kelseybacon.com

IT is a Tuesday evening, and I am sat working on the new web layout.  The old site was in SERIOUS need of a revamp, and the new one is mostly up  now.  The only thing left to make are the new galleries! 

I have again opted for a simple design so that it is easy for me to maintain.  I am not one of those who wants to go pay a company to make and keep a site for me because I want the flexibility and responsibility.   So, while the design may be simple, I hope that it is effective. 

I have included the blog so that I can easily update news and so I can post pictures and tell the stories behind them.  The Blog is day by day, blow by blow KelseyPhoto.com as it happens. 

I think the site is better, and easier for you and for me!

This week will bring me a new background set with a white backdrop that will provide enough to do some photos of the kids on with ease, or some adult photos, should I find a willing victim.  I am really looking forward to that!  I have found a deal on eBay for some 60" umbrellas from Calumet for only £15 each, so I am starting to think that two of those will be on their way here soon.  60" is massive, and the price is spectacular!  I need umbrellas as my Elinchroms came with a pair of soft boxes only, and while they are good, they are not the be all, and all to shooting!  Getting a pair of the umbrellas means I will need one more dish for my lights, but I have found a great price on one of those as well, so that can wait till next month!  Backgrounds to follow!  Things are really starting to come together for my home studio!

I have not yet heard back about the digital camera from the insurance company.  Fingers crossed, that will come out good.  I would love to get hold of it when the background comes so I can really practice the infinite white!  I am very excited to at last be getting this gear together so I can really apply myself to the trade.

Speaking of applying myself to the trade, I was meant to have a shoot with a friend and her mother and daughter, but she has been under the weather this week, and her mom is flying back to the States soon.  I won’t be able to get the shoot because of the logistics, which is a total bummer because they are good people, and I would love to see this memory created for them.

Kelsey

I just got some photos back from the lab this morning!  I am scanning them now, but the first one I scanned was too good to leave alone.  I can’t say the same for all of the rest.  But this one was worth spending some time on in Photoshop straight away!  Maybe I like it so much because it is my beautiful daughter!  While I write this, I am scanning other pictures that I shot the same day.  I was looking for a full body shot that day, but while I had my kit out, I could not help but to get my 55mm extension tube out, and point the strobes around as best as I could.  True that a ring flash would come in handy, but till I can get one, I will have to make due.

I am still eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new background and stands.  Those promise to come in very handy!  The work I am going to have to do on the pics I am scanning now bear testament to that!

Kelsey

A couple of weeks or so ago the Sony gave up the ghost for a while.  It is in the shop now, and I have had the Hasselblad out and to work on my daughter.  The photos are in the lab for processing, and when I get them back I will scan them and get to work on them to put up here.  Stay tuned!  She’s beautiful!

I have also ordered a pair of background stands with the cross section and a plain white BG.  Look for some work with those after the digital comes back, and after the new gear arrives.  I will be looking for new backgrounds later on, and of course, I will be looking to get into a third light when I can.  All goes well, I may be doing portrait work more seriously!

Today is my anniversary!  Katrina, these have been the best six years of my life, and our new little gift, Kirynie, has really accentuated that!  You were right the time you said she is the best of both of us!  I love you!

Kelsey

Under normal circumstances, Tolladine is one of the main arteries leading from the M-5 Motorway into the city centre.  We walk it for easy access into town from our house, and without fail, it is always very busy.  There is no place worst than under the rail yard however, where the walk is along a narrow footpath right next to the narrow and busy road.  As you will see in the pictures below, the road feels smaller here due to the high walls on either side of it, and the bridges for the rail yard above. 

So when construction at a crossroads on the west end of the section with the high walls caused the entire section to be shut down, it was an opportunity to go and play around in a stretch of road that we would never normally dare to try to run across.  I even had the boys lay in the road just so they could say they have, and so they could do something very uncomfortable!

Because the weekends have been busy with other things.  Trip to London on Sunday kept me off the bike that day, for example.  I have started Atkins on Monday, so I am seeing how that is holding me over.  I am not sure I will want to be going out on the bike again till I know for sure how I hold out energetically on this thing.  I don’t want to get out in the middle of nowhere and have my body just quit on me.  So I will likely give it a miss this week and maybe next.

Forty-Two Miles yesterday.  That’s what I worked it out as on Google Earth.  The odometer was not on the whole time, and I have not yet figured out how to separate just yesterday from the rest of the log on my GPS.  So I followed as closely as possible and came up with 42 miles.  And does it ever feel like it this morning!  Anyhow, I have the mountain bike tires on, and I had my new panniers on and full of junk.  Well, not junk really.  It was really filled with my camera and some warm clothes in case the weather turned, as it often does at this time of year.  In the end, I was rained on five times during the day.  And that is not to include the spits and spurts.  Those were the real rainfalls that soaked me top to bottom. 

