Crawling Ivy

This photo was taken just after the photo I previously uploaded. After taking the photo of the ivy from the side, I noticed that there was ivy growing up the next tree as well. I liked the contrast that the bright green ivy made against the bark of the tree. To make the most of the composition I tried to keep the depth of field as small as possible.

To keep the depth of field small I used an aperture of F6.3 as this gave me the depth of field I required. The camera paired this with a shutter speed of 1/125^th of a second and an ISO of 1600. I also had to alter the colour tone to compensate for the bright green from the leaves of the ivy. I didn’t use the flash as I was close to the leaves and I didn’t want them to white out and become clipped.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down and removed one of the leaves as I thought it was a distraction and made the photo look more confusing. I also decreased the colour tone a bit more as I thought there wasn’t enough red in the photo. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the rest of the photo had come out. The exposure was exactly how I wanted it to be so I decided not to change it.

I’m quite pleased with both of the photos, but I think this one is my favourite out of the two. Hopefully I will get a chance to upload some more photos from our wander in town.

Mat

Tree Growth

I took this photo on the most recent wander that Bex and I went on in our local town. We were walking down a long path that was surrounded by trees on both sides. On one of the trees there had some ivy growing up the side. I liked the composition it created against the background.

To enhance the composition I used the widest aperture that I could, which was F5.6, the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/80^th of a second and with an ISO of ISO 3200. I decided against using my flashgun as there was enough light making its way through the trees. I had to compensate against the amount of green by lowering the colour tone and bringing more red into the photo. I composed the photo so the tree took up the left half of the frame with the ivy in the centre of the photo.

To edit the photo I further decreased the colour tone to balance the colours. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the rest of the photo looked. The composition was how I wanted it to be and the exposure was spot on.

Both Bex and I have been very busy recently, but we will be going out and taking photos as often as we can.

Mat

Importance

Today’s image will not please those who visit our blog for artistic merits or photographic tips, but it is a place that I hold dear. This is a photo of the local nature reserve- the site of at least 90% of the images on this blog. In a way, I am uploading this to prove a point.

I am incredibly lucky to live in such close proximity to this, but you don’t have to live somewhere busy, interesting or unusual to undertake photography. I live in a small town on the outskirts of a city. Apart from this nature reserve, there is a lake and a small shopping centre of no more than 15 shops. The most important skill in photography is being able to look around you and see the potential for different photographs; you don’t have to go to somewhere new every time as nothing stands still.

I was recently given a column in our local newspaper, in which I talk about a photo and it’s background; much like on this blog. Through this, I met a young woman who loves photography but didn’t know how to take it further as we have such a small town. The only advice you can give someone is to make the most of it; seize every opportunity, appear at all the events you can possibly manage, and never go anywhere without your camera!!

I could continue to tell you how I have manipulated this image, but the technical and artistic decisions do not belong it today’s post, and I apologise to those who may be disappointed. Hopefully, it will encourage more people to keep at it.

Bex

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Contradiction

Yesterday, I said that I don’t like having too many distractions from the subject of the photograph. However, that’s not completely true- it depends on the context. In this case, I decided not to crop the background flowers or to use flash to remove the background leaves. I believe I was right to do this as it adds more interest, and sets the scene of the entire photo. I like that there are 3 flowers across the frame as it provides an element of continuity and repetitiveness.

I hadn’t cleaned my lens so there were particles of dust that created a lens flare effect; I really like this, so didn’t use a lens hood or edit this out. I have edited this photo slightly, but only because I like high contrast images; more than what camera is capable of producing. I increased the brightness of the image as it was slightly under exposed. I also increased the contrast. I then increased the saturation to make the image more vibrant, and the hue to make the flowers more purple. Finally, I sharpened the image to show finer details in the image.

I’m pleased with the final image; it’s generally a good idea to follow rules, but if you do this all the time it can lead to a lack of variety in your images.

