367-50 Week 25

This should be an interesting week. Delivering the training on dull psychometrics this week as well as (in one's role as el presidente) MC'ing the City of Belfast Photographic Society annual exhibition. The weekend brings the Festival of Fools in Belfast City Centre and there's talk of a potential photoshoot with the Belfast Roller Derby ladies on Sunday morning.

30/04/12

This is my big son Conor in the back of my car, shot with a 10-24 zoom at it's widest. It makes for an interesting shot. It also makes my car look like a bloody limo rather than the small sporty convertible it actually is.

1/05/12

I discovered this religious comic sitting on a table in a school staff room today. It tells the story of the amazing Mr Harper who was apparently on the Titanic. It's pretty turgid stuff and comes complete with a range of incredible puzzles. However, what caught my eye was Mr Harper's declaration to his daughter. What exactly was the good news he was giving out about Jesus? I suspect it was either that Jesus wasn't on the Titanic or that if he was, he could walk home when the boat sank. I apologise to any of my readers who are religious, but I find this type of thing moderately disturbing. And vaguely amusing.

2/05/12

After all of last week's complaining, I got to deliver my training on psychometrics to a small group of SENCO's this afternoon in the Antrim Board Centre. Nice bunch of people, and not one of them fell asleep. The old joke about the Rorschach Inkblots went down well. Everyone went home armed with a big box of test gear. Good help those children.

3/05/12

This is Milly - living proof that when one door closes, another one opens. Or as my grandmother used to say, when one door closes, another slams in your face.

4/05/12

The Festival of Fools opened in Belfast with two big shows yesterday and today in St Anne's Square. Apart from being good craic, there's millions of photo opportunities to be had for the keen togger. This the lady who was conducting the band and singing for the show tonight. Shot with the big beast of a 70-200 f2.8 Tamron lens in case you're interested.

5/05/12

More Festival of Fools today. This isn't the best shot of the day but this was one of the better juggling acts at the festival - Haggis and Charlie. Lively and funny - I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety and a bit more juggling with fire but hey - you can't have everything.

6/05/12

8am Sunday morning, Belfast City centre. 4 hours of shooting the Belfast Roller Derby girls in action during the making of a promo video. This tired me out, even if I was already knackered after a poor night's sleep. It was an amazing morning and we were able to get some excellent shots. Several re-takes were needed due to my exceptional ability to stray into the shot when filming. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

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.