January 2014
If you can't stop then you have got to carry on!
January 31st. Marwell Zoo Snow Leopard cubs. Marwell Zoo photography experience... I had a wonderful day out but wow did it rain! The Snow Leopards were most amenable and most beautiful. I wish I had taken a longer lens though. My 70 - 200 wasn't quite man enough for the job. That is going to be one of my points of feedback.
January 30th. It's so weird! I am not going to lie to you, I saw the inspiration for this shot here:
http://themetapicture.com/plasma-globe-plus-fluorescent-bulb/
and I wondered if it really worked. It really does.
http://themetapicture.com/plasma-globe-plus-fluorescent-bulb/
and I wondered if it really worked. It really does.
January 29th. Sad Café. A miserable day in London (weatherwise) and I had left Brutus at home for a change so this was taken with my phone camera and converted to B&W in Photoshop. It's a café near St Paul's Cathedral. I just liked the lines and shadows (even though it is made of the same material the shadow areas were awesomely different from the light areas). Here's what it looks like in the sunshine. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview/@51.512977,-0.099132,3a,75y,12.31h,86.07t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s3v_ty0HQ77No2wYgTzBQ6A!2e0
Some brightness to be found here http://365project.org/steampowered/something-diffe/2014-01-29
Some brightness to be found here http://365project.org/steampowered/something-diffe/2014-01-29
January 28th. Flash! What the heck was that? Another one for the new six word story competition. Parcel Force delivered my new honeycomb grid before eight o'clock this morning (Gasp!) so I set up a couple of light stands and my two flashes. One behind so that you can see the hair that grows on my ears (!) and one at about forty five degrees to my face with the honeycomb grid on. It really does throw a very intense but narrow beam of light making for a moody shot. You won't believe this but this was shot against a bay window in broad daylight. That was one of the other things that we learned on the Speedlight course (OK, I had to darken it a bit in Photoshop...). Probably best viewed large.
January 27th. Pushing the envelope. Not a lot of time for a shot today so I thought I would enter the mundane-mailbox challenge (and boy is this mundane!). It has been Photoshopped (obviously)
January 26th. Yet one more day off. There just doesn't seem to be the time for everything, any more.
January 25th. Speedlight for beginners. Wow! What a course. It wasn't so much Speedlight for beginners as the basic elements of flash photography. By the end of the day we had learned shedloads of information. The shot above is of David (a volunteer from the group who agreed to model). This was done using two Speedlights and a reflector. We were taught how to darken down the background more than this but unfortunately, due to a mismatch between Canon and Nikon technology I couldn't get the shutter speed fast enough to do it as much as I wanted to.
If you are serious about learning how to use your Speedlight, I can't begin to praise the course presenter John Clements and the course "Canon and Nikon flashes of Inspiration" which was held at Park Cameras Burgess Hill. I am off to the intermediate course in about three weeks time and I have been told to bring shedloads of memory cards and battery power as we are going to be photographing models with Speedlights and wireless technology. Woohoo! Bring it on!
If you are serious about learning how to use your Speedlight, I can't begin to praise the course presenter John Clements and the course "Canon and Nikon flashes of Inspiration" which was held at Park Cameras Burgess Hill. I am off to the intermediate course in about three weeks time and I have been told to bring shedloads of memory cards and battery power as we are going to be photographing models with Speedlights and wireless technology. Woohoo! Bring it on!
January 24th. As happy as a dog with two dic... sorry... tails. Today @padlock and I helped Nicola Eastwood (aka "Big Bill") spend her hard earned dosh on a brand spanking new Canon 5D MkIII (plus a yummy 24-105 L lens, battery grip, UDMA 7 Compact flash card and filter). Park Cameras in London were very happy until @padlock said "Now let's talk about the discount you are going to give". You should have seen the smile slide off the salesman's face! Still, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and Nicola left considerably poorer but just look at the smile on her face! Is this the look of a mother with a new baby or what?
As an aside, if you are in town and you get the chance, go and see the "Behind the Mask" exhibition at Somerset house - totally fabulous. http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/behind-the-mask
As an aside, if you are in town and you get the chance, go and see the "Behind the Mask" exhibition at Somerset house - totally fabulous. http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/behind-the-mask
January 23rd. What? Another day off? I'm afraid so.
