367-50 Week 37

Another week, another week closer to the end of this project and I'm already starting to think about what to do next. The NEST2012 exhibition at T13 made me start thinking about found objects and photos of these. We'll see. I have the Belfast Banshees roller derby bout to look forward to on Saturday night as well. The rest of the week is, always, a mystery.

23/07/12

So here's the story. Around the coast of Britain between the 19th and 22nd of July these installations were being put up. A collection of illuminated tents with accompanying soundscapes of poetry called Peace Camp. We had two here in Northern Ireland and I opted to book tickets to the one at White Park Bay. My daughter Katie and myself set out before 9pm for a 90-minute drive. We arrived at White Park Bay at 10 o'clock to be told that the event was cancelled because of freak winds and freak high tides. I noted that there wasn't actually a breath of wind and the waves were being very well behaved and were in fact, quite far away. In the face of this, Katie and I had a cup of tea and decided to walk down to the beach anyway. All the tents had been taken down (except this one) and no poetry was to be had. Not to be put off without a fight, I tried a few ideas to get some sort of shot before we hit on the idea of getting Katie to go into the tent and wave a torch around it. This was the result on a 30" exposure at f-16, which shows up the tent but keeps a bit of detail in the sky and the foreground. At 10:31, I received an e-mail and a text from the organisers to inform me that the event was cancelled. Go figure.

24/07/12

Just saw this shot in the morning. The light was nice, the colour of the flowers stood out against each other and I thought that a shallow depth of field would work quite well with this.

25/07/12

A wee bit of spare time today and while doing some housework I was struck by the number of dead moths on one of the windowsills. A mystery - time to call in the CSI guys to investigate. I'm really liking the quality and the detail that the Nikon 60mm f2.8 gives. This was taken with the lens nearly pressed up against the subjects, but it came out pretty well. Razor sharp depth of field again.

26/07/12

This was my project for the day. I'd picked up a little Polaroid pocket printer and set about taking a series of headshots of myself. I roughly cropped these shots down in-camera and ended up with about 24 pictures (20 mins roughly, allowing for coffee). I then printed each shot off on the Polaroid printer and assembled the shots (about 30 mins). Took photo of finished piece and voila! I'm looking more like Eric Cantona as I get older and don't shave. A man can dream.

27/07/12

This was taken yesterday during a scouting trip for potential photoshoot locations. The Abbey at Greyabbey has masses of potential, with lots of possible set-ups that don't involve visitor information boards and bright green railings. It is handicapped by very photographer-unfriendly opening hours - 10am - 4.30 pm thus managing to avoid both early morning and evening when the light would be at its best.

28/07/12

Off to shoot Roller Derby this evening, with Belfast Banshees taking on Parma Violents from Scotland. As always, it was a great night and great fun to shoot. I've said it on this blog many times, but the Belfast Roller Derby crew are the best bunch of people to work with. Managed to fill a massive amount of storage space with shots and it is going to take most of tomorrow to process the photos, but it'l be worth it. I'm posting this pic simply because I like it. The framing, the light and the expression - no post-processing; this was how it came out of the camera.

29/07/12

Yep, it's now something like 6.30pm and I'm still sorting through shots from last night to get them posted to Facebook and to Flickr. I'm impressed with how the D800 coped with high ISO and was able to shoot on manual at 1/500 and f4 for most of the night with the D800 on auto ISO. It ranged up to ISO 6400 and these shots haven't been put through any noise reduction software. That will be a job for another day should anyone want them printed or published I suppose. And it was a real boost to see my headshots for the team in the bout programme. They looked really well. Better than the other teams, anyway. The full set from last night's bout can be seen at:

Belfast Banshees vs Parma Violents on Flickr

367-50 Week 36

Here we go with week 36 - that means that there's only another 16 weeks of the 367-50 project left to run. I'm not sure if that qualifies as being "on the home straight" but I think the finishing post is in sight.

16/07/12

Had the pleasure of attending a newly-formed camera club this evening and suggested a photographic scavenger hunt to get a small group of beginners out and taking photos. It all went very well (I think) and some pretty good shots were produced. This is my attempt to find a square, one of the items on the scavenger hunt and i liked the colours and textures on this post box. And yes, I did boost the colours a contrast a little in Lightroom.

17/07/12

Boredom. What to do. Lets pick a project at random from the pile of camera mags lying about in the house. An x-ray shot of a camera sounded pretty good. This is my back-up D60 shot with my D90. I shot this against a white background and used my macro ring flash for lighting - that's the reflections you can see in the lens. Quite bit of complicated messing about in Photoshop, and several abortive attempts finally got me to this shot. It's certainly different. I was also asked if you could reproduce this effect with a person. I tried and am pleased to announce that in fact you can.

18/07/12

Doing the laundry this morning and felt the urge to try to take a nice shot of "the octopus" which holds my socks. Too much information? The blue colour came out well, and there was a nice shallow depth of field shooting at f2.8 on my 24-70 lens.

19/07/12

So, sitting at home today when someone on a Facebook photography group posted a suggestion about taking shots with the good old "nifty fifty." There was an opportunity to combine the pile of reports I was struggling to write with the little men and specifically, the little mountaineers. Shot with the 50mm set to f1.8, hence the shallow depth of field. Wasn't the best shot posted on the group by a long way, but it was good to do it. As a way of avoiding work of course.

20/07/12

The on-going battle between me and the crappy lighting at the Valley Leisure Centre has been a source of annoyance to me for some time. When shooting Roller Derby Bouts for the Belfast Banshees high shutter speed means high ISO and a lot of noise. Went along to training last evening to try out a different camera rig and set up after seeking advice from anyone who would give it. The results were pretty good, I think. Depth of field is still pretty narrow but I was able to get a shutter speed of 1/400-1/500 which worked well for action shots and didn't end up with too much noise. The above shot was processed without any noise reduction either, so I'm happy and looking forward to the Banshees next bout on the 28th July. The training was taken by the one and only Diamond Destroyher (that's not a mis-spelling) and it was so good watching her skate and teach. That's her in the middle. Her Pat Benatar impression was pretty good too - what a shimmy! More shots from the session can be found at:

BRD Training July 2012

21/07/12

Visited the Belfast Custom Bike Show and then the NEST exhibition at T13. NEST was by far and away the standout of the day for me. A massive installation of found objects by two artists that covers the entire floor of the T13 warehouse. This was the opening day, complete with a choir hidden among the crowd and a full orchestra. Breath-taking and a photography treasure trove of the highest order. The wee monkey and I were tired by the time we got in at 4pm, but by god it was worth the wait. I may return for another visit when I have more time and energy. Couldn't recommend this highly enough. Check it out here:

NEST at T13 Website

22/07/12

Wee girl vs a fry. 8am this fine Sunday morning. Housework to be done, family visiting to be done. What better way to prepare yourself than with a veggie fry? Roll on this afternoon when I will lying on the settee snoozing and watching the Open golf.

Off tonight to visit the Peace Camp installation at White Park Bay - I've seen some pics of this and it looks really interesting. Camera and tripod job I fear, and I hope I've booked a time that will get the sun going down between 9.30 and 10.30. Hope to get a shot posted tomorrow so it will be in next week's update.

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