367-50 Week 18

Don't ask me why but out of the blue I decided to declare this week "50mm week" on the blog. I have attached my trusty Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens to the camera and will only be taking shots with it this week. I haven't discussed this with Trish yet, and we're shooting a wedding on Saturday. Might have to take the boss's instructions on board for that gig and then get back to the 50mm afterwards. Highlights of this week will be the wedding on Saturday plus the walk up Slemish mountain in the morning to celebrate St Patrick's  Day.

12/03/12

12th March is my number two daughter's birthday, and she was 21 this year. That's Katie in the middle, with Sarah and Ellen on either side after I had cooked dinner for everyone. As Trish pointed out, Katie will be 33 when Sarah celebrates her 21st birthday - that wasn't very well received. Mind you, I'll be 61. If I live that long. The 50mm f1.8 is a cracking little lens for portraits. Sharp, great colours and excellent depth of field.

13/03/12

This is the basil growing in my kitchen, against the kitchen window. This does show off the excellent colour reproduction of the 50mm lens (especially when attached to a Nikon camera) and the superb depth of field. Look at the bokeh on that shot!

14/03/12

Saw this as I drove through Antrim. It's along Stiles Way and there are three of these little bunches, all identical and tied to the fence. Shot this through the car window. I think I had been dealing with death and dying too much in work this week - hence the pre-occupation with this. Although I now realise that I'm, assuming it is some kind of tribute or shrine to someone who died when it might not be. Although it would be my experience that people in Antrim rarely put up flowers on fences for fun.

15/03/12

This is the kind of shot that the 50mm was made for. As in the past few weeks, I took my camera along to Aikido training and the 50mm coped with the low light better than any other lens I own. Again, sharp where it needs to be and nice fall-off in focus into the background. Love the colours, even under fluorescent lights.

16/03/12

A wee bit of cheating/time travel required here. This was taken tomorrow, at the top of Slemish mountain in County Antrim. I knew I was doing the Slemish walk and shooting a wedding on St Patrick's day and wanted to use both in my 367-50 project. We left Belfast at 8am, got the shuttle bus from Buckna to Slemish and were standing on top at around 10.30am. There was heavy, low-lying fog the whole way there but the top of Slemish was bright and clear. This is St Patrick's cross at the very top, looking down onto the fog below. Another advantage of the 50mm - it was light and easy to carry up a mountain. In bright sunlight it gives fantastic depth of field - shot this at f22, 1/125 and ISO 200.

17/03/12

Straight off Slemish, home and shower, bite of lunch then off to shoot a wedding at Ten Square with Trish. As usual, I was doing some shots with the groom's party before Trish arrived with the bride. This is the standard "Reservoir Dogs" shot. It came out well (apart from a slightly grumpy looking best man) and I included it because I was able to clone out a road sign above the heads of the two people on the right using nothing but Lightroom. I surprised myself. It was a lovely wedding shoot - nice couple, lovely guests, a really eccentric priest, great staff in Ten Square and we had dinner laid on for us. Cracking.

I'm heading off to Cuba on Thursday of this week, camera in hand. There may well not be an update on this blog for a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping to have some good shots of Havana to post when I return. Stay tuned!

367-50 Week 13

Unlucky for some, it's week number 13 and by the end of this week I'll have posted shot number 90. No theme this week, just the usual odds and ends with me playing about. Some use of the old iPad this week and no sign of the wee men. Might have to fit in a "wee men" week sometime soon. I know you love them.

06/02/12

7/02/12

Had one of those days when I wonder why I bothered doing degrees and spending 25 years becoming an experienced professional in my particular field of expertise. Yep, I was detailed to accompany my line manager to clear out the garage attached to our old office. It was full of the most incredible crap; confidential documents mixed with minutes of pointless meetings. Most of it was his too, dating back to the early 1990's. It wasn't pleasant work but I did sneak a picture of him and he did buy me lunch. Even after I broke the "up and over" garage door and we had to call property services out. At that point, I made my excuses and left.

8/02/12

Back to Monday's idea again as I had nothing to show for the day except a full tank of heating oil and a well-bled boiler which was working again. Thankfully Sarah was more than happy to oblige. I'm liking this wee idea.

9/02/12

Sixth form formal for Hannah tonight. Rushed this way too much and ended up not getting a really good shot. It's funny looking at the pictures from the formal. The girls (all of whom are 17-18) look much older and very elegant. The boys look like 12-year olds dressed in badly-fitting suits at their cousin's wedding. I suspect this is a universal law of nature.