January 22nd. Not thinking outside of the box. Some days I am really stuck for ideas. Today was one of them but with a bit of lateral thinking and with the aid of a huge cardboard box that was delivered yesterday (no, there was nothing photographic in there for once!) I decided on this one.
It is another entry for the six word story theme.
I lit this with a single speedlight at floor level and did a high pass sharpen using a Vivid Light blending mode to bring out the contrast and to show that I haven't shaved today!
It is another entry for the six word story theme.
I lit this with a single speedlight at floor level and did a high pass sharpen using a Vivid Light blending mode to bring out the contrast and to show that I haven't shaved today!
January 21st. HOW many pictures did it take? This is for my get pushed challenge this week and it is another six word story. First off, @ourrube asked me to do "a macro 'water crown' or a more technical variation of that theme". Secondly, I took three hundred and sixty four shots to get just five good crowns, two half crowns (that's about twelve and a half pence in new money for all you youngsters!) and a couple of "Meh! Might be useful elsewhere" splashes. My set up:
Large white plate on plenty of newspaper and a sheet of white paper behind to act as a reflector.
Camera on tripod with remote release and electronic flash trigger. Camera set to manual, ISO 200, f/14 and 1/200 second (near enough the sync speed)
Slave flash on spare tripod along (point downward and at the piece of white paper in the background) set to low output (to freeze motion and to recharge more quickly)
A turkey baster full of food colouring and water solution mounted alongside the flash using rubber bands.
Pre focus on where the first drip falls.
Take gazillions of shots and swear a lot.
Picture tweaked in DxO Optics pro and Photoshop for exposure, lens correction, sharpening, blah, blah, blah and then cropped.
Large white plate on plenty of newspaper and a sheet of white paper behind to act as a reflector.
Camera on tripod with remote release and electronic flash trigger. Camera set to manual, ISO 200, f/14 and 1/200 second (near enough the sync speed)
Slave flash on spare tripod along (point downward and at the piece of white paper in the background) set to low output (to freeze motion and to recharge more quickly)
A turkey baster full of food colouring and water solution mounted alongside the flash using rubber bands.
Pre focus on where the first drip falls.
Take gazillions of shots and swear a lot.
Picture tweaked in DxO Optics pro and Photoshop for exposure, lens correction, sharpening, blah, blah, blah and then cropped.
January 20th. Six word story in high key. A bit of a cheat because I wanted to enter two competitions! So here is my high key shot (note: high key doesn't necessarily mean overexposed - there is a difference!) with a short six word story for good measure.
January 19th. Time for a day off.
January 18th (part 1). More tea vicar? One lump or two? Paul @steampowered
All the other shots this week have been incredibly well thought out and executed. I can assure you that this one wasn't, although I make quite a convincing vicar even if I say so myself.
(Phew! That is the first and most nerve wracking shot over and done with)
This was my first shot for the newly formed @se7en group.
All the other shots this week have been incredibly well thought out and executed. I can assure you that this one wasn't, although I make quite a convincing vicar even if I say so myself.
(Phew! That is the first and most nerve wracking shot over and done with)
This was my first shot for the newly formed @se7en group.
January 18th (part 2) I think... therefore I am. I'm pink therefore I'm Spam....Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_eYSuPKP3Y
My first entry for EOTB25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_eYSuPKP3Y
My first entry for EOTB25
January 17th. One of these days... these boots are gonna walk all over you... I really had a crush on Nancy Sinatra but I was only nine when she released this record... that was a looooooooong time ago.
Here's my entry for the very first song title challenge. http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/20692/song-title-challenge and the title of the song that you need to envisage / shoot is "These boots were made for walking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyAZQ45uww
Here's my entry for the very first song title challenge. http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/20692/song-title-challenge and the title of the song that you need to envisage / shoot is "These boots were made for walking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyAZQ45uww
January 16th. Cigareets and whusky and wild, wild women... My get pushed challenge from Deb ( @gypsy6 ) was to get a shot of "light and dark contrasts.....of opposite items." So this morning whilst it was still dark enough to do so, I poured a tot of very expensive whisky onto an upturned glass bowl, stuck an ice cube in it, got the focus right, guessed at the ISO and exposure (WRONG!) and White Balance (EVEN MORE WRONG!), set it alight and then did changes on the fly. The end result after a tot of whisky (made me cry having to set light to it) was a choice of four shots, a house that smells like a distillery and a singed eyebrow. Why the title? Because of this marvellous old 78RPM (that's really old vinyl and speed for the youngsters) that was a great favourite of mine when I was a nipper - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERFuCYP1X70
January 15th. Twister! My first shot for this week's theme "Twisted".