Bex

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Cut out

This is another photo from my “mediocre meander” a few days ago. Unlike most of the other photos, this one, although a lucky shot, was quite successful. I liked the pattern of the fungus on the branch, so tried to capture this. I underexposed the image and used flash, in order to only show a finite section of the plant. I may have planned the outcome but I don’t have live view, so this was the part that was potluck.

I was lucky enough to achieve the effect I wanted within one shot. I was happy with the composition of the photo, but thought that the background was too distracting in the original image. To reduce this, I edited the image using Photoshop. I increased the contrast and reduced the brightness, which removed some of the background details.

I removed some of the more distracting leftovers from this process using the healing tool. I chose to leave some background detail in because I didn’t want the image to be too precise; to me, Photoshop is a tool in which you can edit images so they stay natural, or edit them to make them stand out. When editing images to “enhance reality”, I feel that removing too many details makes it look fake. Finally, I increased the saturation to make the pinks and greens more vibrant, then sharpened the image,

I love under exposing with flash to cut out the background; it’s such a simple way to create a dramatic technique that focuses attention on the foreground. I discovered this by accident, but it has become one of the main techniques that I employ; a great reason why experimentation in photography is so vital!

Bex

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Guessing

The courtyard of my college is often used as storage for anything old, broken or no longer in use. As such, this is often the best place to find photographs. Today, I found… well, I’m not really sure!

While eating lunch in the courtyard, I noticed a sizeable box with wheels in the middle, and cogs either end. I’m still not sure of its purpose, but I can only presume that it is a discarded piece of art, as it doesn’t seem to resemble anything.

I underexposed this image as the light was strong and I wanted to create dramatic shadows. This picture has been significantly edited in Photoshop. I darkened the highlights and lightened the shadows to create a subtle solarising effect. I then increased the contrast and added noise to make the image seem more aged. Finally, I sharpened the image. I find abstract photos interesting, as it doesn’t matter how many questions you manage to answer, there are always more to be asked.

Bex
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Missing Inspiration

The problem with trying to take photos when you are lacking inspiration is that you end up forcing it, meaning you are much less likely of getting a “wow” photo, and most will be mediocre at best. I was having a day of no inspiration today, but desperately needed new photos.

I took about 80 photos, but most were duplicates and very few useable. When looking through them, I found a photo of this plant; it was quite over exposed, which I tried to repair in Photoshop.

I used the exposure tool to darken the highlights. I then reduced the brightness of the overall image, then increased the contrast. I tried to increase the saturation, but it didn’t look right. I changed the hue, trying to make it more natural, but gave up and started to mess around, making the image look strange. I increased the hue almost completely, but decided that it made the image look a lot more interesting!!!

Editing the photo like this reminded me of the effect given by a photogram (when you place objects on photographic paper and expose to get the outline, and sometimes the texture, of the object). I like the small amount of foreground that can be seen at the top. Photoshop is an amazing tool; perhaps designed to enhance photos, but it has the potential to make an ordinary photo interesting.

Bex

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Branching Pathways

I got out for another photography wander today with Bex. We went into our local town again, and went for a walk around our usual places. We were walking along a path on the way to a cafe that we like when I spotted a few small branches that had fallen onto the path. I thought they made an interesting composition.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F5.6, as this isolated the closet branch from the rest of the scene. I left the camera to select both the shutter speed and the ISO, for this exposure the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/40^th of a second and an ISO of ISO 6400 to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo, the only thing I did was to increase the contrast, I was happy with the rest of the photo so I decided to leave it the way it came out of the camera. The composition was as I wanted it to be, and the colours had been replicated accurately so didn’t require any editing. Also the exposure didn’t require any changes except for the increase in contrast.

I’m really glad that both Bex and I had a chance to go out with our cameras today. We haven’t been out with our cameras together for quite a while and I was in need of taking some new photos. So I will have a few new photos to upload to the blog over the next few days.

