Diana Was Off To Work Early,

so a day upstairs for myself,

 playing with some of the infrared photographs we have,

 the first red photograph is how the picture appears as it is taken by the Protech Photographic IR converted camera, above is how it looks after being color converted,

 I then add some colour,

 then a lot more,

 finally using a black and white mask,

 and giving the photograph a old fashioned look, not that the walkie talkie building was around when cameras produced the old look, 

 this next set is from York,

 in the gardens next to the museum,

 color added,

 a lot of extra colour,

 a black and white look,

 and the old camera and film look,

which I have to say I like the look of, still in York,the cathedral,

 and museum, 

 back to Beckenham, just as I was about to start my evening meal Diana arrived home from work, so a quick 'Cheers!', from myself, we then decided to watch a number of Poirot's, before calling it a night as the midnight hour approached, and with that we were off to bed.

One Program We Often Watch,

is the soapbox challenge,

sponsored by Red Bull, not so much for who wins, but the crashes! the good news is that few ever get hurt, it is just so much fun to watch, so here are a few of them, have fun!

I Thought This Was Quite Romantic,

especially on a first date, actually any date,

a restaurant, the La Rosa Nautica which overlooks the ocean in the Peruvian capital, Lima, photograph above Printerest, gave gentlemen a blue menu that featured both the dishes available and their prices, ladies got a gold version that mentioned no prices at all, the owner of the high-end restaurant defended the practice by calling it a way for women to enjoy a romantic night out without having to worry about costs, which I thought admirable, in the same way if I buy a Christmas or birthday present for Diana my wife, or you do for you other female important other halves, you take the price off of it, but it was not to be, the screaming equal rights lefties soon came out of the woodwork, and fined the restaurant 210,000 sol ($62,000) fine for offering women a different menu when they dined with men, in their defense, La Rosa Nautica owners said that price-free menus “extoll the position of women, considering it a pleasure for them to enjoy a romantic evening with their partner, without taking into account the cost of the services,” but the National Institute for the Defense of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property disagreed. In a 3-2 ruling last week it declared that all women should have access to the same menus as men, “These small things may seem harmless,” Liliana Cerrón, an official with the institute, said. “But at the end of the day they are the basis of a chauvinistic construct reinforcing differences between men and women.” so remember when you give your female other half or mother any gift without the price tag, you are so guilty of discriminating against women, go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200! (and I bet we have all done it!).

Kumitaiso,

character forming, or bone beaking?

photograph from YouTube, firstly what is Kumitaiso? if you have not yet worked it out from the photograph, it is a gymnastic formation in which students climb on top of one another to create a pyramid, has at the center of growing controversy in Japan, due to the high number of serious injuries reported by schools,

in 2015, a junior high school student in Osaka suffered from a broken bone after taking part in a 10-tier kumitaiso pyramid, alongside 157 male students. Trainers must have known that considering the height of the formation and the total weight of the participants, the pressure on the bottom tiers would be excessive, yet they went ahead with the exercise anyway. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated case; in fact, despite concentrated efforts to have the practice banned in Japanese schools, 51-related injuries were reported between January and August of this year, in the city of Kobe alone. Over the last three years, the number of reported injuries totalled 123, 

above how it should be done, according to a 2016 news article by AFP, the annual number of student injuries related to kumitaiso exceeds 8,000, which is quite shocking, considering we’re talking about a gymnastic formation practised by children all the way from kindergarten through high-school. Still, despite campaigns by parents and doctors to have kumitaiso banned, teachers insist that the formation teaches students important lessons about teamwork and endurance, “There is a tendency to compete over the height of pyramids,” said Ryo Uchida, professor of sociology of education at Nagoya University. “In many cases the risks are being ignored.”from my own experience on my last day at school we did indeed make a pyramid and you guessed it, Robin Goodbody did indeed fall from the top and suffered a broken ankle, a school leaving day we all will remember for a long time to come!

What A Lovely Idea,

to make bus shelters,

 look more attractive,

 a tram stop at Dabrowskiego Square in Łódź, Poland is blossoming with dried flowers, giving pedestrians and commuters a fresh view on the intersection of their natural and built environments,

 the project, titled “Nostalgia”, was designed by local art student Dominika Cebula, and pays homage to the long tradition of flower selling at Dabrowskiego Square,

 “The idea of flowery bus stop came from willingness to be closer to nature and to juxtapose the colors of flowers with the grayness seeping out of concrete city,” Cebula explained,

 She notes that many of the flowers used in the project were from bouquets received by her friends and family,

 installed this summer, Cebula’s project was selected as part of an initiative by Łódźkie Centrum Wydarzen and will be on view at least until the end of October, 2019,

 I was going to ask if such an idea would ever take off over here,

but then I remembered the number of wrecked bus shelters we so often see, and have used since arriving here and using public transport, the art form of most of the ones we have come across is best described as 'Vandal Modern'.

A Bit Of A Grey Day,

I was out shopping,

 and Diana was off to work, after Steve had popped in or a coffee and chat, so we walked, 

 through the park,

 looking at some of the homes in it,

 Diana went to the bus stop and I carried on to M & S opposite the church, we just needed some milk, bananas and apples, arriving back home I popped upstairs, not to play infrared but to put to use some of the things I had read about CC 2015,

 I decided to use some of the normal colour photographs that we took when we visited Bayham Old Abbey a few days ago, above straight out of the camera,

here I tried to tone down the color of the grass, and put a little more detail and structure into the building and sky,

 then gave the photograph a black and white look,

and perhaps my favorite look, like the photograph was taken many years ago,

 again out of the camera,

tweaked a touch,

 black and white,

and a old look,

 out of the camera,

a tad more detail,

 black and white,

and an antique look,

 it is only when I look at the results down stairs,

I realise the total difference between the upstairs monitor,

 and the downstairs laptop,

particularly in the grass,

 looking at the photograph straight from the camera, upstairs I made the grass significantly darker, there has been so much rain the grass is so green it almost looks unnatural, so I took a lot of the color an structure out of it,

but downstairs it looks almost the same,

 the laptop is more than a few years old, the monitor new this year,

so I guess that explains it,

the last one, 

one thing did notice,when I use the infrared camera and shot in RAW there really is so much more detail in the photographs, particularly the sky, I shot all of these in JPEG,

 one last black and white,

and antique look, 

 and here they are side by side, 

out of the camera on the left, the played with image on the right, well that was good fun! really, it is quite satisfying playing photographs like this, after my evening meal it was feet up for Poirot and have I Got News For You,

Diana called so off to the bus stop, then a coffee, one from New Tricks, and we were off to bed.