Sunset From My Back Yard

From time to time we all see fantastic sunsets, and many of us even rush to pick up our cameras to try and record the event. What is it about this natural happening that stirs us so very much?

What ever it is everybody has one or two in their photographic collection. I am no exception, here are a few shots taken in my back garden.

You can see larger versions of three of these photographs

I am also very fond of painting this subject, it usually makes for very dramatic art, I use water colours and pastel mostly but have been known to use other media now and again. I always feel that the real thing can be so much better than the artistic interpretation because as an artist I feel constrained to make the sky seem real. Of course the answer is to claim artistic licence, or that the subject was actually an example of the aurora borealis, or similar. Or just show a photo of a sunset like the above.

Christmas cards from my photographs on Zazzle

This is almost an established way for me now, of making money from the images of photographs I have taken. Hoping for some share of the money flowing around this christmas I have been designing a few christmas cards on Zazzle. Of course most photos taken over the christmas period are of family and friends so I am a little lilmited in using photos from past christmases. One I have made use of though is of the christmas tree, and it makes quite a deccent card tho' I say so myself. Here is the product on Zazzle:-

christmas tree greeting card by ArtyfaxCards
View other Christmas Cards

I have made a promise to myself to take a few more generic christmas themed photographs this year, looking forward to next year's batch. More examples coming soon, so watch this space.

Earning money for my Photos on-line

After a busy end to the summer and  a break in the sun, I have returned to add yet another potential earner to the mu internet profile. Again I thought, "why not try to earn money from my photos". As I have said more than once I take many photos on days out and around the garden, these are basically for fun and I do not have the high end camera which could compete with professionals on the stock photo sites. However, there is Redgage, a site which claims to monetise your existing web content and pays you for your social activity. Sounds good? It does seem to work for some members. However like many of the opportunities for earning money on the internet, it is I believe a case of working to build up a portfolio and looking forward to a small passive income stream in the coming months.

After three weeks including a weeks holiday, I have earnt close on $5. Doesn't sound much I know but I hope that it will build up exponentially as I add content to my Redgage account. Over the past few days I have been adding content ( mainly photos and links to other sites) at a rate of 5-10 items per day. This could be easily sustainable over the next few months. The bulk of this has come from having a photograph featured, but with a current total of 110 items, I have been earning up to 20 cents per day. Over a 12 month period this could be $60 but with more content who knows? Higher rates of earning from the items could double or quadruple this amount and more featured items would considerably add to the amount. Yes, I know this is still small beer but this is for very little effort and no outlay. In other words a passive income stream which may well need little extra effort and produce for a long time to come.

I will try to keep the blog updated regularly with details on how this works out. In the meantime why not check out these links and see for yourself how Redgage works and how my earninigs are coming along.

Putting my "fun" photos to work

As you will have seen in my last post, I have a Zazzle store ( a print-on-demand site) which I had started to use to try and sell my art work. In fact there are at present three stores, which are catering for different ranges of products.

But I thought, "hang on! Why don't I use some of the many photographs to create products and put these onto products." So I have been doing just that. Sure, I take photos for fun, but there is no reason I can think of not to use these to try and make a quick buck. So why not. Here are a couple of examples:-

Standing Stones by ArtyfaxProducts
See other Standing Posters
This is a printed canvas, which would look good on any wall

have a big hug by ArtyfaxCards
A greeting card which you can personalise
or make one of your own on zazzle

Fruity by artyfax
Join Zazzle.com's clothing affiliate program
Lots of styles and colours that you can select with this image.

Ok that's enough advertising for now but I can't promise not to  mention Zazzle again especially if it starts to become profitable. You can read about my early experiences on Zazzle on my Squidoo web page (lens), My First Steps With Zazzle. I also have a new blog which is devoted to this new hobby, making money, LOL.

In the walled garden, Coughton Court

Missed posting these images of statues when I took them, a little while ago now. I was taking photos of statues and there were a couple of bronze ( I think?) examples in the walled garden at Coughton Court, Alcester, Warwickshire. So just to keep up a record of statues, I am photogrphing here they are: Unfortunately, I have no information about the statues and their history (if any)

I also saw this "window" in the hedges with a view of the main tower of the house, I rather liked the shot, although this is a heavily cropped images.

In fact I liked this so much that I started playing around with it in Photoplus, there are of course many software pakages which will do this, and this is my completed effort. In a few words, I selected the tower and copied it to another window whilst I toyed with adding BLUR ( zoom blur on my software) to the original. I then pasted the tower back over the top of the image. As I had extracted it from the image in the first place it left the blur effects showing on the greenery.

This is a modification that I have showed before. I tried to explain the process on my Squidoo page, Photomanipulation Of Digital Photographs Using layers . I actually used this previous image on one of my ZAzzle products:

Delightful dahlias by artyfax
See more Red T-Shirts

All good fun!!

A Day At Stowe Landscape Gardens.

The gardens are owned by The National Trust although the house is still owned by the family. At the time that the gardens were first laid, the family was reputed to be wealthier than the king. It really shows in the follies and buildings in the gardens. You need a good day to really get around and see everything, there are some astonishing sights. Entering via the shop, the first thing you see as you wonder down the path is a Greek Temple and this sets the expectations up for the day. The people we talked to were not disappointed. Although I took my usual range of photos, I have included three of the major follies here, if that is the word for what are a lot more than what the word is usually used to describe. Here I show the Greek Temple, The Palladian Bridge and the Gothic Manor. All Astounding properties but the latter actually takes paying guests - one to thing about!

OK, a little food for thought. No clever photos this time ( if ever???) just a couple of great sights to see if you ever get to visit this wonderful place near Milton Keynes.

A day out, visiting an NGS garden

Last Sunday week, we visited a village near Alvechurch which opened a number of gardens on the NGS, National Gardens Scheme. Volunteers open their gardens to the public for a day and donate money raised to charity. Our visit just happened to coincide with this years summer here in the sunny UK.

We were pleased to see a heron on a short walk down the near-by canal whilst waiting for the official opening time.

here's a very much blown-up shot, in case you didn't believe me. Unfortunately I do not have an optical zoom on my cheapo camera, this is the sort of time when I wish I had not been so tight.

This is me on the canal bridge, showing the crowds gathering in the village. And of course every English village has a pub!

One very large garden had a stream running thru it and a path alongside the stream. The above photos show the path both ways from where I was standing.

This was a lawn which was very much to my liking, the garden was on a hillside and shaded all round by mature trees. It was such a quiet spot, even in this village miles from anywhere. Even the visitors did not find it whilst I was there. I loved it.

There were many other gardens but most were quite small, in keeping with the size of the cottages. they were well designed and well planted but I had been spoiled by our previous visit to pump cottage and so did not take many photos on this visit. That is not to say it was not an enjoyable day out, six gardens - all very different - made it a very interesting experience but........