Mat

Delicate

I love this time of year, because the yellow flower of the dandelion has gone, and the seeds are left behind. Their seeds are very good for many things- wishes, telling the time, and of course, photography!

This is another photo I took on my photography wander a few days ago. I’m amazed that I managed to take this photo; it’s incredibly hard to hold a D-SLR with one hand!!! However, I’m pleased with the result, especially how sharp it is!! This is one of those amazing photos that you feel wasn’t successful, but looks great on a laptop screen!

I haven’t edited this image, as I was really pleased (but surprised) at the result. I also tried to blow the seeds away, but I’m not convinced with these images. I shall edit them and see.

Bex

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Triumph

Since I took up photography as a hobby, I have seen many close up shots of insects, and have wanted to achieve this myself. I have been lucky with a few shots, such as a dragonfly. However, my biggest challenge was trying to capture a butterfly, as I almost never see them.

I took my camera with me a few days ago, and went for a mini photography wander on my way home that evening. The nature reserve was incredibly quiet, which surprised me, as the weather was glorious! I spotted a butterfly after I had been in the nature reserve for only a few minutes, which annoyed me, as I didn’t have my telephoto lens with me. The butterfly settled on one leaf, so I carefully climbed into the bush, as I was determined not to miss the opportunity! I managed to get incredibly close, and took at least 10, I was determined that I would not be disappointed when I got home!

To enhance the image, I darkened the highlights where I had slightly over exposed. I then increased the contrast, and decreased the brightness slightly. Finally, I cropped the image, to make the butterfly more central. I also sharpened the image, to make the individual hairs and the eye of the butterfly more prominent.

I called this photo triumph, as I feel that two years of patience and climbing through nettles has paid off! I’m incredibly pleased with this image; I finally achieved what I wanted, and I’m over the moon with the result!

Bex

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Steam Traction

Following on from my most recent post I thought I would upload another photo based on railways. I wanted to use a photo of a railway but with a bit of twist. So I thought I would look back through my computer to one of the many holidays that I’ve been to in Wales. On this particular holiday we paid a visit to one of the preserved railways, I wanted to give this photo a bit of a twist by making it look more vintage, a bit like an old style postcard.

The engine is a manor class loco as used by the Great Western Railway (GWR), just in case any wants to know! I used an aperture of F16 to ensure that as much of the photo is in focus, the camera then selected a shutter speed of a/125^th of a second and ISO 100 to complete the exposure. I composed the photo so that the engine was in the right third of the photo with the rest of the train extending through the photo to the left hand third.

To edit the photo I increased both the saturation and the colour temperature, this gives the photo an older appearance and makes it looks like an old fashioned post card. I like this effect; the photo looks exactly as I wanted it to when I came up with the idea. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with everything else.

I’m very pleased with the effect I created with this photo, I like the character that old photos and old postcards have; and that was what I was trying to replicate with this photo.

Mat

Off To Work

Sorry I haven’t done a blog post recently, things have been going crazy, but are slightly better now and I finally managed to get out for a short photography wander. The weather wasn’t amazing today so I decided to pay a quick visit to our local railway station.

It was quite early in the morning so the station was full of commuters on their way to work. I thought the busy atmosphere would make an interesting composition. I was waiting for one of the commuter trains to leave when I saw the guard making his way down the platform, I thought it would make an interesting composition if I could isolate them as they talked to each other.

To isolate them I used an aperture of F8 to ensure that both of them were in focus but to still make sure that the background was still out of focus. I had to use quite a high ISO to ensure that the shutter speed would be fast enough, as the camera was in aperture priority the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down to focus the attention onto the driver and the guard. I also increased the contrast while lowering the highlights to reduce the effect of the highlights being blown in the sky. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the rest of the photo.

I’m glad I had a chance to go out for a photography wander today, even though the weather wasn’t great I still had a good time and took a few good photos at the station. Hopefully I will have another chance sometime soon to take some more photos.