(1) Four rubber bands on my new tablet displaying a white background - macro lens, tripod and five different exposures.
(2) Photomatix for HDR
(3) Photoshop to tidy up, DxO filmpack for the white vignette and blur vignette.
There you go! Don't ever let it be said that I don't tell you if my photograph has been edited or not!
(1) Four rubber bands on my new tablet displaying a white background - macro lens, tripod and five different exposures.
(2) Photomatix for HDR
(3) Photoshop to tidy up, DxO filmpack for the white vignette and blur vignette.
There you go! Don't ever let it be said that I don't tell you if my photograph has been edited or not!
January 14th. Bee bokeh photo 379 My first entry for the tag challenge. The two words I chose at random were:
Bee and Bokeh
My first thoughts were "Oh bum...ble bee!" because where am I going to find a bee in my garden at this time of year? But I remembered that I did have this glass ornament and a mini string of lights (which the astute of you might remember from here http://365project.org/steampowered/365/2013-07-11 ). So the set up was...
(1) two tripods (one to hang the ornament from, one to mount the camera)
(2) Using a 50mm f/1.4 lens at minimum aperture, put the bee at about minimum focussing distance and the lights about three feet behind (resting on the back of the settle in my study)
(3) Curse and swear because the bee kept swinging and rotating so go and make coffee and wait for bee to settle.
(4) Accidentally kick tripod. Curse and swear some more, go and make more coffee and go and play with new toy (a cheap Android tablet)
(5) Return and take several shots illuminating the bee from behind with a torch to make it stand out.
(6) Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop to crop and clone out the fishing wire the bee was suspended from and then a quick High Pass sharpen.
Bee and Bokeh
My first thoughts were "Oh bum...ble bee!" because where am I going to find a bee in my garden at this time of year? But I remembered that I did have this glass ornament and a mini string of lights (which the astute of you might remember from here http://365project.org/steampowered/365/2013-07-11 ). So the set up was...
(1) two tripods (one to hang the ornament from, one to mount the camera)
(2) Using a 50mm f/1.4 lens at minimum aperture, put the bee at about minimum focussing distance and the lights about three feet behind (resting on the back of the settle in my study)
(3) Curse and swear because the bee kept swinging and rotating so go and make coffee and wait for bee to settle.
(4) Accidentally kick tripod. Curse and swear some more, go and make more coffee and go and play with new toy (a cheap Android tablet)
(5) Return and take several shots illuminating the bee from behind with a torch to make it stand out.
(6) Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop to crop and clone out the fishing wire the bee was suspended from and then a quick High Pass sharpen.
January 13th. A shameless plug. Just look at it, exposing bits of it that shouldn't be seen... disgusting!
Actually, it is a shameless plug, because I just wanted to remind folks that today is when the @Se7en group goes live.
This was taken using an off camera speedlight with a small softbox on it. If there was one thing that my recent wedding shoot experience showed me, it was that I need to learn more about my speedlight and also I need to learn a lot more about lighting. In this case the exposure almost worked out for me but I still had to darken the background a bit in Photoshop. Looks better enlarged but don't take my word for it.
Actually, it is a shameless plug, because I just wanted to remind folks that today is when the @Se7en group goes live.
This was taken using an off camera speedlight with a small softbox on it. If there was one thing that my recent wedding shoot experience showed me, it was that I need to learn more about my speedlight and also I need to learn a lot more about lighting. In this case the exposure almost worked out for me but I still had to darken the background a bit in Photoshop. Looks better enlarged but don't take my word for it.
January 12th. Claire and James' wedding slideshow. Here is the final version of the wedding slideshow that I put together for the bride and groom. The bride was happy that I put the video "out into the wild" as it were. Apologies if you have seen one or two of the shots before. Best viewed fullscreen, in HD at 720p
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January 11th. No picture. I took the day off!
January 10th. Take me to your leader. It's time for another entry for the "Looking through" theme. I wish that I had done this earlier while my pupils were still dilated from my diabetic eye check up but at that point I could barely see anything anyway. Ho hum.
Anyway, do you know how many hands it takes to hold a mask on, while shining a light inside and setting off the shutter? More hands than I have got!
