2013 365-11

It's been a funny old week. I hit another low in terms of inspiration for taking photos and was giving serious consideration to jacking in this 365 project as I just wasn't enjoying it. Coincidence is a strange thing; I ended up having the chance to take some time away from work and spend it by the seaside with some very good company. This had the result of making me forget about taking shots and (conversely) allowed me to take some shots that I enjoyed taking and working with. Weird stuff?

11/03/13

Seaside it is then. Went out for a walk, took the camera and decided it would be a good idea to try to take some shots of the shoreline. Got this one and then it began to hail and snow which led to me legging it back to the house at top speed

12/03/13

Put this collage together today from a lot of shots taken at the weekend in Donegal. I think it works and might be a fairly good summary of the weekend. Way too much drinking.

13/03/13

This just leapt out at me today; a bottle of olive oil sitting in the kitchen with the light hitting it just right. Grabbed the camera, took one shot and this is the end result.

14/03/13

 Out for dinner this evening, to Saltwater Brig near Portaferry. Nice pasta, but made me realise that I could probably do every bit as well. Had a great evening though, and felt the urge to take something to remember it. Long exposure, with the camera set on the wall of the car park.

15/03/13

Beach huts along Portavogie beach. I was walking the dog here this morning when I saw these and had to return with my camera and tripod. This worked out well, although I actually liked a similar black and white treatment of the huts better. I might have a little wander further along this path next week when I get the chance and see what else there is to photograph.

18/03/13

Another shameless rip-off of someone else's idea. This would look so much better using a sparkler rather than a torch, but you get the idea. Need to work a bit harder at my Batman logo - it's just a wee bit rough in places.

17/03/13

I spent last night shooting a street art event and exhibition opening at R-Space Gallery in Lisburn, thanks to an invite from a friend of mine. By coincidence, my eldest daughter was also exhibiting some of her cross stitch work as well. I enjoyed this, nothing more so than watching this very talented lady produce a simply stunning portrait using a sheet of plywood, a couple of stencils and some aerosols. Simply breathtaking work all round. You can see more shots from the event on Facebook here:

2nd Shooter on Facebook

2013 365-9

And they're off, racing into week nine of this 365 project like there's no tomorrow. Ok - maybe not. It's been a bit slow this week. although I am still in remarkably good form.

25/02/13

200m lens, tripod and cable release set up in the back garden today to see what I could get in terms of the birds coming to visit my bird feeder. Just the usual suspects I'm afraid but nice to look at anyway.

26/02/13

Bunch of flowers, window, moon rising behind. A reminder of a very pleasant evening with some truly nice people.

27/02/13

When I picked Sarah up from school this afternoon, I found that the school playground hand been ringed by thousands of pennies arranged in a neat line. The P7 pupils were doing this as a charity fundraising event. Small but mighty. 

28/02/13

This was taken tonight using a maglite torch suspended from the cross piece of a backdrop stand. The room was blacked out and the camera was set on the ground with a wide angle lens (about 24mm) attached. I used bulb mode, f22, ISO 100 and shutter speeds of around 60-90 seconds. The light trails produced by this were then layered in photoshop with a coloured gradient to produce the final picture. Very spirograph, for those old enough to remember spirographs.

1/03/13

Spring is in the air. Longer days, warmer weather and the first of March. This was a little snowdrop from Stormont estate this afternoon.

2/03/13

Simply Sarah, hanging upside down from monkey bars in the park. Turned upside down of course.

3/03/13

Sunday morning routine. Ironing my shirts while listening to Sunday Sequence on Radio Ulster with William Crawley. I enjoy the strange combination of repetitive activity and philosophical discussion coupled with coffee and smokes. Please don't judge me on the basis of my shirts - they cheer me up when I'm feeling down.

2013 365-5

Week five and no shoots worth talking about this week. Guess it's time to fall back on mooching around the house and trying to be creative. Small things, small places.

28/01/13

Damn but I just love this little sock rabbit. My daughter Katie bought the kit for my youngest, Sarah and Katie came round on Sunday to help Sarah make it. This seemed to involve (to an objective observer) Katie making the sock rabbit while Sarah tried to distract her with an amazing repertoire of pointless questions. I'm tempted to say that it was the ruin of a good pair of socks, but how could you not love that little face? It has taken pride of place on the mantlepiece, at least temporarily.

