367-50 Week 22

Week 22. Who would have thought it. It's the Easter holidays - dead space. I'm looking forward to seeing some prints I've ordered, with one eye on the judging for the City of Belfast Photographic Society annual exhibition. I fear that I have way too many portrait shots and not enough for the landscape and general sections and too many colour shots, not enough black and white. Anyhow.....here's this week's shots.

9/04/12

It was a very dull Easter Monday for the annual jaunt to Donaghadee. Old home town and all that. Except there's a reason why I only visit once a year. I think the notion of retiring there has gone off me. I couldn't stand it. Or perhaps Donaghadee couldn't stand me. Either way, the only way I could make the trip (and the photo's) look interesting way to resort to cheap post-processing trickery. Or HDR as it's also known.

10/04/12

Easter Tuesday and yet another dull and grey day. We took advantage of a free photoshoot at the new studio in Jessops (although studio is a bit of a grand title for a room with a light box set-up) and then headed off for a bite of lunch. Outside the cafe was the "pop up" MAC with it's rainbow coloured shutters. I hung about for a while but didn't get too many decent shots. This is maybe the best of a poor selection. One to bear in mind perhaps for a rainy day.

11/04/12

This is the engine of my car. It's still quite nice and new under the bonnet, not that I'm under there that often. Today's excuse was getting a small boy to fit a new headlight bulb - way to go Halfords, Boucher Road. I keep forgetting that for some strange Scandinavian reason, my car has five cylinders - that's right - count them. 5. God knows why.

12/04/12

Miniature daffodils shot with the Lensbaby with a 0.4 macro lens screwed on the front. A package of Lensbaby accessories arrived today via Amazon. Macro lenses, wide-angle lens, telephoto lens and a creative aperture kit. Lots of playing ahead. I'm liking the Lensbaby but suspect there's a lot more practice needed due to the hit and miss and fully manual nature of the Lensbaby.

13/04/12

Three small girls on a trampoline - who could resist that sort of photo opportunity? Given that I'd spent the whole day getting prints ready for our annula exhibition judging tomorrow morning I was fairly hacked off with photos. But, as I said, who could resist?

14/04/12

This was the picture which did best for me today at the exhibition judging. I had entered this in a competition last year to be included alongside some of Carrie Davenport's music photography at the Ulster Hall and was chuffed to have it chosen. I then submitted in in a NIPA round and had it rubbished by a very conservative judge. Anyhow, I thought I'd give it a rattle again for the exhibition since it's a shot that I have a lot of affection for. It's actually an old picture, taken in 2010 with my previous camera (Nikon D80). I reprocessed the shot using a few more tweaks to convert it to black and white, which gave it a fuller range of tones than in the original version.

15/04/12

This was supposed to be a ladybird. I was working in the front garden when I spotted the first ladybird of the year. I dashed inside for my camera but by the time I got the Lensbaby attached and screwed in the x4 and x10 macro lenses the ladybird had (quite literally) flown away home. However, a rather large bumble bee arrived and was happy to pose for a few shots. More entertainment for the neighbours who found me lying face down on the lawn apparently pointing my camera at the grass.

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).