Vintage Return

As promised Bex and I went on a photography wander today. We didn’t go very far but we found many interesting compositions. This photo I spotted about half way through the walk, we had walked out of town and into the countryside and where about to turn round to return back.

I saw this tree half way along a hedge between two fields. I haven’t taken any photos in black and white for a long time so I thought that I should take the photo in black and white with a sepia digital filter. As I was a long distance from the subject the aperture that I chose would make very little difference to the depth of field so I left the camera in Program Auto. I did preset the ISO to 100 to ensure that there was plenty of detail to the shadows.

When editing the photo I decided to crop the photo down and alter the histogram. I cropped the photo to enhance the composition: by using the rule of thirds I moved the tree into the top left of the frame. By altering the histogram I lowered the highlights and the shadows, I think this made the exposure look more vintage which was the effect I was aiming for.

I’m glad that we got out for a photography wander, because I was starting to get a bit low on photographic material. I’ve now got a good stock of photos for all of you to enjoy.

Mat

Converging Arches

I did manage to get out today (between rain showers again). So I went into our local town to pick up some photography supplies. I caught the bus in and walked the long way to the shop so I could take some photos.

About half way to the shop I walked through an indoor market; I really liked the structure that supported the roof. I thought that if I took the photo with the camera facing upwards it would cause the vertical lines to converge making an interesting composition. Also having the arch going through the centre of the frame makes the composition much more interesting, because all the contradicting lines lead your eye to different parts of the photo.

The exposure was spot on so I didn’t need to change the brightness or contrast in the editing stage. The only editing I did was to crop out the bottom of the photo, I did this because the framing didn’t quite come out as I had planned.

Just a quick congratulations to the Great Britain Olympic team for winning two gold medals today! One from the women’s rowing, and the other from the men’s cycling time trials. A very well done to you both! Hopefully these will be the first of many gold medals. Good luck Team GB!

Mat

Country Contrast

This photo was taken a while ago at TruckFest South West. I must confess I have a slight obsession with heavy goods vehicles, so TruckFest was heaven for me. I had taken the trusty Pentax ME Super with me and I managed to use up a whole reel of film while out. I’ve been quite busy recently, which is why I haven’t had a chance to get the film developed until a few days ago.

It was about half way through the day when we saw this pair of Tractor Units from country supplies specialist: Countrywide. The cab art really caught my eye, the bright and vibrant scenes that surrounded the cab were very impressive. I thought that the contrast between the classic country scenes and the very modern cab was very interesting; it shows how much farming and transport have changed and improved together over the years. With each decade more efficient and cheaper processes have been introduced: starting with horses towing everything on the farm and on the road; and culminating in today’s incredibly modern and high precision designs, with computers controlling every process.

I really think that this is more than just a photo, it contains much of our agricultural and transport history, showing the legacy that we have produced over the past 100 years. A legacy that will be left to the future, to increase the efficiency and profitability of agriculture and transport. This could be good or bad depending on your own opinions, making agriculture and transport more efficient could be good because less fossil fuels will be burnt and the world will be a greener place; but on the other hand, with more machinery and even tighter tolerances the work will become more stressful and the green country will become much more mechanised with vehicles working everywhere.

What you take away from this photo is dependent on your own opinions, but maybe take a minute to think about how much progress has been made in the past 100 hundred years; and then think: what do we do now, where does this take us? These are the questions that future generations will be asking themselves.

Mat

Stormy Horizon

I’m missing my holiday already, so I thought that I should upload a photo from it. This image is from one of the long walks that Bex and I went on the Saturday; the weather had been changing rapidly all day. The constantly changing weather presented some great photos, but also caused some problems while taking them; (as the camera isn’t water proof)!

The clouds had just started to break apart after a short spell of rain. I thought the clouds looked very dramatic, so would make an interesting photo. I tried to do something slightly different so I tried to get some of the ground in the photo as well. I really like how well the photo has worked, with the tree in the corner giving some perspective and ‘size’ to the composition.

I thought that the photo could be improved slightly through the use of Photoshop. I adjusted the histogram to crop out the shadows, losing all detail and turning them into silhouettes. I also increased the brightness of the highlights to increase the contrast and make the clouds look more violent.

I think the edited photo looks a lot better now than it did straight from the camera. I really like how the silhouette of the tree stands out against the sky. We both have plenty of material from our holiday to keep the blog running for quite a while now, but it won’t stop us going out for our photography wanders! I hope everyone who is on their summer break is having as good a time as we are!

Mat

Setting

It’s mine and Mat’s last evening on holiday together so after we ate we decided to go for a mini photography wander along the local canal. It was about 9pm so the sun was beginning to set.

We didn’t get very far down the canal; the cameras took over and we sat on a bench to take some shots of the sunset. It’s been a cloudy and somewhat miserable day- the clouds hadn’t lifted by the evening.

I love how the trees are just silhouettes; the black really makes the colours in the sky stand out. I increased the saturation in Photoshop when we got back. I know it’s not the most impressive sunset ever, but I loved the colours and wanted to share my last evening on holiday with you.

Bex

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Confetti

Mat was left in charge of the blog yesterday; I had a party to go to! As I sat down to our meal I noticed the table decorations- cups filled with different sweets and confetti over the table. I left the camera on the table while we were sat down, and I pressed the shutter just to see what happened.

This is how I’ve got some of my favourite shots (e.g. Start off Small- 2^nd April). I’m pleased with how well it worked, and I love the perspective of taking it from the tabletop.

It was quite dark so I had to use flash, which I think can sometimes ruin a shot, however I think it worked quite well here. I really like how the photo turned out. I had a great evening; hopefully you did as well.

Bex

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Coloured Lights

This photo was taken last Saturday after the Gavin and Stacey tour. We got back home and I was randomly thinking about how I love the creative light effectives that other photographers make.

I thought that I should have a go myself; this was one of the results. I turned off all the lights and borrowed Bex’s phone as it was brighter. I settled the camera onto a table and used a long exposure time of 5 seconds. When I released the shutter I moved the phone around in front of the camera lens in a ‘swinging’ shape, this created the curve effect that can be seen.

The photo didn’t come out completely perfect; so I asked Bex to edit it for me. She increased the contrast on the photo to make the colours really stand out from each other, also by increasing the contrast the colours become really bright and vibrant.

I was really impressed with how it came out; Bex is very good at editing and I really like what she has done with the photo.

I really like how the photo has come out, Bex did a very good job with the editing. I enjoyed playing with the light effects and I plan to make some more in the near future. What do you think though? What sort of light effects should I try next?

Mat

Breaking the Rules

This is another of my photos from this weekend; we took so many it may take us a while to get through uploading our favourite photos. I took this picture of a rather interesting cloud formation (or at least I thought it was!). Even though taking photos into the sun is going against one of the major rules of photography, I thought it was worth a try (although I wouldn't recommend looking straight into the sun). I used a red digital  filter with the black and white setting; this boosted the contrast so that it would make the clouds clearer against the sky and as the sun is in the middle of the photo it makes the bottom of the clouds look a lot darker and more moody than it is in reality.

I enjoy taking black and white photos; they emphasise details that the human eye wouldn't normally pick up. What do you prefer, black and white or colour photos?

Mat