29/01/13

This is a close-up of a little light-up snow globe given to Sarah by the two elderly sisters who live next door. The actual snow flake is tiny and the halo of light is the macro ring light I was using to take the shot.

30/01/13

Sarah's feet. Not actually that little - but then big feet run in the family (see what I did there?) Sarah has a real penchant for going bare-footed around the house. So far, no nasty accidents involving trips to A&E.

31/01/13

Got out orbing tonight for the first time in months. This was taken on the footbridge over Parkway that links the two halves of Belmont Park. Thanks to the kind driver who tooted their horn at me - I'm wondering if it was someone who knew what lights being swung around on a footbridge bridge meant. Or just someone who thought the aliens had landed.

1/02/13

Stuck in the house, very bored, so decided to start working on single flash lighting set ups. This was "clam-shell" lighting with an SB-700 above the camera shooting down and fitted with a softbox. I was holding a  large gold reflector under my face angled up to bounce light back into my face and hopefully kill some shadows. Pretty decent results for a relatively simple set-up - I'm going to keep working at this, time permitting.

02/02/13

This was the big kids' Xmas present - a morning's go-karting at Raceview in Broughshane. Eight of us in total and I was going great guns until i managed to crash in the semi-final race (spectacularly) and put myself out of the final. Here's the winners podium, with Will (right) in third, Siobhan (left) in second and Si in the middle hugging his trophy. It should have been mine - next time, next time......

03/02/13

David Millar has featured on the blog before. He is my aikido mentor and the man who took an interest in me when I started training in aikido 14 years ago. Davy went out of his way to teach me and has never stopped offering suggestions and critique when it was needed. He is a man with a wealth of stories and who loves to tell them, about aikido and his life. He is an avid reader who I've swapped books with over the years, mainly on boxing which is one of his passions. Last night was Davy's 75th birthday and it was an honour to attend his surprise party. I'm hoping he'll be around for many years to come.

2013 365-4

Winter still here. Flag protests still here. Thought one might cancel the other out but I was wrong.

21/01/13

Snow fails to affect the flag protests. Protesters and snow managed to bring Belfast to near total gridlock this evening. Glad I got home a wee bit earlier today and was sitting with feet up and a cuppa in my hands while chaos ensued outside.

22/01/13

I'd been thinking about doing something in Belmont Park with the three carved wooden statues, one of which is now on it's side. Thought I'd give the wire wool a bash and since there was still snow on the ground, I knew I wasn't going to set anything on fire. It was an eventful evening. As I was setting up, four people arrived in the dark with torches and started sprinting up and down the hill just to the right of where this shot was taken. After a brief chat which went along the lines of "are we going to be in your way mate?" - "No, but I'm about to set fire to stuff" I started shooting. Four burns into my evening's fun, I found myself surrounded by a bright light. Turned out it wasn't the rapture, but a police helicopter with a very bright searchlight. Seems burning wire wool in east Belfast while flag protests are happening about a mile away isn't that good an idea. I waved and shone my torch on the camera and tripod. God knows what they made of that.

23/01/13

My favourite little model again. Went to walk the dog and grabbed the camera bag on the way out the door. I ended up armed with my camera, a 10-24mm lens and a flashgun. Not the best lens for portrait stuff but it gave me an excuse to try using some fill-in flash while also trying to use the lovely winter afternoon sky as a backdrop.

24/01/13

Finally, after a few aborted efforts, I made it to the Queens Films Theatre to see McCullin, the documentary about Don McCullin (no surprise there then). McCullin's photos made a real impact on he in my early-mid teens and were one of the biggest reasons why I picked up a camera, film in those days, and started trying to learn photography. My admiration for Don McCullin's photography has never waned although after reading his autobiography I was left with the impression of a very cold, unemotional and damaged man. This film changed my mind about this and left me quite awestruck at the man's humanity and compassion. He was the most reckless, impulsive and irresponsible of photographers; I've still not figured this out completely but guess a lot of it came from his upbringing in a fairly tough part of London and the gangs he ran with as a teenager. Even his first shots of these gangs were masterful in their composition. I realise this could turn into an essay - that's a shot of my cinema ticket, a postcard courtesy of the QFT and the two photos featured in the film that left the biggest impact on me - both taken in Biafra and on adjoining pages of one of my books of McCullin's photographs.

25/01/13

"They were madly in love but friends knew that it would end in tears"

Those are shallots, not onions, in case you were getting worked up.

