Those of you who read here regularly will know that for a month I’ve experimented with Lightzone®. It is a RAW editor produced by Lightcrafts and it has an unusual front-end and some potentially useful features. It seems to me, however, that the same advice may be applied to RAW editors as that applied to [...]
Palms At Amos When I used to shoot film I tended to worry about how many frames I had left of the roll. A fresh film meant either double the expense, or twice the time and care processing the film at home. Now I mainly shoot digital I should really take more pictures, but doubt [...]
Under The Bridge This tableaux recently caught my eye. A boy with a fishing line, some lookers on, a moored boat under the road-bridge at Turunç. It’s not really a good photograph, but perhaps it is a classic scene. Anyway I decided to snap it! Strictly speaking fishing here isn’t allowed, but then it’s off [...]
What more may be said?
Turunç: A Classic Pastoral Scene Today I am in Istanbul indulging in some street photography, but this time last week I was parked at the southern entrance to the market. Suddently I looked from my window and realised that I was looking onto a classic pastoral scene. It’s so easy to ignore the obvious, especially [...]
Sirkeci is where I spent yesterday afternoon. It’s one of my favourite locations for street-shooting. As you can see it was cold, and wet. Some people seemed to have nowhere else to go! Some May Not Have Anywhere Comfortable To Go! For Others It’s Business As Usual Those in the back-streets are afforded a little [...]
Man On The Roof! Look carefully at the shot above and you’ll see that there is a man on the roof of the building. He appears to be talking on his mobile phone! Below are some more images taken near the Istanbul’s Egyptian Bazaar, which is sometimes known as The Spice Bazaar. They were taken [...]
Kahve At The Cafe Of Illusion If, like me, you thought yesterday’s images surreal then take a look at this one. It’s a shot I wouldn’t have attempted has I not been attempting to use up a slow film in an old Olympus OM-1. The OM-1 is an entirely mechanical camera, although it does have [...]
Just a couple of days ago Dave Beckerman, a master of monochromatic images from New York, was lamenting Kodak’s decision to cease production of a number of professional films including its High-Speed Infrared Film. Just when I was getting back into film too! All these images were taken on discontinued Kodak film stock and then [...]
Cyanactitic Wonders! Of course there’s no such thing as a cyanactite. There are stalactites, which are rocky formations that grow due to precipitation from the ceilings of caves; and then there are cyanotypes, which are photographs made by an ancient chemical process that result in a cyan/blue print. As It Is! I had just parked [...]
Now the summer sun has abated this plant is coming into bloom. These plants are apparently native to Cyprus, but no one here seems to know their species? In the summer they create a rich green leafy mat over the ground. Indeed they are one of the few plants to survive without casualties August’s heat. [...]
Amazon On-line! Yesterday evening I was lovingly exploring the history of the Olympus OM-1 on the Internet when from Amazon’s room I heard squeals of delight to the accompaniment of computer noises. She was on-line via our wireless network! When I went to explore I found her on her mother’s computer, logged into Noggin.com, sitting [...]
Fatma Teyze Takes ‘Time Out’ Every other evening, or so, we’ve taken to visiting Fatma Teyze and her grandson Yunus. She is caring for Yunus at the moment whilst his father and mother are away in Istanbul. Poor Yunus dropped hot çay on his leg and is off school due to the scald. He also [...]
Red Berries and . . . Oh God, not more trees and flowers you say. Well yes ladies and gentlemen for your absolute enjoyment and edification, presented in dynamic digital colour it is my pleasure to offer you not only some berries, but also the humble pine cone! . . . ever so ‘umble indeed! [...]
The Shoreline At Amos Well that’s not quite true, indeed it shines most days but sometimes it rains too! That’s really good news since not only is the weather more British it also means that the light is better for photography. Recently I ventured out with the Zuiko 11-22 digital zoom. This is a lens [...]
The Smallest House On Amos Estate O.K. so Jack didn’t build this house. Indeed it was built by a team of artisans from Eastern Turkey some thirty years ago and it was intended to serve as the site office. It is an unusual design being exactly half of the size, and half of the original [...]
When you come to Turunç in the summer you will see it alive with blooms. This is because the town council, and local business owners plant various plots and boxes and lovingly water them. It is in the autumn, winter and spring months, however, that nature’s blooms abound without human interference. Of course even in [...]