There was a lot to see while out, though it was mostly countryside.  One of my favourite aspects of Worcester has always been that one need only take a short ride, and one is out of Worcester, and within moments far enough away to forget it exists.  The scenery is unforgettable!  I am really glad I have been able to have time here! 

In some respects, I think this part of the blog and my time here is coming to an end.  The baby is due in July, and I don’t see a lot of riding going on after that.  When she is old enough I can go out, I think we will be living in America.   So, what I can do, I will.  Just a heads up that I don’t expect to get much more mileage out of this blog! 

I hope you enjoy this summer season. I will try to get what I can up here.

KB

I am not out on a ride today, though I may take Jordan out for a short one tomorrow, weather permitting.  He is working hard this week to earn a day off for some Goecaching.  We have a place we need to go back to in order to get a cache that we could not get last time, but have now figured out how to get to. 

Instead, I am at home, watching the clouds roll over, drop rain for a few minutes, then pass on by and let the sun shine through, just before covering up again.  Meanwhile, I have ordered some new bags from Wiggle.  They are 56 litre panniers!  These will be a great help in returning food from the shop, and saving us some money on delivery fees, and keep us shopping at the less expensive, further away grocery store, rather than the expensive local shop.  It is always so that the cats get through all of their tins of food before the next shop is due to show up.  So I can now go and get several flats of cat food at a time on the bike!  There is also the usual problem of the store running out or otherwise not delivering the cat food.  So bags are important! 

At any rate, the weather is getting better, the temperatures warmer, and the sun a bit more shiny.  I hope to have more up here on all of this and more soon!

It has been a long while since I have posted, frankly for two reasons.  One was the cold summer and my lack of desire to get out on the bike last year.  The other was the pain involved in blogging.  I have hated how much work it is to put together a really nice blog and post  to it. 

Microsoft To The Rescue!

The Windows Live Mail came long and saved the day!  It is a piece of cake to use, and so far has worked seamlessly between my e-mail program, where blog posting should be done from, and the actual blogs themselves.  I have it working on MSN and Blogspot now, and they are both as easy as can be.  Admittedly, I hav to format the images to a smaller size on Blogspot than MSN, but the way Live handles images, it was simple to set up a couple of default sizes that work for both blogs in the image default settings, and it is just a matter of a quick change and everything goes from hanging out and looking funny to fit and friendly in a zip.  Also, I have the copyright info showing up on images auto-matically, which is very important for me as a photographer.  (See this picture for a fine example.  this is a road leading to a pub in Clains that claims to be the only pub in Britain that is on consecrated ground.)

Perhaps now you will see more blogging going on at this site since it no longer feels like suicide to create and post a Blog!  Thank You Microsoft!

I took this photo last summer when the boys and I went up to the top of the cathedral here in Worcester.  See if you can be as amazed about this as I am.   I am speaking of the floor in this image; the stone bit which looks like a long mound of dirt down the middle of the room.  That is actually the top side of the ceiling of the cathedral below.  It is made entirely of stone, and was built in the year 1376.  So it has been erected in this position for 632 years.  Now for the exciting parts.  It is self supporting.  There are no beams of any kind holding it up from below.  It is only about 10 inches thick, and if per change you were to drop off the catwalk and fall through it, you would drop some 65 feet to the stone floor below it.  This space is over the North West Transept.  If you are walking the stairs to the top of the cathedral, you will find this room atop 109 spiraling stairs.  When you pass from this room through the door at the far end, you will be under the bell tower, with a further 126 tightly spiraling steps in a shoulder tight passage to go to get to the top of the bell tower.  At that point you will be on a roof deck that stands 170 feet above the ground.   (The second view is looking down the upper set of stairs.  At the top of this set, I had to turn my shoulders sideways just to fit through the passage.)   Of course the view from the top is amazing! 

This third and final image is looking North, The River Severn at left, and St. Andrew’s Spire and Dean’s Way to the right.  In the distance you can see the Abberley Hills, and the saddle (long indentation between them) is just above Whitley Court.  It is in the saddle that Abberley Clock Tower stands.  I will include more on those in another post to come. 

St. Andrew’s Spire stands 245 feet base to tip and was part of an old church that burned down some years ago, leaving only the spire standing.  I suspect that the spire may have been built so tall in order to give it greater importance than the cathedral, as if to say, "we can get you closer to heaven," or "we are closer to God."  It is hard to say without definitive proof of any kind, but you know how people are.  What’s more, I have yet to hear anyone say much about the old church anywhere.  Conspiracy Theories aside, it will have to be a topic on its own! 

Incidentally, beyond the bridge, on the right is a white building.  In front of that is where the old bridge used to cross the Severn.  It was at the point of the original Roman crossing, and remains of the old Roman road have been found under the road  in front of the white building. 

–KB–