26/01/13

Mentioned on Facebook that I was having a dearth of ideas for the wee men. A suggestion flooded in. Get them doing a photoshoot. How I made the leap from "photoshoot" to "photoshoot involving woman removing her knickers" is anyone's guess. Suppose I'll have to bring that up with my therapist.

27/01/13

All day photoshoot at Asylum Gym in Newtownards today for a deadlift party organised by Dave (see last week's post). Great bunch of guys and a very competitive but supportive atmosphere with guys lifting personal bests. Picked this shot because of the effort in the face and the amount of bend on the bar - I couldn't do too many reps with just the bar, never mind with a bunch of weights on it. I'm slowly morphing into a photographer of obscure sports. And I'm enjoying it.

367-50 Week 52

Technically, the last full week of my 365 project. There's a lump in my throat right now, I can tell you.

5/11/12

So Monday opens with my big girl Siobhan exhibiting her cross stitch at the Oh Yeah centre in Belfast. No free drink, no nibbles and the exhibits were hung in the hallway outside the toilets. No-one was there which was a pity since much of the work on show was really very impressive. Vonnie's stuff was (as always) top notch and I was well impressed with the pictures submitted by Mark Reihill.

6/11/12

Almost forgot to take a shot today. Maybe this should be a competition - identify what this household object is and you can win a prize. It's a macro shot, taken with a Nikor 60mm and the object was found in my kitchen. Rude answers will be ignored.

7/11/12

Been a while since I went orbing. Had a spectacular shot planned but due to rain Sarah and I headed off to the tunnels which run under the railway tracks at Holywood. We both got a few half-decent shots and Sarah even managed to make her first ever circular orb, using her own camera on self-timer, tripod and using a long exposure.

8/11/12

Larne today again, but I think someone might have been trying to send me a message. This was the sight that greeted me as I walked out to my car at lunchtime.

9/11/12

I'm tempted to make this another "what is this" question. This is the contents of my daughter's coat pockets, emptied before I put it in the washing machine. There are: 12 assorted sweet wrappers, six doggy poo bags, one empty tub of sweets, three christmas crackers, 27p in small change, 5 used tissues, 2 hair bands and one elastic band. There was also some other stuff that can only be described as "unidentified."

10/11/12

The wee  men have been absent for a while. Today they came out to do some mountaineering in the kitchen. At one stage I managed to superglue my hands to the kitchen worktop and also glue lengths of thread to my hands.

11/11/12

Last batch of head shots for Belfast Roller Derby this afternoon, and this is the wonderful Trixie Toxin. All shots are now processed and available on dropbox for use on the BRD website and in the programme for the next bout at the end of the month. This was a big job. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks there will be a feature in the Belfast Telegraph on the team and it looks like they will be using my shots for the article.

So there goes the last full week of the 367-50 project. Four days left to do, so the next and last update from the project won't be that hard to do.

367-50 Week 48

Week 48 and heading inexorably towards the end of the 367 project. I have something extra special planned for next week - a bit of a photo trip to somewhere I've always wanted to visit but that will need to wait.

8/10/12

Re-visited the same spot as last week to try some test shots for a possible poster photo shoot for the next Roller Derby bout at the end of November. This was the shot I was thinking of as the backdrop, then adding in some fire-spinning (which I did and which worked reasonably well). The next trick is to develop the suggestion of a Star Wars theme by putting two skaters in front of the fire spinning with light-up light sabres and pick them out with some rear curtain flash. It's shaping up to be the most difficult and intricate shot I've ever attempted and will involve a small crew of people and some willing volunteers. I wasn't too happy about the complete arse in the block of flats overlooking this piece of waste ground deciding to shine a green laser on proceedings once I got started with the fire spinning but I've realised that my photo antics are starting to draw a little attention now and again. If that was you with the green laser - you're an arse my friend.

9/10/12

I went down to the Lagan this evening with the intention of doing some light orbs around the river. Got some good shots; don't know specifically why I chose this one to post, other than it was one of the last I took before heading home. I'm having problems making my orbs perfectly circular - this might be a matter of practice. There was also a train going across the bridge behind me - it's the streak of light above the bridge.

10/10/12

Here's a learning point. When your youngest daughter is doing a viking project and needs to make a helmet and shield, don't let her and her big brother loose on the project. I don't recall pictures of vikings with mutli-coloured/striped hats and shields. This cost me four rolls of electrical tape. The helment looked like something that an american football player would wear. Don't get me wrong - it looked spectacular. Just not like something a viking would wear. I thought sepia-toning might make the photo look more.....historical. And less like the Minnesota Vikings.

