2013 365-20

Ah, week 20 lands like a big wet thing in my lap. Happily though, there's plenty to take photos of this week, including roller derby. Hooray!

13/05/13

Nice to see Lilly Zom Bee back on the track and even nicer to catch such an unexpectedly nice shot of her. I was in completely the wrong place, facing down the track and straight into my own speedlight - that's the big flare in the top right corner. The rim lighting works and the other two speedlights lit Lilly pretty well.

14/05/13

These hay bales were parked in a field near Scrabo Tower in Newtownards (the tower is directly behind them. I tried out a very mild HDR preset in Lightroom to see what it would do and this is the result.

15/05/13

Abstract, but I was drawn to the patterns made by the vertical blinds on the window sill this afternoon as the sun started to set at the front of the house. I'm not sure what else I can say about this, other than I really liked the regularity of the pattern and the mix of lines/semi-circles.

16/05/13

It must be my week for abstract stuff. I called up to Roller Derby training this evening and tried out a few slower speed, rear flash sync shots. None of which worked the way I wanted, including this one. I suppose it would be classed as the best of a very mediocre bunch. I do kinda like it.

17/05/13

So, today was officially the one day in Belfast when the sun shone. I spent the day working in the garden and felt strangely compelled to try a flying shot at the front of the house. The problem is, that this looks wrong and I'm not sure why. I think the shadows are all wrong and my outline just looks too sharp.

18/05/13

Good weather meant the chance to try out some portrait techniques with Sarah, my ever willing model. I took quite a few using a mix of ambient sunlight and a very low powered speedlight. Started processing these today and was quite pleased with how they turned out. I had also worked out a very simple user preset in lightroom to give a nice boost to raw files at the time of import and make them less flat. This was pretty much the way the shot was imported into Lightroom with only a very slight crop applied.

19/05/13

I went to town a wee bit more on this shot, trying to produce a softer, fader look while keeping detail in Sarah's freckles and keeping the blue of her eyes. Very pleased with the final look of this one.