Anyway, do you know how many hands it takes to hold a mask on, while shining a light inside and setting off the shutter? More hands than I have got!
January 9th. My glass is half full? Basically, I am looking at the world through rose tinted glasses. This is another one for the theme "looking through". I just knew that I could find another use for my new shades and those dinky little beads (they got used enough last year!). Best viewed large.
It's a five shot HDR using Photomatix and then tweaked for sharpness in Photoshop. Once again it was shot on a mirror - that's my third mirror shot in a row!
Anyway, just remember folks, it doesn't matter if your glass is half full or half empty, there is still space for a top up of your favourite booze in there!
It's a five shot HDR using Photomatix and then tweaked for sharpness in Photoshop. Once again it was shot on a mirror - that's my third mirror shot in a row!
Anyway, just remember folks, it doesn't matter if your glass is half full or half empty, there is still space for a top up of your favourite booze in there!
January 8th. What's your problem, speccy eight eyes? Well, isn't this fun? This week's challenge is "looking through" and I noticed that all of the ideas I had were already done by various people! So here's my effort.
January 7th. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. For my first ever Get Pushed challenge, Jo (here ya go @joeymc - I hope it is OK ) asked me to take a picture inspired by either the last book I read or my favourite book. Well, I have just finished reading "The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon" by Alexander McCall-Smith so I thought... "That's easy!" Two things... How do you ladies do this stuff? It feels all gunky and greasy on me. Secondly, How am I going to get out of this one? This shot started out by me trying to put some lipstick on and made a half reasonable job of it (the Mascara replaced the lippy... read on). All of a sudden there was a tap on the door and remembering that I am expecting some new toys (a set of macro rings for my Lensbaby), I rushed downstairs to catch the postman, forgetting that I was... still... wearing... lipstick... A very fetching but noticeable dark burgundy colour. That in itself was not too bad. The postman took one look and then instead of recoiling in horror, he smiled and gave me the eye. I'm done for...
January 6th. And where would the bride be without bridesmaids? photo 372 You wouldn't believe the height difference between these two. The shorter one is standing two steps higher than the taller one and she still gave me a diagonal line in the shot. This is one of the very few shots I managed to get outside of the venue before (a) the wedding started and (b) the rain came down.
January 5th. Here comes the bride. People wanted a bride picture so here she is emerging from the car. As you might notice, Claire is ... voluptuous to say the least. I have just spent the last ten hours editing pictures and I am just over half way through the sequence... ho hum... Another ten hours tomorrow.
January 4th. Lightmare. Or "sauve qui peut" would be another way of putting it. The wedding... well, what can I say? I knew that it was going to be a challenge and not because getting brides, bridesmaids, family, ushers et al is like herding cats (because it is). No. The wedding was a "lightmare" because it started to rain (so there would few shots outside), the rooms where the wedding ceremony was to take place were dark oak panelled from floor to ceiling, the carpets were dark and the only illumination came from the small, low energy units in the ceiling (at least until the disco started). To make matters worse, the new electronic trigger for my flash unit failed to talk to the camera so I had to use on camera flash rather than off camera thus robbing me of being able to use a few facial shadows to add interest. Thank heavens, at least, that there were white ceilings for me to bounce flash off. I burned through three full sets of flash batteries and was well through the fourth set when all was said and done. Using ETTL proved to be a waste of time so I ended up shooting with the camera in manual mode, with the flash on manual and because the light was so poor, I even had to resort to manual focus at times! Hell's teeth, it was like the bad old days! I think the worst part was when the member of the hotel staff who was Mistress of Ceremonies said to me, "the light is really bad here, it always is". The final crowning glory was when we left last night, the clouds parted to show a beautiful, clear starlit night. If only the clouds had disappeared several hours earlier things would have been very different.
The shot above was taken before the wedding. Despite the bride's wishes to the contrary, I insisted on being there for the makeup and thus I managed to get a few worthwhile shots. After the cosmetics had been applied, Alison (a lovely lady, happy for me to be there and who talked me through what she was doing and why) said that she would hold up a mirror at a distance first and then move closer. At first I thought I would shoot the bride's face as she saw the finished result but when I saw where Alison was holding the mirror, I couldn't resist catching Claire's face as she saw the wonderful job that had been done. Multiple birds killed with one stone, plus the overlay of Claire's face on Alison's just worked for me.