11/10/12

10.30 and no shot for the day. These were heading for the bin as I has no excuse for using them. Lovely red and green chilli peppers. At least they weren't purchased in vain.

12/10/12

I can't remember the last time I felt so desperately in need of a glass of wine. It was a long day with way too much driving between meetings in work and several long and difficult telephone calls once I'd got home. My plans of an afternoon nap and something dull on Film4 were well and truly scuppered by work. It was 7 o'clock by the time the wine got poured and I drank it like man who had been lost in the Gobi desert for a month. And then fell asleep on the settee at around 9.

13/10/12

Had a lovely autumnal walk round Castlewellan this morning. I don't think I have been there since I was about 12 years old and my parents used to take us for family picnics. Instead of walking round the lake, we walked to the Annesley Gardens and walked through these and up to the old greenhouse at the far end. This is over-grown and dilapidated - a real waste of a fantastic glass house. Spotted these drops falling off a stem while trying to get some shots through a broken window of the inside. Fired off a few - this is maybe the best but even it isn't totally sharp. A macro lens, a tripod and some patience may have made for a better shot. Unfortunately, I had none of those at the time.

14/10/12

So, a damp Sunday. What to do? Why not go the the pumpkin festival at Castleward? I'll tell you why not. Parking in muddy fields miles away from where things were happening. Having to walk too far to see too little. Trying to get the free shuttle bus back to the muddy field only to find that some coach driver had parked his bloody coach on the road, blocking the traffic and guess what - had to walk back to the car. Mind you, I do have to point out that I ate amazing pizza (goats cheese and olives) and had a decent cup of coffee. And had nice company while I stomped around complaining. Here's some people carving pumpkins for small children. Bah Humbug.

On a more positive note, I am happy to announce that I will be going on a much anticipated photo expedition next week to somewhere I've always wanted to visit, and even visit more since picking up a camera. This time next week, I'll be boring you with holiday snaps.

367-50 Week 47

The weather was definitely starting to turn. Lots of rain and few opportunities to get out and about, but it is the start of October I suppose. Lets see what we can come up with this week, dodging the showers.

1/10/12

So the mystery plants in the garden finally flowered today - at the start of October? What self-respecting flower comes out in October? I had thought that I'd killed this plant when it suddenly died back and vanished but then it put out a dozen of these remarkable pods which today began to open and produce long purple flowers this morning. Hurrah! It's not dead and I didn't kill it. At least not yet.

2/10/12

A fairground up the road? Why not? Pity the place was empty and closed down for the night half and hour after I arrived because of the lack of trade. I got a few shots - this one taken with the Lensbaby Composer with a start-shaped aperture disc. I played around with it and got some very impressionistic shots of star-shaped bokeh. I liked this one, although it is a bit if a mess compositionally.

3/10/12

Sarah and I went to this footbridge in Dundonald over the dual carriageway to Newtownards in order to ger her taking some long exposure shots of car tail lights. It seemed a shame not to try out and orb while we were there and we got some nice shots. While working at these shots, a man appeared from no-where and asked to check out what we were doing - or more exactly he knew what we were doing and wanted to have a look. Got chatting to Andy, swapped details, ended up being ten minutes later picking my other daughter up from Guides. Whoops.

4/10/12

Got bitten by the light painting bug this week without a doubt. Wanted to try this shot, thanks to some of Denis Smith's stuff (if you want to see his shots, check last week's blog post). Taken at 8.30pm with a six minute exposure and a 30 second orb.

5/10/12

Love this shot. Took my two youngest daughters down to the Titanic building to try out some light painting and on the way back to the car saw this shot as being very possible. Tramped over some waste ground, famed it up using the same settings as we had used over at the Titanic building and (more by chance) this was the second shot out of the camera. Not much post-processing on this other that cropping in lightroom. 30 second exposure seemed to work well for both the cranes and the orb. Got a really nice glow under the orb too. This would look good printed and mounted. Any takers?

6/10/12

Two flower shots in the same week! Have I gone mad? I just couldn't resist this. When I moved into this house in May under what could best be described as difficult circumstances, there was a pot on the kitchen window sill with what looked like two dried onions in it. I watered them and they put out a couple of leaves. I kept watering them through the summer and nothing happened. Then suddenly, about two weeks ago, one of them produced a shoot which turned into this. I'm a sucker for growing stuff and seeing something like this come from what looked like a lifeless lump does cheer me up. I pulled the muslin curtain behind the flower and shot it with my 60mm macro and an f-stop of 3.5.