Mat

Sweeping

I find that some types of photography are easier than others; for example, I feel that macro shots are my strong point- however, when it comes to landscape photography, my skills leave a lot to be desired. I have seen images in magazines of sculpted fields, with ridges running down one side and trees that seemed to have been placed as props for that specific photograph. Until now, I very foolishly assumed that these images had been the victim of a very heavy-handed approach to Photoshop, and that in fact, you would never find these sweeping landscapes with rolling clouds and perfectly placed shrubs- I was wrong.

I visited a photography exhibition on the second floor of a university, situated opposite a country park. The intention of the visit was to inspire my own work, but the visit ended with me at the window with my trusty Olympus in hand! While in one of the rooms, I noticed ridges in the ground that I had never seen from the road, with these idyllically placed trees. It is rare that I have such a chance, so made the most of it and took the photo from a range of angles. While doing so, 3 deer appeared almost from thin air. I only had my wide-angle lens with me, but this appeared to be a blessing in disguise as it made me think more carefully about composition.

I achieved the effect that I was looking for, but it was a gloomy day, and the image felt washed out. I darkened the shadows to make the tones of the clouds more prominent, then increased the contrast and decreased the brightness of the whole image. I decided that I preferred almost completely de-saturating the image, as it gave the effect of an old photo. To play on this idea further, I over-sharpened the picture, and added noise. I’m pleased to have finally taken a decent landscape shot! Practice really does make perfect.

Bex

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A Hands-on Approach

Throughout the second day of the festival, the local zoo brought all manner of creepy and crawly to show the crowds.

I was talking to one of the organisers of the zoo, and she showed me a few different creatures- needless to say I avoided the spiders!! One of the things she showed me was this mantis. She was very obliging, and even took it out of the box for me to take a photo. The insect itself was a stunning yellow colour, a similar shade to that of a pineapple. However, this didn’t come across well in the photograph, as the lighting was wrong and the camera struggled.

When editing, I was trying to find an amount of saturation that complimented both the skin tone, and the colour of the mantis. I tried reducing the saturation, but decided I liked the photo almost completely de-saturated. I say almost, because I like to have some colour left, which gives the grey tones a tint. Having done this, I increased the contrast and decreased the brightness to remove any remaining details in the background (having used flash). I have also sharpened the image, more as a habit.

This is one of the images I am most pleased with from festival weekend, as it was a nice break from a more journalistic style of photography, as well as a nice break from the sun!!

Bex

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High Flyer

This is a photo from the main day of the festival. Bradley Stoke Radio was given the role of overseeing the main arena, which saw a Taekwondo display, a tag rugby match, and the fore-mentioned falconry display.

As part of the finale of the Taekwondo display, the instructor jumped of four students, and split a piece of wood on the other side. I used my wide-angle lens and continuous drive mode, as I didn’t want to miss my shot. I managed to get a few, but this image was my favourite.

I cropped the photo, as I had used a wide angle, and the background distracted attention from the focus of the photo. I also increased the contrast and sharpened the image.

The community festival is one of the biggest events on the town calendar, and is a great way to see local groups.

Bex

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Champions

As I previously said, last weekend saw the town’s annual festival. On the Sunday, a “bed race” took place on a small circuit around part of the town. This event was one of the hardest times to be a photographer, as I spent 20 minutes sprinting behind each of the “beds”. I use air quotes, as the rules were that you had to make you own bed to enter. I don’t mean putting on pillowcases, but wood nails!!

The beds ranged from a flat board with wheels, wooden longs tied together, and this… it looks suspiciously like a laundry cart. A team from the local Hilton hotel branch competed, and managed to win, pushing the “bed” around the course in an impressive 13 minutes and hardly broke a sweat. I ran the course with them, so can definitely vouch for it being no mean feat!!!

Along the course, there were 5 stations, which held different tasks, such as apple bobbing and cracker eating. This team had just gone past the apple bobbing station, which explains the apple hanging out of one of the team members’ mouth.

