Snowed in For Xmas

Well not quite....but almost!! The snow reigned terror over the whole country according to the news - i mean it was a nuisance after a time sure but we managed just fine! I went out and took a few snow pictures, now i know i've posted a fair few snow pictures already on this blog but well.......tough here are a couple more!! It's only literally a couple so you'll be okay i promise.

Photographs are Copyright © James Thorne

Principle Arts Officer meeting rescheduled

I was supposed to be meeting with the principle arts officer at Herefrod Council before Christmas, sadly because of the snowy weather I was unable to get into Hereford to see her. Thank fully it's rescheduled for 7th January and I must say i'm looking forward to it!

Going to speak to her about the possiblitly of setting up an Arts Programme within the Hereford NHS Trust. They don't have one at the moment and I think it will be a fantastic thing for the hospital to have. Art in all it's forms can, and does, help improve the emotional and therefore physical state of people. Even if it's the slightest of things, like making someone smile because it rekindled a past memory....this is of course better than sitting gloomily thinking about the bad things!!

"Morning campers! Rise & shine...and don't forget your booties because it's cold out there today. It's cold out there everyday."

Frosty frosty frosty at the moment. I went out to take some pictures, covered up, many many layers and a hat and i think i still got frostbite on my head!!! Here are some frosty photos that i took this week.

All pictures are © of James Thorne

Creepiness

Many of my images are dark-atmospheric photographs, there is usually an "edge" to the image. But a few have actually come out as a little bit creepy (they were meant to it's fine!)





All pictures are © James Thorne and available at http://www.dottygallery.com/

Farmyard Animals.....Any animals really!

Was going through pictures choosing ones which would work on the greeting cards, and came across a picture of cows that i took last year and forgot about - I like it when I've taken a picture and perhaps I dont like it at the time or it does nothing for me so i leave it but dont delete it, because down the line I can see it and think how much i really like it (too much time on my hands? maybe!)

Anyway, i found the cow picture and decided I'd post a few of the other animal pictures i've got. Ones that aren't dead!



http://www.dottygallery.com/





http://www.dottygallery.com/

All pictures © James Thorne 

Greeting Cards: Part II

So i ordered the cards from Vistaprint, only a box of 40 to see how they came out. Can't order les than that from them and the prices worked out cheaper than 25 from a different place. (I have no money so went for the cheap option)

The cards turned up with this red tinge on them....clearly I was not happy about this and told vistaprint. Instead of a refund they offered a new batch completely free. I went with this but brought up my concerns about the red tinge. Was told to re-upload the pictures but lighter, so did this and they said the tinge will be sorted and sent the cards.

Received the new batch of cards on the weekend, nice and fast turn around which is good....sadly I am still not impressed with the quality. I will not carry this whole frustration with them on because I think if i was a company ordering cards to send to clients they would be spot on. But for me, selling the cards in the artistic and greeting card market they are no where near good enough quality.

So what I've learnt is that to achieve the printing quality I want for these cards, (and anything I don't print myself in the future) - I need to see a physical proof before the actual print is done. And please dont think Vistaprint are not worth going to, they are very good for promotional material - business cards, leaflets, etc and offer good prices all round. But for artistic greeting cards they fall short well before the line.

Greeting Cards

I am in the process of starting a greeting card business. It will not only publish my photographs as cards, but also my sisters lino prints (http://www.beccathorne.co.uk/index.html) and hopefully work from other artists from different genres/areas of the art world.

The designs will be of highest quality, very artistic and beautiful but do not fit into the common, "samey" designs that you see. They will be abstract/atmospheric/surreal/alternative, etc. Designs that could, for the most part, work for any occasion all depending on how the buyer interprets the image. They will all be very unique designs, pictures that are a work of art whether they are at full size hanging on the wall or scaled down as a greeting card on the mantle piece.
I have just sent off to get a very small batch of cards from designs by both myself and Becca, ready to take round to the distributers I have already spoken to and show them the type of thing that will be on offer. The designs for these 40 are Christmas related so I can try and have a trial run selling them before xmas! Here are the designs -

© Becca Thorne

© Becca Thorne

© James Thorne

© James Thorne

Help For Heroes - Black Tie Event

I thought I'd post up a few of the photographs I took of the Help For Heroes evening afew weekends ago for Wye Valley Life Magazine, like i said i would in a previous post!! The images are now published in the Social Section of the November Issue.