7/10/12

Went to the Belfast Roller Derby new skater recruitment evening today to take some shots. This isn't really a new skater, it's my derby daughter Katie. Katie has been training hard over the last number of months and is about to do her minimums and move up. She was also asked to talk to the new skaters about what it's like being "fresh meat" in the derby team. It was a brief chat, but informative. Amazing to see how much more confident she is on skates now - only a matter of time before I'm shooting her in a bout for the Banshees.

367-50 Week 46

Monday was a real wash out. Wet, dark and miserable. Autumn appears to have lasted exactly one week.

24/09/12

An on a wet day, what better than to try a bit of fooling about. It was pretty difficult taking this on a self-timer but thankfully I was able to get the camera to fire off 5 shots in a burst with 1 second between each. The lighting wasn't good as I was cramped for space and only had one working flashgun and no working wireless triggers, but you get the idea.

25/09/12

It's really great to see the massive changes in Belfast's public transport system. Since the introduction of the new bus lanes in the centre of Belfast. a;; traffic in and out in the mornings appears to have ground to a halt. I left my youngest daughter to school and then attempted to drive the 2 miles to the start of the motorway (I checked it on Google maps so it must be right). It took me 1 hour and 15 minutes before I hit the motorway to Antrim. Made some phone calls, sent some texts, read some e-mails. Can you tell how bored and frustrated I was?

26/09/12

Apologies for the watermark on this, but I've been working on adding watermarks to shots in Photoshop using the brush tool and got carried away. Had to go into town to do some birthday shopping for my daughter and I found myself able to sit outside drinking coffee with my camera. Took a few shots looking into Cornmarket and really liked this, especially with the man in the coat walking across the frame. I'm also getting a wee bit fixated with this type of HDR processing and am now processing 4 or 5 shots from each batch of photos this way to see how they look. Yep - I'm liking this.

27/09/12

Big up to my big son Conor. He arrived round last night and showed me the website and a video for an Australian photographer called Denis Smith who specialises in light orbs. Denis' website can be found here:

Denis Smith Photography

Denis' images are possibly the best light orbs I've seen and his locations are awesome. What I learned from Denis' video was that he shot at the full moon with very long exposures (up to 10 minutes) which then produces quite bright images even though they're shot at night time. We tried this out last night and this was our test run. This was taken around 9pm when it quite dark, with a bit of a moon out. The exposure was 4 minutes with the light orb produced in 30 seconds by swinging a bunch of LED lights around. I'm not sure if that was my orb or Conor's in the picture. This is looking like a promising technique, although it would take massive practice to get anywhere close to Denis Smith's shots.

28/09/12

I finally got see one of my guitar heroes last night, courtesy of the Ards Guitar Festival. I've been a fan of Martin Simpson for many years since coming across him on television coverage of the Cambridge folk festival. Since the passing of the great Doc Watson earlier this year, I think he is now my favourite living guitarist. He played a set that was way too short (for me anyway) and he was obviously suffering from a cold, but it was worth seeing nonetheless. This guy does things with a guitar that I don't even understand. Simply magical. As was local boy Gareth Dunlop who opened the show - I think he's now on my watch list to go and see play.

29/09/30

Roller derby last night and although this might not look like a derby shot, it is. The hard core fans of the Belfast Roller Derby team are the BRD Ultras. Last bout they came along dressed in poncho's and somberos. This time, it was ninjas. There was something so off the wall about seeing half a dozen people in the crowd dressed as japanese assassins. This is Barzo, who gamely offered to perform some spin kicks for the camera.

30/09/12

And here are my favourite Roller Derby team of all time. A nail-biting bout, tied after full time and needing an overtime jam to separate the two teams. The Belfast girls came out on top, and the excitement was amazing. A well deserved win after all the hard work they've put in this year. Dedication and drive abound, and they still find the time to hug me from time to time.

Update - Vandal Lisa (front row, far right) was rushed to hospital on Sunday after suffering a blood clot on her brain. Vandal skated like a star in the bout on Saturday night and for the smallest skater on the track, she played out of her skin. Latest news is that she's out of danger and doing well; everyone's thoughts are with Vandal and for her recovery.