glimpses of indian summer

The weather forecast promises some nice and sunny days and I hope that after a rainy summer we’ll get some beautiful fall days.

I do need a nice weekend to do some much needed gardening (all those rainy days have made me neglect my balcony so it’s in a pretty sorry state right now).

I’ve also wanted to do a little photo shoot with a friend for weeks and the weather never cooperated.

It’s been a pretty exciting week at work but after coming home exhausted a couple of nights in a row (“more dead than alive” as my boyfriend calls it) I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend with gardening, sewing, reading and taking photos.

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trips to the country

So much better than rubbing shoulders with half the city doing the christmas shopping in stuffy shops.



And so much better to get into the quieter, cosier mood of the christmas season.

Warming up inside with hot tea and a hearty meal after a day of thrift store shopping and adventuring.


Life doesn’t get any better than that.

Straight off the farm, meat from happy pigs. Had I stayed for dinner, I might actually, probably have eaten that:

easter bonfire

Happy Easter to all of you! I hope you are all having a good time with your families! My boyfriend and I are all alone this year, our parents are off holidaying.
We went to the Easter bonfire at the barn yesterday evening. Last year I missed it because I was in Canada and the year before it was rainy and cold so I didn’t go but this year it was nice and the fire burned really well.


It was so hot and windy that you couldn’t actually get very near, pretty toasty.
Doesn’t this look magical?


After the fire came the party…at the barn there’s always a party attached, cowboys take any reason to party 😉 Even after the rodeos when they’ve been riding all day and must be dead on their feet (I know I would be) they’ll still party until 6 in the morning. Unforgotten remains the rodeo party two years ago, when we had a counter the length of the arena and at one point (after quite a few whiskeys) everyone started dancing and stripping on the counters and splashing themselves with whiskey and water…oh I have those pics but I won’t share them here, sorry 😉
Wasn’t quite as wild yesterday though there was lots of dancing…one reason I love the barn parties is the great music. I’m not into most music played at clubs right now but I’ll dance to this any time!

playing with texture (freebie!)

I love adding texture to photos, but I try not to overdo it and often I have a lot of fun playing around with textures but still end up liking the picture best without it. I think the key is to choose the right one(s) and keep it subtle. I thought I’d share with you my pictures from yesterday with a very distinctive, very un-subtle texture to it.
I am still thoroughly enjoying Project 365. Yesterday was a lovely sunny day and I took my camera with me to the barn. I wandered around a bit aimlessly and found these. Every creature was bathing in the sun on the first warm day of the year, horses on the paddocks with their eyes closed, cats on roofs and even these flowers were stretching and turning their heads towards the sun.

I use my own images for texture, mostly painted walls, cracked stone flooring, rusty surfaces…I am always on the lookout and constantly add to my texture folder. I found this on top of some barrels standing around (waiting for rodeo season):

Love this texture and want to use it? Leave a comment to let me know (make sure I’ve got your email address) and I’ll send it to you full size by email!
One more textured picture. To take this I pulled over on the way home, lots of space waiting for the horses to claim it for the summer:

city life

Street photography is one of the most fascinating fields in photography for me. Gritty, black and white city images always get me, and I don’t even like the city much! Even though I live in one of the biggest cities in Germany I am not too keen on a city lifestyle. I prefer the country.
I don’t often make a trip to the city center, because it inevitably makes me spend money I don’t have (as a compulsory online fabric buyer I spend too much as it is) and the whole athmosphere of ‘I know this dress is hideous, but it’s expensive Brand XY, so look at me and admire how rich and chic I am’ feels alien to me.
I went to do some window-shopping (aka market research) last week with the boss of the italian shoe company I work for and this was my shot of the day:

It almost looks like Paris, doesn’t it? I love the trees and their shadows and the girl in the middle, alone in a crowd.

some barn pics

Nothing spectacular today, I just shot these the other day at the barn and liked them. I wish I had taken my camera with me last thursday. The road to the barn was completely icy and I had to park a way off in the middle of nowhere and walk down (on wednesday I made the mistake of driving down and went in full panic mode when I couldn’t brake driving down the slope. I had to ask a friend to drive my car up again later, because I was too scared). Anyway, it was -5°C and the wind was blowing the snow from the fields across the road, creating snow dunes all along the way. Quite a sight really.



It has snowed over night yet again and so it’s going to be a fun ride out to the barn today…not.