Diana Was At Work In The Morning And Afternoon,

so I spent some time on a reoccurring problem with some of my photographs, 

that is that due to using a wide angle lens objects that should be vertical lean in towards the centre of the photograph, like above the lamp post, 

and in this photograph the dome on the left hand side, I tried looking on the Internet for a solution, and found one, but, the instructions would state: ‘Right-click on the image and select "Perspective" from the context menu.’ Which I did, but "Perspective" was not a option, another set of instructions started with ‘duplicate the Background layer’, what is a layer? I have no idea, then, go to Filter menu at the top of the screen, choosing Distort and then choosing Lens Correction, which I did:

 except I had all of the commands in the right hand box as above but not Lens Correction! I battled away, finally achieving the desired result, but it took me hours of trial by error,

lamp post straight and upright,

the same for the dome, I just hope I remember what I did yesterday today! in the late afternoon Diana arrived home from work, after our evening meal it was time for a Deadliest Catch before our film for the evening, 

 Golden Eye, it was Pierce Brosnan's first attempt at the role of Bond, he and the movie were both pretty good, after which as we were both tired we were off to bed.

Wednesday Has Raced Around Again,

so first thing off to visit Duncan,

arriving at the nursing home, blue skies, and great news, Duncan was wide awake in the day room, he had breakfast there, but I can see why he does not like it in the day room and prefers his own room, some of the other guests were a little rowdy, as only the elderly can be with the onset of various age related aliments, we chatted away, until his lunch arrived and we said our farewells, 

out side the weather had taken a turn for the worst, driving home the odd spot of rain, 

in the afternoon as Diana was at work I had a play with a few more photographs, both of these started life as infrared prints that I had taken with one of my Panasonic Limix cameras model DMC GX8 which had the sensor replaced with a infrared one, 

and here they are, 

the camera on the left is the infrared converted one, on the right the normal camera, the reason for the remotes is if you want to take a long exposure and have two cameras taking pictures of the same scene in a different way, in my case one normal and one infrared, it is difficult not to have the cameras suffer from camera shake when touching and pressing both shutter buttons, so as well as the mounting rail, I use both cameras timers to give a 2 second delay in operating, note the difference in colour in the screens, as one camera 'sees' differently to the other, for more about infrared have a look here, 

I decided to take these two photographs along to the club this evening in the hope that one of the more experience members could explain to me how to correct the way that the wide angle lens makes the building look like they lean towards the centre of the picture, I had forgotten that tonight was the entry night for the competition, results to be announced next week, it was a forlorn hope, but as I did not bring any other photographs with me I entered these,

next time for my evening meal, but first a read of Private Eye, the latest issue arriving in the post this morning, 

"Cheers!", with a glass of milk, driving to the club tonight, where I had a real treat along with everyone else, to celebrate the clubs centenary a special presentation from award-winning photojournalist Rick Findler was given, what a life he has had! the audience was spellbound with Rick's insights and photographs, the more I listened the more I realised what unsung hero's photojournalist like Rick truly are, 

some of the conflicts he covered last night were:

Israel 2023

Hong Kong 2019

Syria: Raqqa 2017

Burundi 2016

Syria: Aleppo 2012-14

Somalia 2014

Libya 2011

plus a few other peacetime assignments, all absolutely fascinating, after his talk there was a raffle, and with no photographic skill whatsoever I won this:

I picked up Diana from work on the way back home, when we arrived Diana looked at the box and thought I had won a lens!

it was of course a lens coffee or cold drink mug!

no prizes for guessing who will be taking it to work tomorrow! we settled down, Diana with a coffee, myself with a very large spiced rum as we watched a episode of It Ain't Half Hot Mum after which we were both off to bed.

Another Quiet Day For Myself,

as Diana was at work, 

so I played with a few more photographs, this a black & white of a temple in Thailand, 

and then a few panoramas, I had now made a template in which to fit the different sized prints so that they all printed out at the same size, above the Tower of London, when the grounds were sown with wild flowers, 

Eastbourne beach, with the Eye in the distance, 

tulips at Tulley's Farm, 

and lastly Santorini, after which Diana arrived home, then a telephone call from Robbie, he had time to pop round to Kai's home to make the gas hob work again, it had a hissy fit and just stopped working, also to fine tune the heating in her home, the radiators were all turned fully on, which meant that the upstairs ones and the ones furthest from the boiler downstairs were not receiving the amount of hot water they should have done, all now working as they should do, arriving home it was well past our evening meal time, but the good news was that there was not a Midsomer Murder playing, so a Bond it was, for tonight,

