[Art] Kernow Sunset.

Kernow Sunset.

A watercolour I did a year ago whilst in Cornwall on a wet day, playing with my Dad's painting gear.  Had this hanging on my study wall since then, but not picked up a brush to do any more.  Will have to remedy that.

[Photography] Suburban Sunrise.

A mini-project I undertook last winter. 33 shots between October 10th and December 26th of the sunrise from the back of my house. All the shots were taken on a BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone and all were edited on an iPod Touch using combinations of PhotoshopExpress, SwankoLab and LoMob.

My "Suburban Sunrise" set on Flickr.

I was impressed with the diversity of the sunrises I saw. There were plenty of eye-grabbing reds, oranges and yellows, but even the subtlest hint of colour in the sky led to a pleasing picture. The days when it was too wet, foggy, snowy or dull I tried to do different things with foreground of shapes to convey the mood.

I've always had a thing about hard black silhouettes against a coloured sky and this project gave me plenty of scope for that.  There was something about special about the cold, dark rooftops jutting into the warm colours.  I tried to vary the skyline as much as I could by using different views from windows, doors, the garden... in order to create some variety; but as you cant help where the sun rises, the long-view was nearly always the same.

The photos from the BlackBerry and the various editing tools worked well for this. There was a kind of relief not to have to work with a DSLR, a film camera or even Polaroid as the BlackBerry lent itself to an easy "point and shoot" style, knowing that the more lo-fi the better with this project.  Might have to do another camera-phone based project at some point, when I finally finished my Polaroid book and my [on hold] 50/50.

The original photos from the project can be viewed on my Flickr stream within this set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobymarsh/sets/72157625286704872/