New Ideas

I didn’t get a chance for a walk today so I decided to use one of the photos that I took yesterday. When I wasn’t trying out new techniques I took this close up photo of a group of teasels.

I thought to make the composition more interesting I should try something new; so I took the photo angled upwards. Also I wanted to include some of the other teasels in the frame. I decided to use the flash on this photo because I thought it would light up the inside of the teasel. I wanted the other teasel to be out of focus so I used an aperture of F8, this meant that the whole of the main teasel was in focus but the second was smoothly out of focus.

When editing the photo I decided to make the shadow areas brighter, I hadn’t programmed the flash to be powerfull enough. Also I cropped the photo as to make the teasel more dominant in the frame; I think it makes the overall composition much better as well, having the second teasel in the lower right of the frame. I didn’t change anything else because I really like the effect that I had created.

Bex and I are planning on going for a wander this weekend if the weather is nice. If not we both still have got plenty of photos that we want to show to you.

Mat

Opportunities

Bex and I managed to go out for a wander today. I had a few tricks that I wanted to try out today so this was the perfect opportunity. One of the tricks was a ‘time warp’ effect, so I tried a few times with varying results.

One of the times that I tried it was on a small flower. So for the best effect I put the flower in the centre of the frame and used an aperture of F14. I metered off the flower because it was the key part of the scene. To create the ‘time warp’ effect I put the camera onto a tripod, selected a slow shutter speed (1/10^th of a second) then while the shutter was open I zoomed the lens in. This gives a very different motion blur to normal with the photo appearing stretched towards the edges of the frame. I tried zooming the lens different amounts but I think this one has the best effect.

I didn’t change anything when I put the photo onto the computer because I really liked the effect that I had created. The exposure had been set perfectly by the camera so I didn’t need to change anything in that respect and the colours had been reproduced accurately by the camera.

I’m very pleased with the effect I had managed to produced today; I will try out different techniques in the future to see if I can make a different effect.

Mat

Finer Details

I’ve been dealing with all my work that I’ve had to catch up on after my weekend away, so I haven’t enough spare time to go out on another wander. This serves as an advantage as well as a disadvantage, as I have plenty of photos left to share from my holiday!

I took this particular image the evening we arrived; I had a free day so travelled in the morning. I arrived at around 2pm and sat by the beach with a coffee. At about half past 4 I checked into the hotel. The sun was just beginning to set, and was starting to appear under the band of cloud, bathing everything in an orange haze. This picture was taken from the balcony of my room.

I used a starburst filter in conjunction with a neutral density filter to try to reduce the brightness of the image. This meant that I didn’t lose any detail in the picture, but also added interest to the photo. I love how there are smaller starburst effects along the middle section of the cloud, as well as the main beams from the sun.

I like how once you get past the face value of the picture, you begin to notice minute details such as the smaller starburst effects, and the ripples in the ocean that have been lit up by the sun.

Bex
x

Vibrant Skies

I really wanted to take a sunset photo, so this evening I went out with my camera to hunt down the sunset. The weather was perfect for taking sunset photo because there was just the right amount of clouds.

To get the best effect I used a medium aperture (F10), by doing this the whole scene was in sharp focus. 

Also I used point metering and metered off the sky and underexposed by 1/3^rd of a stop. This combined effect puts the foreground into silhouette and makes the sky look really vibrant. I thought the most interesting composition would be if I had the foreground in the bottom of the frame with the sky being the most dominant part.

I thought the photo could do with some editing so I changed the histogram, I made the highlights brighter and increased the contrast, this made the sky even more vibrant. Also I cropped out some of the top of the frame; I did this because the sky was over dominating the photo. With this editing done the photo looks much better now.

I’m glad that I’ve finally got a good sunset photo, hopefully I’ll be able to take some more in the future.

Mat

Country View

I didn’t have a chance to go out today unfortunately. So I was looking through some photos that I had taken on one of the trips Bex and I went on. We had gone for a walk along a country lane, the scenery was amazing and the weather was amazing. Bex and I were taking photo after photo because there were so many photo opportunities.

For this photo I put the camera onto a tripod and used an aperture of F22 (the minimum on the lens I was using). This ensured the depth of field was at its maximum. Also I under exposed the on the camera, I did this to increase the contrast between the sky and the clouds. I was using ISO 100 for maximum detail; because of this the shutter speed the camera chose was ¼ of second. This didn’t matter because I was using a tripod.

When editing the photo, I decided to increase the colour temperature; I did this to make the photo look more vibrant with the greens and oranges being increased. Also I cropped the photo because I wasn’t completely happy with the composition. Cropping out some of the foreground has made the composition much more pleasing I think.

Hopefully Bex and I will get a chance for a photography wander soon. Because we’ve both found many good locations for photography which we would both love to share with you.

Mat

Tree Top

Today instead of going to the nature reserve I ventured out a little further than normal. I found a forest that I’ve been to a few times in the past. There were lots of opportunities for photos the last time I went so I thought I would pay the forest another visit.

Towards the edge of the forest there was a small group of trees. So I thought if I got the composition right the trees could look very interesting. To create the most interesting composition I framed the trees so they were lined up along the bottom. I managed to get plenty of sky into the photo to create more of a moody atmosphere; it was quite a grey day today so I was aiming for a moody effect. As the group of trees was quite far away from the camera the aperture I chose would be irrelevant, so I selected an aperture of F7.1 which gave a shutter speed of 1/25^th of a second. I was using a focal length of 20mm, so the shutter speed was fast enough.

When editing the photo the only things I changed was the saturation and the framing of the photo. I increased the saturation to make the trees look greener as in real life. And to improve the composition I cropped out the right side of the frame, this has greatly improved the composition.

This small forest is brimming with photographic opportunities; this is just one of the many that I spotted in 30 minutes. Hopefully if I get a chance i will go back again and take some more photos for you all to see.

Mat

Misty View

I didn’t have much to do today so I thought I should go out for a wander. I went back to the place I visited earlier this week because there was a few photos that I thought I could improve on.

The first time I took this photo I had chosen quite a large aperture, I wasn’t convinced on the effect that this produced. So when I went back I selected a much smaller aperture: F10. By selecting this aperture the depth of field has been made much larger but the foreground detail isn’t completely in sharp focus; this is the effect that I was aiming for the first time I went out.

I didn’t need to do much editing to the photo, but there was a few details I wanted to change. I changed the brightness because the exposure was a bit too dull for the effect I wanted. Also I increased the saturation because I felt the trees and bushes could do with being a little greener.

I’m glad I went back today to redo this photo because I’m very pleased with the effect I had created. I will probably go back in the near future because there are many more photographic opportunities that are waiting to be taken.

Mat