2013 365-20

Ah, week 20 lands like a big wet thing in my lap. Happily though, there's plenty to take photos of this week, including roller derby. Hooray!

13/05/13

Nice to see Lilly Zom Bee back on the track and even nicer to catch such an unexpectedly nice shot of her. I was in completely the wrong place, facing down the track and straight into my own speedlight - that's the big flare in the top right corner. The rim lighting works and the other two speedlights lit Lilly pretty well.

14/05/13

These hay bales were parked in a field near Scrabo Tower in Newtownards (the tower is directly behind them. I tried out a very mild HDR preset in Lightroom to see what it would do and this is the result.

15/05/13

Abstract, but I was drawn to the patterns made by the vertical blinds on the window sill this afternoon as the sun started to set at the front of the house. I'm not sure what else I can say about this, other than I really liked the regularity of the pattern and the mix of lines/semi-circles.

16/05/13

It must be my week for abstract stuff. I called up to Roller Derby training this evening and tried out a few slower speed, rear flash sync shots. None of which worked the way I wanted, including this one. I suppose it would be classed as the best of a very mediocre bunch. I do kinda like it.

17/05/13

So, today was officially the one day in Belfast when the sun shone. I spent the day working in the garden and felt strangely compelled to try a flying shot at the front of the house. The problem is, that this looks wrong and I'm not sure why. I think the shadows are all wrong and my outline just looks too sharp.

18/05/13

Good weather meant the chance to try out some portrait techniques with Sarah, my ever willing model. I took quite a few using a mix of ambient sunlight and a very low powered speedlight. Started processing these today and was quite pleased with how they turned out. I had also worked out a very simple user preset in lightroom to give a nice boost to raw files at the time of import and make them less flat. This was pretty much the way the shot was imported into Lightroom with only a very slight crop applied.

19/05/13

I went to town a wee bit more on this shot, trying to produce a softer, fader look while keeping detail in Sarah's freckles and keeping the blue of her eyes. Very pleased with the final look of this one.

367-50 Week 45

No mucking about here. As Marvin Gaye said, lets get it on.

17/09/12

Monday's are not good. I'm not going to go all Boomtown Rats on you here but I really don't like them. At all. Work, counselling appointment and then having to do some shopping. I was tired and worn out by the time I got to Tesco and was carelessly throwing stuff into a trolley. As a vegetarian of some years, can you spot my mistake here? Bollocks.

18/09/12

Playing about again with multiple images. No photoshop involved here at all. Several photos taken, uploaded and set as my desktop picture and then a text window placed on my hand. Straight out of the camera. As you'll guess, I had nothing photographic planned at all and ended up pulling something quick and pretty unoriginal out of my arse.

19/09/12

Finally getting a decent harvest of tomatoes from the greenhouse in September. Really should get them started a bit earlier next year! These little chaps are delicious - sweet and tasty. Very few are making in into a salad as I've been eating them like sweets. Hopefully get a few more weeks worth of fruit and a few more peppers as well. Had my first real red pepper this week.

20/09/12

Work stuff cancelled on me, leaving me looking at a pile of paperwork. As usual in such a situation, I engaged in quite a bit of task avoidance behaviour such as learning a couple of new tricks with the diablo and the lead guitar solo from Werewolves of London. This was third on the list - play with shaped aperture discs in my Lensbaby Composer. I did hearts, starts, swirls, birds etc. Liked this one best. A string of fairy lights was used to make the bokeh behind the cup, pinned to a black sheet.

21/09/12

Culture Night and decided to skip the big do in Belfast and visit the inaugural event in Holywood instead. This may have been a mistake. Although it has to be said I was really impressed with this bunch of kids who put on a free running demo outside the town library. Energetic and risky - note the guy at the back with his arm in plaster who threw a few somersaults later. These guys were from Rathgael Gym I discovered later.

22/09/12

Cycling on the Comber Greenway this afternoon with my daughter Sarah. She had brought her bike round to me a few weeks ago because it wasn't working. By that I mean that nothing on the bike was working. I stripped and repaired the brakes and then replaced the broken gear shifters and cables to get brakes and gears working again. I added bar ends to the handlebars, a waterbottle and holder and a Hello Kitty bell. Bike was now working again, all for the princely sum of around £30 and several hours work. Not bad for someone as handless and mechanically useless as myself. Today was the first real cycle we got to go on - not bad at all. Covered around 10 miles, although Sarah appears to have only two speeds when cycling - full-out sprint and stopped.

23/09/12

Sarah and I took off this morning on a trip down to Nendrum as a result of a conversation we had yesterday about Vikings. Nendrum itself was a disappointment, but the trip was enjoyable enough with Sarah coining the the term "a slim road" for the roads we were driving down. Stopped to take a few landscape-type shots and this is one. Liked the hay bales - they remind me of Autumn/harvest time.