Just Visiting . . . I guess in the U.K. we don’t think about plant pollination in November. Certainly we don’t think of bees doing the job at this time of the year. But here in Amos the bees are buzzin’ with activity, and a few aren’t even camera shy! . . . or about [...]
An Anouncement For FinePix E900 Owners This was originally a separate web site from pebblesfromparadise, although hosted on the same server. Unfortunately a software problem cut through the pages like a hot knife through butter. Everytime the software was upgraded we lost pages of data, or formatting. For a while I put the problem on [...]
Rustic Stuff On The Amos Estate I was walking around the estate recently looking for good specimens of flora to photograph for my on-line gallery when suddenly I noticed this arrangement. As the Olympus E-400 was fitted with a prime macro lens I shot this with the FinePix E-900 compact. For some reason the highlights [...]
An Unexpected Visitor To Amos! After the recent storms I ventured down to the beach to see if any damage had occurred. The boat moored in the bay was still afloat and safe at anchor. This ‘stranger’ however had washed ashore at the foot of the beach steps. I love the muted quality of this [...]
I came upon this quite by accident and scored 29 on my first run! To play just click here. It’s good clean fun. Well maybe it’s not safe for work, depending upon how well you do!
Somehow in the past year, or so, my lifetime interest in photography seems to have crystallised. I confess that living here in winter seclusion sometimes I despair of ever becoming a Bailey, Newton, or an unlikely Royal Photographer such as Rankin. It would be nice to capture delicate curves in subdued light and occasionally, to [...]
Highly Saturated Colour . . . Usually when I carry a digital camera I set the preview to monochrome. There are images that work simply because they are blocks of bold colour, but most good pictures rely on compositional form in order to succeed. Of course even when capturing a black and white .jpg most [...]
Not exactly round, more sort of bun shaped . . . Giotto di Bondone wasn’t Turkish, but rather a great Italian draughtsman and painter. I remember from Miss Hart’s history lessons at Blandford Grammar School that he once drew a circle with a piece of chalk, or was it charcoal? Apparently this impressed his Italian [...]
Good Lor’, I’m appearing on my own blog! I am really proud of this portrait, and not simply because it’s a picture of me! You see it was taken by my youngest daughter Amazon a few days before her fourth birthday. She takes lots of pictures these days, and indeed has requested her own camera! [...]
At last my original E-400 is back from the Olympus Service Centre in Portugal. It has been fitted with a brand new sensor and is now functioning as brightly and efficiently as my second E-400. I really love the colour rendering of the Kodak sensor in the E-400. It seems to have slightly more dynamic [...]
Because it was taken on a film, nice innit! Olympus OM1. Kodak Gold 400, processed and scanned in a Fuji Mini-Lab. Pretty good stuff really! No really it is. Far more depth even at an 8 bit bitmap than a 16 bit digital capture. If an OM-1 can achieve this I wonder how a half-plate [...]
Bonsai! This tree is a natural Bonsai. It must be very determined to have set root here! I just knew this image would look good when I made the photograph. In fact I visualised it as a monochrome image. If I really work on it I can make it as I imagined it. At the [...]
Not Film This Time! There are still plenty of us residents here, and then there are all the security and maintenance staff with whom we form a tight community at this time of the year. Nevertheless the site has a stillness about it which is tranquil and captivating. E-400 plus 50mm Zuiko D
You are currently browsing the Pebbles From Paradise weblog archives for November, 2007.
Difficilis,querulus, laudator temporis acti.
Sepuero, castigator, cesorque minorum
Stephen Jeremy Maxwell Bray lives with his wife Irem, and daughter Amazon at Amos, Turunc near Marmaris, Turkey..
If you agree that this web site is a scabby, thumb-twiddlin' rag; written by a testy, grumbling individual who is inclined to praise the way the world was when he was a boy, whilst always playing the critic and censor of the current generation. Then why not recommend it to your friends, or if you prefer, your enemies?
You cannot lose, either may appreciate your gesture. Your enemies may even become your bosom friends, and if not nothing is lost, indeed they might waste so much time surfing these pages that they will sink into total obscurity, and never bother you again.
We do not store e-mail addresses during this process. Both your privacy and that of your friend(s) are assured.
