Snowdrop.

Last Sunday at the cinema, the projector went “BANG,” it was a little traumatic for me sitting right beside it. Experience as an engineer says that such abrupt failures are easily and cheaply fixed, it’s the slow lingering deteriorations that are expensive and difficult. The one problem with this theory is the question of how we find someone with both the knowledge and skill needed to effect such a repair. Much of the day was spent hunting for a possible machine for hire that would tide us over until we either have a repair or a replacement. A cinema projector is a specialised piece of kit needing both a bright bulb and a high quality long throw lens. The lens on our machine is a phenomenal item in its own right; when focused, the black lines in between the square pixels are so sharp that no one with good vision sits close to the screen.
 
Anyway, there just happens to be a nice gentleman by the name of Ian who just happens to be passing through Penicuik on Sunday morning and, he just happens to have a spare cinema projector in his bedroom. I could be wrong, and I really don’t mind if I am, but he doesn’t seem to want any rental fee for the unknown period of loan that we need. Ian is truly the answer to a maiden’s prayer – if you’ll pardon the expression.
 
By some strange coincidence, when we first came to Scotland over forty years ago we knew an Ian; he had a deep interest in cameras though photography wasn’t his forte. It seemed that you could start a discussion with him about any esoteric item of photographic hardware and he would pull such an item out of his pocket to illustrate a particular point. I wonder if the two gentlemen are related.
 
Today’s blip is the first part of this week’s exercise on composition. We need to fill a frame with our subject, then take a variety of different pictures of it, one being with foreground features, one with background, and another with a balanced composition. I do hope the flower lasts long enough for me to complete the project, though I won’t bore you with the last three - they will have to be extra-curricular activities.



Thanks for the good wishes concerning my back yesterday, while I wasn't fishing for them, they are much appreciated.