells and some fossilised wood-pictures tomorrow of those. The website above has good pictures of the kinds of things you can find. I have just looked at the website again and discovered that my fossil is about 56 million years old. I find that hard to comprehend! Now it is continuing to age on my kitchen table.

This is Reculver. The building is a twelfth century church-or at least its remains. I drove up here when I had finally climbed back up the 75 steps from the beach at Beltinge. I was happy to find a cafe, toilets and a pub-for future outings! I will have a proper look at the ruins next time.

Sinister looking funnels above a building on the sea front.

I think they are extractor fans of some sort.

I liked this beach umbrella.

Weathered wooden post.