I chose to use this photo, as I liked that I managed to get an “action shot”. It was tiring, but brilliant fun, and I can’t wait till next year!!!

Bex

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Burst Of Colour

I took this photo on one of the trips Bex and I went on to our local town. I was trying to capture a photo of a group of daffodils but they were in direct sunlight which made setting the exposure very difficult. I didn’t get the effect that I wanted so I moved on to a different subject. When looking back through, I came across this photo which didn’t look as bad as I thought when I took it.

I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected to give the best trade off between depth of field and a fast shutter speed. I locked the ISO at ISO 100 for maximum image quality. I didn’t have my flash gun on me during this trip as I couldn’t balance the harsh sunlight. The camera selected a shutter speed of 1/125^th of a second to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights. After I did this I started playing with the colour temperature settings, I used the custom setting and selected the yellow leaves which turned them white and turned the background a rather pleasant blue colour! I stopped changing settings after this as I didn’t want to spoil the effect that I had (accidently) made. I really like the modified colours and I think it makes the photo look much better than before.

Hopefully things will get back to normal soon and Bex and I will get a chance to go for a photography wander very soon.

Mat

Light In The Mist

I took this on my recent photography wander, it was late at night and there were a lot of lights on. It had just started to rain and the powerfull lights were lighting up the misty rain. I really like the effect that this created.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected. This ensured that the whole light was in sharp focus but the background was blurred out of focus. I didn’t use the flash because it would cause the housing of the light to white out and would ruin the composition. I had left the camera with the ISO in auto so the camera selected an ISO 12800. The camera selected a shutter speed of 1/60^th of a second to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo the first thing I did was to use the noise reduction tool to attempt to reduce the noise created by using the high ISO. I then cropped the photo down to focus the attention onto the light itself, and to remove some distractions in the foreground. I didn’t edit the colours as I was happy with how they had been reproduced by the camera.

I like this photo now that I’ve done some editing to it. The composition looks much better after cropping the noise reduction has made the photo more pleasing to the eye. I very much look forward to the next photography wander that Bex and I go on.

Mat

Onlooking

I have been looking at a lot of black and white photographers recently, which has inspired a lot of my work. You may have noticed that a few of my images recently have had hints of grey scale, if not fully black and white such as today’s upload. First of all, let me promise that this will be my final falconry image for the next few days!

After the final demonstration had finished, the owner of the birds came over to talk to everyone on the BSR stand, and bought this gorgeous creature with him, as it was the last bird used in the display. It was incredibly well behaved, and stayed perched on the man’s arm for the entirety of the conversation, keeping his owner in sight. As the bird seemed settled, I decided to seize my chance, and take a close up photo. I used my kit lens, as I was too close to use a telephoto. I tried to take the photo from below the bird, in order to convey power.

The top half of the background remains unchanged apart from being turned black and white, but the bottom half of the background was a funfair, which I removed using a combination of the magic wand selection tool, cut, smudge and the pencil to remove finer remains of the background. It took me quite a long time, but it was worth it. It was made much easier by the fact that the sky went from blue to white at the bottom. Having removed the background, I turned the image black and white, then increased the contrast and brightness to make the bird more striking. I’m incredibly pleased with the final image; I think greyscale suited the subject well, and made it more prominent against the background.

Bex

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An Obvious Name for a Hawk

This is Dave. There’s not really much more you can add to that sentence because it’s quite an odd name for a hawk, but according to the owner of the falconry stand “everyone needs a mate named Dave”.

When not taking part in displays, the birds were placed on platforms, behind a small fence, next to the arena. One of the calmest birds was Dave, and was easy to photograph, as the trainer managed to get him to look at me. I was using a telephoto lens, as I wanted the wider aperture for a more shallow depth of field. I tried to under expose, as the camera metered off of the black feathers and over exposed the image. I placed the bird to one side of the frame, as I didn’t want background on each side. By doing this it places the beak in the centre, making the image more striking.

