I would love to go back to New York…like right now?
Missing the Big Apple
I would love to go back to New York…like right now?
Category: Yelly Snaps
My iPhone is permanently attached to my hand and I am addicted to taking snapshots.
Autumn…what?
Apparently, today is marked as the meteorological start of Autumn. Autumn?!? We’re right, smack, dab in the middle of a heat wave!
Learning mac-speak!
So I bought my MacBook nearly 3 years ago now but I’ve only just actually started exploring what it can actually do. Why buy such an expensive piece of kit? I honestly don’t know. I blame Alan as he introduced me to the iPhone (I did have a first generation iPod Touch but I looked at that as my mp3 player and game console all in one instead of a communication device really), and my romance with Apple products began (yes, I’m one of those geeks that can happily spend time at the Apple Store moving from one table to another playing with the new gadgets and looking – very longingly – at the new iterations of the MacBook Air). I used to be a PC person, and I still am for work, but at home, I am mostly a Mac person (although, that being said, I do have a Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet, which I love, really! That being said, however, if anyone offered me a new iPad Pro, I’d give up my android tablet in a heartbeat!♥).
I’ve just learned to add text to a picture from my Photos folder (yay me and Google!). I found loads of instructions on the internet but the Mac tips on Here’s The Thing by Ben Patterson is the easiest to follow. Here’s the link to the article if you’d like to take a look.
And here’s my newly minted header image! Ha!
The Cecil Brewer staircase
I love it when a store has a photogenic feature. It makes for a great marketing opportunity! Heal’s on Tottenham Court Road has such a feature. Heal’s first opened its doors in 1810, at a different location. But as luck would have it, the Heal family produced an amazing architect, Cecil Brewer who designed their flagship store on Tottenham Court Road. The store is a large, open space filled with beautiful things. I am always tempted to take a bowl, or a mug or a plate or a set of place mats to the counter and take the beautiful thing home to my tiny flat! I haven’t succumbed to the urge yet, but I think it’s only a matter of time until I allow myself the indulgence.
Apart from being responsible for the architectural masterpiece that is the Heal’s flagship store, Cecil Brewer was responsible for creating the beautiful spiraling staircase that so many photo buffs have photographed. It’s a star feature on Instagram for people visiting London.
I visited Heal’s primarily to look for Duralex cups because I wanted to bring them back to the Philippines as it carries a line of clear glass cups and saucers that my dad loves. But apart from the Duralex cup hunt, I really did want to take a photo of the Cecil Brewer staircase. I took a photo before, but I wanted to take a better one. So after checking on the cups, I went to the back of the store and took my photo of the staircase from the foot of the spiral looking up at the beautiful light fixture.
I loved this latest photo. Mostly because it was very quiet at Heal’s on the day and I had the spiral staircase all to myself (for a while, anyway). After posting it on Instagram, a few days later, the picture got featured on Culture Trip London‘s (amazing) Instagram feed. To say that I was tickled pink is an understatement. The only word to describe how I felt was the Filipino word kilig. It’s nice to be recognised like that. Ha! I’m really pleased that I’m taking noteworthy photos because it’s so much fun learning how to use a camera, properly!
Featured!
I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages. I got featured by one of the Instagram hubs as their picture of the day. This might sound like small fry for some people but for someone like me, who is learning to take proper photos, being featured on the Instagram account of the UK contingent of my camera brand is a huge deal. So I am sharing the photo!
Yay me! Thank you Olympus UK for choosing my light trails photo as your Photo of the Day on 20 July. You have no idea how much of an honour it is.
Oh and of course, thank you for creating such an amazing line of cameras!
5 fingers
Sometimes when things get really tough and you just wonder when things are going to get better, you run into pictures that cheer you up.
I am thankful for the internet!
Oh and a few days ago, I would have stuck finger Number 3 out at someone…but of course I didn’t. What goes around, comes around.
Happy Fourth!
Liberty is a breath of life to nations. – George Bernard Shaw
To everyone celebrating, Happy Fourth of July!
The day we celebrate our uncaped superheroes
They wear ties, suit jackets, lab coats, overalls, steel capped boots, trainers, glasses, gloves…and nary a cape in sight. But they are our superheroes – able to leap to our rescue, hold back floods of tears, amaze us with their strength and creativity, make things happen for us, save us from ourselves, allow us to gain the power to control our futures. All this strength coupled with the gentleness to hold our hearts and our delicate egos so they don’t get broken.
They are our fathers. The ones who, apart from our mothers, loved us first. They are ordinary men with the extraordinary capacity to love us, warts and all. They are our uncaped superheroes, our everyday supermen and powerful paragon.
Today is the one day of the week we are officially supposed to fawn over our amazing fathers. And fawn over them we should.
To my dad, who is recuperating in the hospital, get well soon Abbadabbadoo! You are my own very personal superhero and strong man. I love you! Happy Fathers Day!
That face!
If you can, pay a visit to the Colchester Zoo. I’ve not been to ZLS London Zoo but from the looks of it, Colchester might provide you with more value for money. I think this opinion is slightly biased because I do love what I call my local zoo!
Sharing with you one of my favourite snapshots of the red ruffed lemurs who love lounging above in the beams of one of the thatched roofs in the Lost Madagascar enclosure.
Wallpaper photos: pink flower
I’m quite pleased with the photos that I’m taking.
This is one of my favourite photos and I’m using it as my Samsung tablet wallpaper. It’s a close up macro photo (I’m just spewing out photography terms and I don’t even know if I’m using them properly! Ha!) of a bunch of pink flowers that I saw at Colchester Zoo.
Nothing earth shattering just me giving myself a pat on the back!
Yellywelly 