2013 365-14

 Week 14 and things are picking up. An offer of a new long term project starting this week, a spot of good old roller derby and a lot of getting out and about - for that, read more landscapes. I also ended up getting my eyes re-tested this week and now need reading glasses. I apologise for any photos that have not met acceptable levels of sharpness over the last couple of years.

1/04/13

Sunday night brought a visit to Belfast Roller Derby training to get some shots of two visiting coaches from London Roller Girls. This is one of my favourite shots of the night, Jack Attack, who was leading training for the squad.

2/04/13

It might be snowy and bloody cold, but I experienced a real "golden hour" this evening while driving near Greyabbey, Co Down. The sun was just setting and I saw (as I drove past) the light hitting the trees on the far side of this little lake. A quick u-turn later and a dozen shots yielded this; the colour of the trees is really nice, but the reflection of a really well-defined sky in the water of the lake really made this stand out.

3/04/13

This was a very interesting evening for me. I had been approached a couple of weeks back by a couple who I had met through concert photography to document their pregnancy with their first child. This was (as most of my favourite photo projects tend to be) simultaneously fascinating and intimidating. Could I actually do this? What if I messed it up? This was something very important to these genuinely lovely people and they were asking me to photograph it? I did some research, shared some ideas and began the process with an "at home" photoshoot this evening. One of the long term plans is a montage of the bump across the next 5-6 months an we made a really good start with that end of things. We also got a few nice couple shots and planned out a few more ideas for the coming months. The end results of the shoot were 7-8 really nice images. The one above is a simple detail shot; I'm not planning on posting anything identifiable during the project as that feels like some sort of invasion of the couple's privacy. Next shoot will hopefully be in one month's time.

4/04/13

Working in Newcastle this morning and although a bit of thaw has set in, the Mournes looked beautiful still covered in snow. This was taken from a bridge in Dundrum on the Keel Road with the wrong lens and probably the wrong camera settings and no tripod. Turned out pretty well, all things considered.

5/04/13

I'm still working away very slowly on another longer term project on road side memorials to people who have been killed in road accidents. Today was a productive day on that front, and I was able to bag three different shots, although I also missed another two because I wasn't able to get turned or stopped in time to get ut of the car with the camera. I've logged them for future reference, and also have another two logged from different locations over the past week.

6/04/13

Saturday brought the last-minute opportunity to go and take some shots of small boys playing football. I packed my photographer's rights guide in my bag just to be on the safe side. I suffer from mild paranoia about taking photos of children. It certainly was a lovely morning, great light and a rare chance to photograph sports that happen outdoors.

7/04/13

Here's a funny thing. I sometimes take pictures of flowers. Sometimes I take pictures of landscapes. Niether of which I particularly have an interest in. This shot took me an hour of fiddling about to get right and when I posted it to my Facebook page it got exactly zero likes. However, earlier in the week (see above) I posted a landscape shot of the Mournes covered in snow taken hurriedly as I drove back from Newcastle to Belfast. By hurriedly I mean I jumped out the car with the wrong lens and snapped two shots from a bridge in Dundrum. Post that to Facebook and what happens? Loads of likes and comments. There's no pleasing the punters I tell you, no pleasing them.

367-50 Week 38

And we're off on week 38, although I'll be hard pushed to come up with the shots I did last week. Off on holidays to Donegal with the kids this weekend, so I'll maybe give my old nemesis, the landscape shot, another try up round the coast.

30/07/12

I did a model shoot last night with the newbies in the camera club I've been involved with over the last few weeks. The members got some really nice shots, which I hope will encourage them to take more photos. It was tricky getting the lighting right for all the different shapes and sizes of cameras involved, but we got there in the end. Our model, Holly was a really lovely girl who was also extremely patient. That came in handy given the amount of messing about with settings that was needed. I was very taken with her eyes and took this hot when she was wearing a large hat to cover one side of her face. It's heavily cropped, but I think it looks pretty well and does her justice.

31/07/12

Another in the recurring series entitled "things I see when standing smoking at the back door." You may recall other favourites such as "blackbird on the greenhouse," "leaves," "snail on the bin" and so on. This is, I suspect, a weed, but it was rather lovely nonetheless - a single yellow flower (god but I love yellow in photos) among green leaves. Narrow depth of focus and Bob's your uncle.

1/08/12

Tonight was wet and there was nothing but very dull Olympic coverage on TV and not much else on besides. I made a rather nice salad for dinner and that made me think of the lightbox in my back bedroom. I sharpened a knife and very thinly sliced some cucumber, tomatoes and the little spring onions (or scallions here in N.I.) shown above. These cam out quite well and there was something mildly therapeutic about pushing pieces of food around a sheet of perspex. I'm quite pleased with the amount of detail on these, even when zoomed in quite close and also cropped.