10/02/12

Conway Square, Newtownards in the rain. Trish and myself were attending a photography talk by Ciaran De Bhal from Dundalk held in the Town Hall thanks to Ards Camera Club. Great show - this guy has some amazing images in his portfolio. He's fond of the Photoshop - many shots were collages, with people pasted in to backgrounds. It was very well done but I'm still left thinking about where this approach fits in photography. It's art, in that the images produced have visual impact and appeal but it's also a big step away from photography as being reportage; capturing what is there in front of you. The latter is probably my preferred way of working. Perhaps that over-used saying of Dr Samuel Johnson might get a run out here. Dr Johnson noted that "a woman preaching is like a dog standing on it's hind legs. The wonder is not that it is done well, but that it is done at all." All of that said and noted, but it has to be said that Ciaran's pictures were excellent, thought-provoking and inspiring. I came away with a few new ideas and that's always a bonus. Anyway, stepped outside for a smoke, realised I hadn't taken my shot for the day and grabbed the opportunity with both hands. And my iPhone. If you fancy checking out Ciaran's work (and it's well worth a gander), his website can be found at:

http://www.wix.com/cdebhal/picture-it-website

11/02/12

For Christmas presents, I bought all the big un's a day out at Todd's Leap Centre near Omagh. I'm getting to like the idea of buying "experiences" as presents rather than "things." There's only so many toys or electrical gadgets you need. We had an afternoon of off-road driving - Conor was a star, given that he'd never been behind the wheel of a car before. On the other hand, I managed to dig out a trench with the front bumper of the land rover we were in. Sharp left? Sharper next time. Zip line was great fun, body zorbing was violent and being driven fast in a hill rally jeep was the scariest thing I've done in a long time. All finished off with pizza (my old friend, how I've missed you these last six weeks) and red wine. And before you point out that I didn't take this shot, I set the camera up before passing it onto the member of staff from Todd's Leap to press the button.

12/02/12

We went out for lunch before Lynsey leaves for Australia tomorrow and visited Katch 27 in Kircubbin. Regular readers might recognise the name - I featured a picture from a photoshoot Trish and did at the restaurant before Christmas (this blog, week 3 - 2/12/11). I had planned to re-visit a photo I had taken of a tower in a hillside overlooking Strangford Lough. Alas, I had all the gear with me...except for my plate to attach the camera to the tripod. Plans foiled, I resorted to plan b and got Trish to stop a this deserted farm house on the main road between Newtownards and Greyabbey which I had noticed before. I figured I'd be able to get at least one good handheld shot. Lightly processed in Photoshop and also used the new content aware feature to clone out a couple of branches in the top corner.
There it is - shot number 90 out of 367, which makes me about one quarter of the way into the project. Still enjoying it and not feeling like it's a chore.

367-50 Week 3

Into week three and taking a shot each day has started to become a habit. I'm more tuned into opportunities for shots (I think) and spend a lot more time thinking about potential pictures.

On Monday, I set myself a challenge. I had subscribed to Trey Ratcliff on Facebook as I'm a big fan of his HDR stuff. My challenge was to produce an HDR shot of the house as quickly as possible. Three shots taken on the tripod, imported via Lightroom and then into Photmatix Pro. I was quite pleased with the result and in total this took 25 mins start to finish.

28/11/11

On Tuesday I was standing outside my office in Ballymena having a smoke and started playing with a iphone app called Camera+ for taking and processing photos. Apparently Annie Liebowitz has declared that the iphone 4 is now the leading camera for snapshots. This was my first attempt using the app and is a shot of the side of County Hall with an effect called "So Emo"

29/11/11

I was sitting in the dining room working on the laptop when I happened to look out the window and saw the little birdbox at the bottom of the garden catching the late afternoon sun. I garbbed my camera, a pair of stepladders and ran down to try to get the shot.

30/11/11

Thursday was spent in Larne. Those of you who know me will know that this is not one of my favourite places. It was a long day, spent in two schools with two very difficult cases. On the way home I pulled over in a layby to see if I could get shots of the traffic. I was tempted to paraphrase Dr Samuel Johnson - "The noblest thing a Larne man ever sees is the high road to Belfast."

1/12/11

I think Friday evening qualifies as my first ever commericial photo shoot. Trish and I were invited to Katch 27 in Kircubbin with the deal being we take photos and get our dinner in return. This was a great deal, made even better by the production of a bottle of wine as well. Leigh and Davy were great hosts and it was interesting to spend some time in a "real" kitchen to see what goes on. The food was great, with the dessert being the highlight for me.

2/12/11

Saturday morning took me back to Kircubbin, to get some exterior shots of Katch 27, but also to have a wee prowl around the area. Spent some time in Greyabbey and got some nice shots of the old abbey, as well as spotting a red squirrel jumping over the headstones. I also fancied trying to get close to the tower in the shot below - I'd always driven past this but never got round to trying to get up to it. After much driving around up lanes and dirt tracks, I got there.

3/12/11

And finally today - stinking hangover; unable to do much except drink tea and smoke. Trish informed me that she did not want me to come to TESCO with her as apparently I'm a "difficult" shopping partner. Had to get one wee men shot in, so here's Sadie and Agnes planning their next trip.

4/12/11

See y'all next week!