367-50 Week 50

IT'S WEEK 50 - ONLY TWO MORE WEEKS TO GO!
Sorry, don't know if I'm excited or glad to see the end of this. A few things coming up this week some of the them involving Roller Derby. Going to attempt the most complicated shot ever on Tuesday night if the weather stays dry.

22/10/12

It wasn't my idea, but a really helpful suggestion from another photographer (you know who you are) - why not take some shots of the rain drops sitting on spider's webs in the hedges outside my house. That killed an hour of my time this evening and was an antidote to helping children with their homework. I'm not sure what I did here, but this looks like drops of water frozen in mid air as you can't see the web strands holding them up.

23/10/12

Roller Derby photoshoot this evening, ably assisted by my son Conor. It was a Star Wars theme so we were trying to combine fire spinning and light sabres. This was a 25" exposure at f8 and 100 ISO with two remore flashguns set to fire on rear curtain flash. The flashes were set at about 1/8th power (got there by a lot of trial and error). All in all it worked out quite well; a bit of tinkering with exposure and cropping in Lightroom and then a spot of sharpening in Photoshop. Lets see how it goes down with the punters, so to speak. Big thanks to my two lovely and every patient models, McSlay and Chopper.

24/10/12

Halloween disco in school - Sarah decided to go as "Deadward" (i.e. dead Jedward - I wish). I ended up trying to do the hair for her. I'm afraid that it turned out more like Maggie Smyth in Downton Abbey than the annoying Grimes twins.

25/10/12

Another attempt at capturing some autumn colour. I had intended walking the dog in Stormont Estate and taking some pictures. That I did, but I saw this tree on the way there, just round the corner from the house. Fantastic reds and oranges and spiky leaves thrown in for free? Stormont pictures got binned.

26/10/12

I'd seen this type of shot done by a few other people (which were generally better than my attempt). However, in an idle moment this morning and in an attempt to take a break from work stuff I decided to give it a go and see how it worked out. Two shots taken in succession with a self timer lit with one speedlight bounced of a white ceiling. I know I got my hands a little bit out of alignment with my face/eyes, but I was working quickly. Imported both to Photoshop as layers and then rubbed through the "hand" layer to reveal the eyes underneath using a brush set at around 40% hardness.

27/10/12

This is the view from the top of Slieve Croob, one of the smaller Mourne Mountains. It was a cold but bright day and I humped the big camera the whole way up here and wasn't going to leave without a photo. I was able to use the little concrete trig point at the very top to set the camera on and this is taken looking towards Black Mountain and Belfast. You could see the Harland and Wolfe cranes from the top - honest.

28/10/12

Started a big round of head shots for Belfast Roller Derby this afternoon with another batch to come next Thursday evening. As always, they were a great group to work with and the effort they put in for things like this is immense. I took this shot for myself, for the blog. The head shot is every bit as good. I was working on a high-key approach to the shots, and they seem to have worked out well; or at least I'm pretty pleased with them. Big thanks to Dempsey Hammer who organised everyone (excel spreadsheet at the ready!) and to my son Conor for being my assistant yet again.

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.