When all is said and done, this was one of the nicest and happiest weddings that I have been to and now all I have to do is go through the other several hundred shots to see what can be salvaged. I'm not proud of the job I have done but it was good experience. The next wedding... I am going to really take charge
The shot above was taken before the wedding. Despite the bride's wishes to the contrary, I insisted on being there for the makeup and thus I managed to get a few worthwhile shots. After the cosmetics had been applied, Alison (a lovely lady, happy for me to be there and who talked me through what she was doing and why) said that she would hold up a mirror at a distance first and then move closer. At first I thought I would shoot the bride's face as she saw the finished result but when I saw where Alison was holding the mirror, I couldn't resist catching Claire's face as she saw the wonderful job that had been done. Multiple birds killed with one stone, plus the overlay of Claire's face on Alison's just worked for me.
When all is said and done, this was one of the nicest and happiest weddings that I have been to and now all I have to do is go through the other several hundred shots to see what can be salvaged. I'm not proud of the job I have done but it was good experience. The next wedding... I am going to really take charge
January 3rd. Scissors rock! ...and paper rocks...and rocks rock...scissors, paper, rock, rocks the most!
I was playing around with my speedlite, wireless trigger, softboxes, reflectors etc - getting in shape for tomorrow's wedding shoot. I have been getting reasonable results but I am hoping that a lady friend of mine can spend an hour being photographed so I can have a live model during daylight hours. When I was done making reasonably exposed shots I took this slightly creepy shot for the tag challenge.
My tags are:
black, yellow.
I wanted to give this one a harsh, contrasty, gritty feel so it has taken a High Pass sharpening with Vivid Light blending mode which makes the left hand side of my face and hands look like I haven't washed in a week!
I was playing around with my speedlite, wireless trigger, softboxes, reflectors etc - getting in shape for tomorrow's wedding shoot. I have been getting reasonable results but I am hoping that a lady friend of mine can spend an hour being photographed so I can have a live model during daylight hours. When I was done making reasonably exposed shots I took this slightly creepy shot for the tag challenge.
My tags are:
black, yellow.
I wanted to give this one a harsh, contrasty, gritty feel so it has taken a High Pass sharpening with Vivid Light blending mode which makes the left hand side of my face and hands look like I haven't washed in a week!
January 2nd. Ooh! Lensbaby I love you! Treated myself to a Lensbaby Composer Pro + Sweet35 today (please don't tell Donna). I think I wet myself when I saw what it was capable of. That sweet spot with the yummy blur. Amazing isn't it? I spent all this cash on L glass lenses to get nice crisp images and then a mere pittance getting a lens to make it all go blurry! Here you go, it's my avowed intent to take part in more challenges so in this week's Tag challenge I drew the words:
Black, Yellow
Actually I wrote a little bit of Rexx to randomly select two words from the tags to save all that faffing around trying to end up with my mouse pointer on a word each time.
Black, Yellow
Actually I wrote a little bit of Rexx to randomly select two words from the tags to save all that faffing around trying to end up with my mouse pointer on a word each time.
January 1st. My 365project Popular Page Photographs. OK, everyone is doing slideshows at the end of their project so why should I be any different? These were the Popular Page photos that I managed to achieve (at least I think that these were all of them). There's no titles, no end credits and all I have to say is that I used Candy Dulfer and Dave Stewart's "Lily was here" track as a background because I just craved a sax solo par excellence to accompany it.
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December 31st 2013. Sleep tight. OK, OK, I will admit it... I am a 365project junkie - a regular 365project tart of the worst sort. I couldn't resist posting a shot for today as well - just to go one better than merely completing my year. You only did 365 shots, eh? Pshaw...
In this one I was playing with my new wireless flash trigger and off camera flash (yes, I went and blew some more cash in Park Cameras yesterday). This was done with a small aperture, long exposure and high speed sync flash, rotating the camera as I took the shot. I thought the effect was quite nightmarish. Those of you with a long memory will recall this chap from http://365project.org/steampowered/365/2013-05-12
In this one I was playing with my new wireless flash trigger and off camera flash (yes, I went and blew some more cash in Park Cameras yesterday). This was done with a small aperture, long exposure and high speed sync flash, rotating the camera as I took the shot. I thought the effect was quite nightmarish. Those of you with a long memory will recall this chap from http://365project.org/steampowered/365/2013-05-12