First time actually photographing an event like this but i was pleased with how the photos came out.

All Photographs are Copyright © James Thorne

Kiss from a Rose

Okay so it's not quite a kiss from one, but it's definately a Rose!!

My dad was after a Rose picture for the new leaflet for the Ishtar's Touch 4 Handed Massage Treatment that he offers. It didn't quite work for the leaflet in the end but the picture is still a lovely, cheery one!!

Copyright © James Thorne

Word List Thing

I saw my sister had posted this on her blog, so i thought the best thing to do would be steal it and post it on mine...yes it's the best way to go about it! I have sent the pictures from saturday night off to Wye Valley Magazine so tought I'd fill it out myself and post my answers on here. A couple of our answers may be the same but they were the perfect words! If you want to see my sisters answers obviously you will have to go to her blog! (http://beccathorne.blogspot.com/) And if anyone has some free time give the list a try.


1. Where is your mobile? Table
2. Your partner? criminal
3. Your hair? thinning
4. Your mum? small
5. Your dad? crazed
6. Favourite object? dvd
7. Your dream from last night? censored
8. Favourite drink? tea
9. Dream car? aston
10. The room where you are right now? office
11. Your ex? over
12. Your fear? heights
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? success
14. With whom did you spend last night? spiders
15. What are you not? number
16. The last thing you did? toilet
17. What are you wearing? jumper
18. Favourite book? yes
19. The last thing you ate? sandwich
20. Your life? slow
21. Your mood? happy
22. Your friends? working
23. What are you thinking of right now? words
24. What are you doing atm? bouncing
25. Your summer? sweaty
26. What’s on TV? reality
27. When was the last time you laughed? lunch
28. The last time you cried? months
29. School? fin
30. What are you listening to right now? humming
31. Favourite weekend activity? faffing
32. Dream job? batman
33. Your computer? fickle
34. Outside your window? world
35. Beer? southy
36. Mexican Food? please
37. Winter? woohoo
38. Religion? nope
39. Holidays? lovely
40. On your bed? pillows
41. Love? defo
42. ? hmmmm

Black Tie Event

On Saturday night I was asked by Wye Vallery Life Magazine to go along to a black tie event and photograph it all. I wasn't getting paid for this but will be getting a nice advert alongside the work in the magazine, so I think that's good coverage. The event was for Help For Heros and is the first time i've photographed something like this, but i feel it went very well. Plus everyone there was really friendly and didn't seem to get too annoyed with me keep coming round, interupting conversations asking if i could take their picture.  I sent the pictures to who i was supposed to a little while ago and now just have to wait to see if they liked them and so forth.

I will be posting a few of the images on here for you to see when i have heard back from Wye Valley.

Burnt Out Pickup

I came across this burnt out pickup truck in the woods near my house. You find all sorts of random things in the woods around here, and some places people do seem to be fond of "fly tipping" but you don't often come across whole cars being left and burnt. So i took a few photographs. At the time when I was editing them (this was a couple of years ago) I didn't think much to the pictures. But looking over them again and as a mini series there is something about them that I have come to really like. Think it's the eerie-ness about the situation.....

All pictures Copyright  © James Thorne

Nom nom nom

These greedy fella's were having an "all you can eat" party on a plant in the garden over the summer. When i first spotted them all that day the leaves of the plant were still leaves but a few hours later it was just a massacre!! Poor leaf!





"Massacre" © James Thorne

 
Oh and it's only fair to say if you try to touch this certain type of caterpillar - they go for you!! I mean literally go for you, they could have a hand off. So, you've been warned.

I didn't actually get a picture of one of them trying to bite a finger off because there was no one else around to demonstrate and i couldn't take the picture while demonstrating it wouldn't have worked........FINE i was scared the caterpillar would chew my hand off and i would die, there you happy!

"Dinner" © James Thorne

Water Trowel



"Water Trowel" © James Thorne
http://www.dottygallery.com/theimages-page.html

 I took this image today. Went outside to just see how the weather was really while i was waiting for the kettle to boil and spotted the light on this trowel in the bucket of water. Really liked it and how there are all sorts of things floating in the bottom. Reminded me of a shipwreck or something (obviously not a ship i know that!)
While editing I decided it would look much much better if i gave it a Sepia-esque tinge. And personally I think it does.
There's a bigger version to view on http://www.dottygallery.com/