The Spy Who Loved Me, here are my comments the last time we watched this particular Bond, 

"Diana has really developed a taste for these Bond movies, James Bond is back again and his new mission is to find out how a Royal Navy Polaris submarine holding sixteen nuclear warheads simply disappear whilst on patrol, Bond joins Major Anya Amasova and takes on a a web handed mastermind, known as Karl Stromberg, as well as his henchman Jaws, who contains a mouth of metal teeth, Bond must track down the locations of the missing submarine before the warheads are fired, in a strange move the Russian submarine is called Potemkin, I guess named after the ship in the film about the mutiny in the Russian Navy Battleship Potemkin the film made by one of my favorite directors Sergei M. Eisenstein, the film was so powerful at the time the film was rejected for a UK cinema certificate in 1926 by the BBFC following fears of working class insurrection, and remained banned until January 1954 when it was finally released with an X certificate, it is also famous for the scene where a mother is shot, she lets go of her pram and it with baby inside bounces down the steps of Odessa, parodied in many other films, Simpson's and one of the Naked Gun series spring to mind, great film and yes I have it and 3 or 4 others from this great director", after which Diana was off to bed, for myself Have I Got A Bit More News For You, followed by a It Ain't Half Hot Mum, before I too was of to bed.

Diana Was At Work,

so I started the first day of my 75th. year playing with more of our photographs, 

I carried on what I had started yesterday, I had collected many of the panoramas I had taken over the years in a folder on my desktop, and that was the rub, as I mentioned yesterday during that time I had worn out a number of cameras, and each one recorded the image in a different size, which is a problem when it comes to having mounts made, whilst the length was the same for all of them,

 it was the height of them that was the problem, so by trial by error I decided on a size that suited all I then started printing them, it sounds easy but each half of every photograph had to be exactly the same distance from the centre line if you see what I mean, and each one had to be exactly the same size so that the same size mount can be used, thankfully Diana arrived home, it was just so difficult getting each photograph to line up, so I was glad of the break, Diana had arranged a birthday treat, 

so glad rags on, 

and we were out into the park walking towards the 354 bus stop,

and this is where we arrived, the Mount Everest Indian restaurant in Bromley, Diana had booked a table as a birthday treat, 

inside,

the restaurant was nicely laid out, 

'Cheers!', with a sherry as our poppadums arrived, 

as it was a special occasion, a bottle of bubbly, 

a ching of glasses, 

crikey 75 years old, every year has passed so quickly, 

it must be a special day, even Diana tried the bubbly,

our starters arrived, Diana went with a mixed platter, medium spiced chicken tikka, lamb tikka and sk kebab,

 for myself a prawn puri, which was prawns served with deep fried bread,

the first glass went down a bit quick!

time for another 'Cheers!',

our main course arrived, 

and what a selection, we had ordered 3 main dishes, as the menu stated, all recipes from Gurkha land Nepal, a lamb Gurkha, lamb cooked with mushroom and peas in a medium spiced sauce, next a chicken ruby, which was described as a good and proper curry redolent with spice and flavour, tender chicken in a rich silky cashew nut flavour sauce and our final main course, a king prawn charisma, king prawn cooked with chef's special charisma sauce, asparagus on the side, we also ordered a aloo gobi, mushroom fried rice and some nan bread, 

one of the staff kindly offered to take our photograph, so 'Cheers!', from both of us,

 

time for desserts, 

a pistachio kulfi for Diana, 

a Jamaican coffee for myself, 

delicious, after drinking some of it Diana started laughing, 

I have no idea why! it was a delicious meal, a Indian restaurant to rival our favorite the Kathmandu Masala in Beckenham, our 'go to' Indian restaurant, we decided in future when we fancied an Indian meal we would alternate between these 2 restaurants, as it happens both restaurants were Nepalese as opposed to Indian, the meal including service charge was £145.00, 

arriving home a few more surprises, 

firstly a cream birthday cake,

 and card, 

the cake with a card from Kai,

another surprise, a huge bottle of my favorite tipple a spiced rum by Captain Morgan, 

I managed to catch a bit of cream on my finger before cutting the cake, yummy!

all set to go, the cake was delicious as was the meal, we had a wonderful evening, next it was feet up to watch the last half of a Midsomer Murderer, after which Diana was off to bed, a early shift for her tomorrow, after which I was in the company of Have I Got A Bit More News For You, followed by a It Ain't Half Hot Mum, before I too was of to bed.