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.

367-50 Week 9

Week nine here we go! Got a shit load of new bits and pieces this week including a couple of Cokin p-series ND filters and graduated ND as well. Also picked up a couple of heads for the lightstands to hold my speedlights. I had suggested via Facebook that I was looking for ideas for "themed weeks" on this project and got a couple of good suggestions - thanks to Maggie and Jim for "great movies scenes" and "famous musicians." Cheers also to Rory for the slightly more esoteric idea of "waves" but what do you expect from a professional scientist who likes to go boating. All duly noted for further reference; if you have a suggestion, I'd be glad to hear it, either through a post on the blog here or via Facebook.

9/01/12

I had actually remembered to take my camera out with me today, but neglected to notice that the only lens I had with me was the 105mm macro. Not the most versatile piece of glass in my camera bag. This put me off taking any shots all day, until I found myself in the school car park waiting for Sarah to get out. I started taking shots of the inside of my car, the various screens, knobs and switches and so on. I got a few nice shots - all handheld at ISO 200 and f8. This was my favourite. Sarah preferred a shot of the radio/cd display that inidcated that I was listening to Iggy Pop.

10/01/12

The wee men tackle a load of bull - OK - I'd had a long day, my knee was sore and I had a lot to do in work and then at kids aikido club. It was late and I was getting desperate until I remembered that I had kept the plastic bull from the neck of a bottle of "Sangre de Torro" wine which had come into the house at New Year. Wee bull, wee men - let's see what we can up with. Watch out for the bull - you may see more of him during this project.

11/01/12

I posted on Facebook a request for suggestions for themes for this project, in an attempt to get round my occassional "blockages" and lack of inspiration. Big up to Maggie McD for her suggestion about 70's pop groups. Coincidentally I had bought a book of music photography and thought about trying to recreate some of the shots I liked. Iconic shots of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan to come - this is my recreation of a shot of Eminem from the promo stuff for his (surprisingly good) movie "8 Mile." Here's the original, just for comparison.

 

12/01/12

Couldn't really resist it. It's the middle of January and I drive a convertible. The sun was out, there wasn't a hint of rain and I had a woolly hat in the car. Bring it on! Ballymena to Belfast with the roof down and the music pumping. I know it's juvenile but it's great fun, although I do tend to drive a wee bit faster with the top down. Here's the safety bit - this was taken on my iPhone while it sat in the charger cradle in the centre console of the car. I WAS NOT USING MY PHONE WHILE DRIVING. Honest, officer.

13/01/12

Carrying on the re-creation of music photographs, this is my version of one of my favourite photos of Johnny Cash. It was obviously taken in his heyday around the time he was consuming large amounts of stimulants (Speed was his drug of choice if I remember correctly from his autobiography) and sending out for Tiajuana Brass bands at 3am to play the signature lick on Ring of Fire. All wide eyes and bad attitude, it (in my mind anyway) bookends the maudlin cheesy years in the 70's and 80's with the later American Recordings albums and a return to an older, wiser but still slightly dangerous Cash. Two speedlights at 1/16th power (left and right) with one bounced off the white ceiling. ISO 200 at 1/100. And yes, the finger is meant to be blurred and here's the link to the original: http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/johnny-cashs-finger/

14/01/12

An overnight stay and a lovely meal in the Clandeboye Lodge lead to the opportunity for a walk and we chose to head up to Helen's Tower. It was closed and fenced off, which I never remember but it has been 15 years since I walked there. Carted my tripod, cable release and new ND and grad filters with me in the hope of testing them out. This was taken with a 3-stop ND filter with ISO 200, f22 and a shutter speed of 1". I had to straighten out the converging verticals in photoshop and bumped up the detail a little in Topaz Adjust. The end result is a nice crisp shot, albeit a little unexciting. I have a notion to go out early and shoot more landscape stuff tomorrow if I can can stay off the red wine tonight.

15/01/12

Woodburn dams this morning as the sun was coming up around 9am. Nice colour and texture in the sky and a bit of blur on the water. This was shot with a 3-stop ND filter and a grad filter to try to bring out the sky. ISO 200, f22 and shutter speed in or around 3". I think next time I'm going to try combining the 1-stop and 3-stop ND filters together to see what this produces - it should (my maths is a bit fuzzy on this) have given an exposure time of roughly 6" (i.e. 2x 3" with the added 1-stop filter).