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 16

Into week number 16. Nearly forgot to take at least one shot this week and ended up coming up with something in something of a hurry - can you guess which one it is?

27/02/12

So, I put my camera on the floor near my feet, pulled it put to a nice wide angle (24mm) and used a cable release to takes pictures of my socks. This should confirm two things for everyone; I have big feet and I have terrible taste in socks.

28/02/12

I had read about camera tossing a while back and tonight I decided to give it a try. After some experimentation, I found that setting the camera on shutter priority and using a shutter speed of 0.5" gave me some nice shapes. The camera was set on a 10" self timer and the trick seemed to be getting the camera in the air and spinning just as the shutter opened. I would like to point out that I wasn't using my big camera and the really expensive lens. Instead I was throwing my daughter's second-hand D-60 in the air. Over a tiled floor. With no safety.

29/02/12

Shadows round at the City of Belfast Photographic Society. This is the one that I didn't produce during my week of table-top shots with my desk lamp. Taken in the holiday chalets at Cloughglass in Donegal, this was a grab shot of my friend Damien sitting inside the house, with the sun sinking and his shadow projected onto the white wall of the fireplace. Damien's face is sharp, as is the shadow. His nose is really that shape.

1/03/12

Welcome to March! Busy day today and I ended up at Aikido training without having taken my photo for the day. I took my camera into the dojo (it's actually a scout hall) in the hope that an opportunity might present itself. At the end of the class, I grabbed Shihan Millar for a quick portrait. I love taking Davy's picture as his face has fantastic character. It's also worth noting that 14 years ago when I started out on my own Aiki journey, Davy was the man who had patience with my inability to learn anything. Many a Saturday morning was spent with Davy trying to teach me how to stand, never mind move or do a technique. 74 years young and still has it on the Aikido mats.

2/03/12

This would be the empties after Friday night's debauchery. Two bottles of Whiskey (the Crested Ten was superb) and a bottle of wine each. I have a serious blank in my memory between the hours of midnight and 3am.

3/03/12

I think I made Colin look almost angelic this shot. After our walk and couple of pints in an empty bar in Glen we repaired to The Rusty pub in Teelin. The sun was going down and was shining through the windows of the bar. The light was lovely.

4/03/12

Sunday morning - up early to fall on my arse at Muckross and return with no photo's worth talking about. I took this out the back of Damien's house, looking towards Slieve League. The right-of-way along the side of the house has recently been cleared and the removal of the old trees and bushes has improved the view immensely. 

367-50 Week 15

The week that contains the 100th picture in this project - that's some sort of landmark. I have chosen to celebrate by having a glass of Jameson. What happens after that, the gods will decide. Anyhow, we're a contradictory and self-referential juggernaut on an express elevator to hell

20/02/12

This is my desk in my office in the gloriously titled Chalet beside County Hall, Ballymena. It's really just a big portacabin. Way too hot in the summer and an icebox in the winter. As you will note, I am not the tidiest or most organised person when it comes to work. I have added a few of my pictures to the wall above the desk but sadly you can't see my signed Robbie Fowler Liverpool shirt which hangs on the wall at the door.

21/02/12

Shrove Tuesday/Fat Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday - take your pick. I love making pancakes and the recipe is simple. 2 eggs, 200g plain flour and 400ml milk. Whisk until there are no lumps. Heat a knob of butter in a hot pan (about 75% on a normal gas ring) and then pour in enough pancake batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Swirl it about to get an nice even coating of batter on the bottom of the pan. Let it cook for 3-4 minutes then gently ease it away from the pan by shaking or using a spatula. Flip and cook for another 3 mins. Favourite topping is a little sprinkle of sugar and a dash of lemon juice. It's really a crepe.

22/02/12

There's the 100th shot. Practical night at City of Belfast Photographic Society with two really nice models Victoria and Alana. In hindsight, I'd probably have wanted something intensely personal and meaningful for my 100th shot, but hey - here's a pretty girl instead.

23/02/12

Update - managed to get the scales working this morning. Am now weighing in at 14 stone 10 lbs - three more pounds to lose to reach my target weight.

24/02/12

OK - didn't take this tonight but it won third place in the NIPA interclub competition tonight - a starred print for me! Only my second starred print in two years of competitions with NIPA, and I have to admit it was a picture I really loved. You won't see it on the screen resolution, but there's actually a really amazing treatment going on in this shot which you can only see in the big print. My shot of Billy Bragg got an honourable mention and my PDI's did feck all - as usual for my PDI's.

25/02/12

Saturday mornings means clean the dogs' run out - I love the smell of Jeyes fluid in the morning. Meanwhile, the dogs get a hour of running about the garden. The favourite game is "I've got the squeaky ball - chase me." Lasts for hours. That's the small but fast Muffin in front, with the larger and slower (in every sense) Harry bringing up the rear. Jess doesn't join in with this kind of thing - it's below her.

26/02/12

And finally, I loved this shot which I had worked on for the upcoming NIPA round on the subject of shadows. Then I made the mistake of showing it to my children after dinner this evening who soundly rubbished it in terms of not having too much fork and not enough shadow. Back to the drawing board I suspect. Should you be interested in artsy pictures of cutlery, can I recommend the following website:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/babymantis/beautiful-pictures-of-forks-1opu

Thanks as always for stopping by - If you get this far, why not leave me a comment (good, bad or indifferent) - then at least I know that someone is reading this nonsense. See y'all next week, when there's a weekend in Donegal with the gentlemen psychologists, the first training session for marathon team Barbour and the judging of the Shadows round in the Club.

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.

The Ring Shot

Damn but I'm spending too much time on macro photography at the moment. Saw this little shot done in an e-book and decided to give it a go. So easy and a lovely effect:

To do this you need a desk lamp (set behind and above the book and ring), a hard-back book (paper backs don't seem to sit just as nicely) and your camera on a tripod. As always the Sigma 105mm macro lens was used and set on aperture priority with an f-stop around 5.6 for quite shallow depth of field. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/100 at ISO 200. The narrow depth of field worked well for keeping the text blurred front and back and focusing the eye on the ring and the heart-shaped shadow. No image manipulation used - colours adjusted in Lightroom, cropped and a little dark vignette in the corners.