Chaos!

This week's theme is Chaos. My take on this is a long exposure shot I took of the M6 motorway at 6pm on a Friday night. Parked on the bridge near junction 32 (Preston North) I set up my camera and waited the requisite 30 seconds whilst the symphony of trucks and cars passed noisily under me. The third picture is slightly more organised chaos in the form of a huge crowd of people attending the British comedian Michael McIntyre's gig in the MCR Arena in Manchester. It was a great show!

Lost

This week's Headbangers' Challenge, set by Kathy, was 'lost'. At first I imagined someone who couldn't find their way out of a maze, taking the word 'lost' far too narrow mindedly. As I looked through my library of images I began to take a metaphorical wander through left field and I came up with 'The house that was lost to time', and here are the images that go with that.

A bit of food photography

Tonight I decided to have a go at food photography. It's not quite as easy as it would first seem. Getting food to look appetising and to accentuate all the things that one would associate with that particular food item is quite difficult. I've started tonight with tomatoes. Basically, making them look fresh and ripe is key, in this case. Hopefully I've hit the nail on the head..

Symbols

Quite an ambiguous challenge title this week from me, 'Symbols'.

My header picture is of a guy from New Zealand who was part of a team of people who were sort of travelling hardcore evangelists.  The group consisted of people from all over the world including the USA and Tonga. They were named Team Extreme, and they certainly were that! The show ran for around an hour and saw the guys punching through 4 layers of concrete slabs, blowing hot water bottles up using only lung power until the bottles exploded, picking up  and doing reps with 2 kids hanging off either end of a steel bar, breaking Coke cans open using just their hands, folding frying pans on their legs and one of the final acts of the team was this guy who snapped a baseball bat with his bare hands and made the symbol of their religion, the cross. Even for an 'outsider' such as myself, it was incredibly powerful to watch. I'm quite friendly with the minister of the church and he gave me the best seats in the house to watch and take photos of the show from one of the balconies.

My other symbol is another cross, but this time it's the Thousla Cross which is situated on the Calf of Man on the Isle of Man which is the very furthest southern point of the island. The cross commemorates the "act of heroism by men of this parish in their rescue of the crew of the French schooner 'Jeane st. Charles' in 1858" and overlooks some very dangerous looking rocks which have probably claimed the lives of many a stray ship over the years.

Yellow

I have 3 very different yellow entries for this week's Headbangers' Challenge. The first one is one of my very early attempts at light painting. You 'simply' set fire to some very fine wirewool and insert it into some form of apparatus so that you can spin it around very quickly whilst your camera is on long exposure. The second one is actually one from the cutting room floor from my motion freezing exercise a couple of weeks back. I tried a few different colours but eventually decided I liked the blue most, but taking another look at the yellow one and I quite like it. The third picture is of some flowers, plain and simple. Don't know what they are, but I know that I like them and they are rather photogenic. 

A Dozen or Twelve

I was extremely late posting my effort for this week's challenge, but here it is, the beautiful series III V12 E-Type Jaguar. These pictures were taken at last year's Kirkcudbright Classic Car Rally held in the harbour square. No wonder these cars were (and still are) so revered, a 12 cylinder engine in such an attractive body is the stuff of dreams, and these lucky blighters get to show them off all around the country!