2/08/12

I've made a decision to get more intimately acquainted with my Lensbaby Composer and the accessories kit that came with it. I've had this piece of kit since March and haven't really got to grips with using it, never mind the assortment of wide angle lenses, macro lens, telephoto lenses etc. I'm going to try to take a few more shots with it and am planning on taking it on holiday to Donegal at the weekend. This was taken with the Composer and a x10 macro lens attachment which seems to allow very close working and as always a nice bit of blur round the edges. The watch is my great-grandfather's half hunter pocket watch which was passed on to me by my own grandfather shortly before he passed away in late 1999. The watch still runs, although it needs a bit if a clean. One day, when I own a waistcoat, I will get a chain and wear this watch like a real dandy.

3/08/12

Another picture of the Northern Irish summer. Saw these while bringing in the washing from the line before it started chucking it down again and dashed inside to get the camera. This was taken with the Lensbaby Composer with a macro lens attached. It's one of the few shots taken with the Lensbaby that is really sharp where it needs to be and the nice fall-off in depth of field towards the corners is pretty pleasing.

4/08/12

First day in Donegal, sun shining and time for a walk on Marble Hill Strand. This is a grab shot of my son Conor and I just love it. Lensbaby Composer again but sharp on the face and lovely colours. It has rained pretty much since this.

5/08/12

Couldn't resist this - Mark's little wind up skeleton toy was sitting like this on his bed this morning as I wandered past on the way to the shower. I took loads of other shots, but this was the one that stuck in my head.

367-50 Week 12

Greetings blog readers. Another week and another seven photos. City of Belfast Photographic Society is part of NIPA (Northern Ireland Photographic Association) and NIPA run a number of competitions each year. We're coming up the last round, which is a themed round with the subject "shadows." It's hard to guess what they're looking for here, and if the "reflections" round was anything to go by, what I think is good and relevant will not be seen as either good or relevant by a NIPA judge. Apologies to anyone associated with NIPA reading this, but honestly, a little more direction or guidance would be handy. Anyway, I'm thinking shadows at the moment and bouncing some ideas around in my head this week.

30/01/12

One photo filter and a wee man from my set of photographers. Definitely got the shadows here big time although the introduction of wee men to NIPA judges has not been a great success so far. Actually it's been a dismal failure thus far and I've thrown some of my good stuff at them. Won't stop me trying 'though.

31/01/12

When opportunities fail to present themselves, one resorts to the wee men or in this case, my wee nuns. These are three particularly tough looking sisters (or sistas) backlit and shot with the Sigma 105mm macro lens. Close Encounters of the Nun Kind?

1/02/12

Getting jiggy with the shadow thing now. Put a metal colander in front of the desk lamp and artistically place......an egg! This felt a wee bit daft, but was worth it I think. It produced a strange kind of look with the lighting and the shadows, and the egg turned out to be a good choice of subject.

2/02/12

This evenings shot was a bit of a rush. It was Trish's birthday and we were going out for a surprise dinner at Cafe Vaudeville. I had about five minutes to set up white card, a flower, the desk lamp and try to get this shot. Shutter priority on 1/60, 200ISO and half a dozen shots to get one that was sharp. A wee touch of processing on the flower to bring out colour/clarity/sharpness and a little blast of black for the shadow.

3/02/12

Again, searching for some table-top shadows projects. Myself and my dark apprentice were playing around with some bits and pieces when I got the idea of creating something that looked a bit like a city skyline out of a box of screws. It's OK I suppose, although the cropping and processing weren't perfect even after a number of tries. However, shadows project keeps on rolling and I've now got quite a few "usable" shots together for the competition round. It's starting to look like I might have a problem choosing which shots I put in.

4/02/12

Ok - this is a wee bit off the track. Saturday afternoon, blue sky and there was the moon as bright as anything. I fantasise about being able to take a good shot of the moon. When I bought my first DSLR I got one of the those pretty shite 70-300mm zoom lenses and spent several nights trying to shoot the moon. All were crap. I've tried on various occasions since, guess what? Crap. Yesterday I shot with my longest lens (70-200mm nikon zoom). I locked up the mirror, bumped the ISO down and then forgot to switch off the Vibration Reduction, which I had intended to do. This was the result - there's a bit of shadow, so it counts in this week's theme.

5/02/12

OK - a wee bit of a ringer here. I've been busy with work all evening and watching Ireland get mugged by Wales in the Six Nations. I took this shot earlier in the week and didn't want to ignore it. This was a nice little set-up using a wooden artists dummy, a desk lamp and a sheet of white card as the background. The dummy's metal stand (and it's shadow) were cloned out in Lightroom and I used a little burn on the dummy to bring out the grain and also to darken the shadow down a little. I'm well chuffed with this.