Once again, I selected the background in Photoshop using the magnetic lasso. This time, I reduced the brightness, contrast and saturation to make the image seem more washed out. I then selected the hawk separately, and reduced the highlights, increased the contrast and sharpened the selection, in order to make the separation between each of the feathers more prominent.

I have perhaps one more falconry image I would like to upload, then I’ll move onto another topic!!

Bex

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Peanut

After such a long wait, festival fever has come and gone, and we are back to mundane Monday. Each year, our town has a 3-day festival on the playing fields. The first day consists of a child’s picnic and treasure hunt, the second sees the field lined with stalls and entertainment, the final day featuring a range of sporting events, such as cricket and football.

I feel that before writing about my photo, I should first introduce the subject. This is Peanut, a 2-year-old eagle owl, no taller than 7 inches. A complete poser, and possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever photographed! I met peanut while covering a falconry display in the main arena. I was taking photos from inside the arena, so I probably should have foreseen meeting someone new!! While taking part in the display, Peanut decided it was time for a well-earned rest, and landed no more than 2 feet away from me! I used my telephoto lens as this was what I already had on the camera, but it worked well as I could get closer, and blur the background more.

Later, having packed up and made the mistake of sitting down, I decided to review my photos. I had forgotten what a lucky shot I had gotten, so this image bought a smile to my face. I used the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to select Peanut, then inverted the selection in order to work with the background. I tried reducing the brightness, but it made the image look fake, as the white balance was different. Instead, I decided to de-saturate the background, which I thought worked well. I then increased the contrast and darkened the highlights of the entire image. Finally, I increased the hue and saturation to make Peanut stand out more against the grey background.

I managed to capture this shot more by luck than skill, but I am really pleased with both the composition and the final image. I love festival weekend; I can’t believe it’s over already! Expect some more falconry photos over the coming days.

Bex

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Burning Lights

I managed to get out on a photography wander tonight, I was in our local town for the afternoon. It started to get late into the evening and the sun and hidden behind the horizon for the night. One of my aims was to capture some of the street lamps after day; as I thought the light would make an interesting composition.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F5.6 selected, as this gives the best combination of narrow depth of field and still allows a moderate shutter speed to be used. I didn’t use the flash as it would spoil the lighting effect that I was aiming for.

 To edit the photo I used the noise reduction tool to try and reduce some of the noise created by the high ISO. I also increased the contrast to give the photo a bit more punch. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy how the colours had been replicated and I like how I had composed the photo.

Hopefully I will get a chance for some more photography at some point soon. As I’m a bit low on photos, and I would like to make the most of the good weather.

Mat

Tropical

First of all, I should apologise for the shocking lack of grammar displayed in yesterday’s post. It’s been a very long week full of exams, and the blog has suffered (as evidenced by my lack of posts).

This is another photo taken at the lake. The lake is split into several sections, split by small roads. This section of the lake was lined with trees, down each side. I positioned myself at the end of one row, and decided to hold the camera on an angle, in order to create a more prominent “tunnel” effect with the branches. I achieved the effect that I wanted to, but the original photo looked dull and under-saturated. To fix this, I edited the image in Photoshop.

Initially, I took the contrast to what I thought looked acceptable and adjusted the brightness to match. However, I decreased the brightness slightly more than intended, but decided I liked the effect of dark shadows, so increased the contrast to make this more prominent. I then increased the saturation. I prefer to over-saturate, then work backwards. Having done this, decided that I like the bright blues of the sky and yellow tones of the trees. I also adjusted the hue, as I wanted to give more of an impact.

I decided to name my image “Tropical”, as it reminds me of the kind of thing that you might find on the side of a juice bottle, and the bright colours against the shadows make the image striking. Considering that the image was uninteresting before, I’m incredibly pleased. I shall apologise for any grammatical errors now, but hopefully I’m more literate this evening!

Bex

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