Mountain View

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a chance to go out for a wander. So again I looked into my computer’s memory for some photographic inspiration. So I looked through some of my holiday photos from a few years ago.

This was one from a trip to North Wales; I had gone for a walk along a river near mount Snowdon. I didn’t have access to an SLR back then so I used my compact camera. I put the camera into landscape mode which boosts the greens but also selects a narrower aperture to normal.

As this was taken on a compact camera, so I had to make a few adjustments. The main was to change the exposure: I increased both the contrast and the overall brightness. This corrected the camera to make the photo much more balanced. I also increased the colour temperature; this brings some warmth into the photo and makes it look much more vibrant.

I really like some of my old holiday photos; some of them are actually quite good. But most of them have required some sort of editing in one way or another. Bex and I have planned to go out for a short wander tomorrow if we both get some spare time. So hopefully we shall have some photos to share for you.

Mat

Roaring Flames

As I've done quite a few fireworks photos recently, I thought I would carry on the theme but with a bit of a twist. I took this photo during the same evening as the fireworks; they had a bonfire before they set started setting the fireworks off.

So for this photo I wanted the whole frame to be in focus so I used an aperture of F16, but this meant I needed to use a high ISO (ISO 1600). This gave me a shutter speed of 1/125^th of a second which was fast enough to capture the roaring flames of the fire. Also as the shutter speed was fast enough I didn’t need to use a tripod or a flash-gun.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down a bit, and I also increased the colour temperature. I increased the colour temperature because I wanted the photo to be very vibrant and the fire to look warm and appealing. I cropped the photo down because there was quite a lot of empty space in front of the fire which was causing a distraction.

I’ve still got a lot of photos from the firework display, there are so many that I like; way too many to be uploaded. So if I upload any more I’ll upload the very best ones for you all.

Mat

The Young At Rest

I was looking through the firework photos and I found a few more that I liked, but I thought I would break the pattern today so I don't completely bore you with fireworks. So as I haven’t got much material at the moment, I thought I should look through my computer and see what inspiration I can find.

While I was looking through some previous holidays from a long time ago, when I stumbled across this one. This was taken before I got really serious with photography so the quality wasn’t perfect. But I had managed to get the composition right. I waited until the lamb was looking next to the camera, as I thought this would create the best effect.

To edit the photo I corrected the white balance by adjusting the colour temperature, and I also decreased the highlight brightness. By correcting the white balance the sheep are now properly white and by adjusting the exposure the highlights have been blown out to much.

I plan on going out for a wander this weekend so I’ll see where that takes me. Bex sends her apologies, unfortunately she has been ill quite recently and so has been unable to do a post. She is getting better and will hopefully be able to carrying on posting towards the end of this week.

Mat

Circular Explosion

As I said yesterday we had taken a lot of photos at the fireworks night, so I looked through for another photo to upload today. I looked towards the end of the display, they were using larger and brighter fireworks and the photos looked astonishing. This one of the best that I took during the evening so I thought I should upload it.

To capture the trace of the whole firework I slowed the shutter down to one second. So as the shutter was open the whole firework was captured. The camera chose an aperture of F3.9 to correctly expose the photo. I really like how the explosion of the firework was caught and the trails of it zooming off in every direction. I also really like the symmetry created by the circular explosion pattern.

I decided against changing anything because I really liked how the photo had been captured. The camera had exposed the image correctly so I didn’t need to change that. And the colours have been replicated so I didn’t need to change the colour temperature either. And I managed to frame the photo to get the best composition as well.

I’m glad I’ve been able to upload these two photos because i really liked both of them and there was no way I could choose between either of them!

Mat

Fireworks

On bonfire night Bex and I went to a fireworks display together. The display was truly fantastic it was very well organised and everyone who attended had an enjoyable time. Bex and I must have taken around 500 photos between us so we had plenty of material to choose from. This is one of my favourite photos that I had taken.

They were firing multiple fireworks at a time so I thought by using a slow shutter speed I could make an interesting effect by blurring the individual fireworks into one big blur. I used the camera in shutter priority so I could have complete control; I selected a shutter speed of ½ of a second. This gave enough time for the light to hit the sensor and for the fireworks to be blurred. The camera chose an aperture of F4 to let the correct amount of light through; the depth of field is irrelevant because the distance was quite large and everything was in one plane.

When editing the photo I decided to change very little, except for: the contrast and the colour temperature. By increasing the contrast the photo becomes a lot more vivid and striking, this is the effect that I was trying to create. Also the camera hadn’t calculated the white balance correctly so I had to increase the colour temperature; this made the photo warmer and corrected the colour of the fireworks.

We both loved the fireworks, and as I said previous took around 500 photos, so we both have quite a few that we can upload. I’ll keep looking through for the best of my photos.

Mat

Starting Fires

I hope you’ve been enjoying yourself over the past week of fireworks and bonfires!! I love this time of year, as there is so much to take photos of- both inside and outside of events.

I took this photo at one of my town’s local events, which I attended to support my grandmother as she had the honour of lighting this year’s bonfire!! After she had lit it, it was left to burn down completely (which was rather nice, as it was freezing!). It was a really interesting subject for a photograph, as the combination of smoke, flames and ashes made for a unique effect at every press of the shutter. I like this photo in particular.

I experimented with exposure times to get different effects; in this picture I used a shutter speed of 1/4000 with an aperture of F8. I used such an incredibly fast shutter speed because I didn’t want the patterns made by the smoke to blur, and there was a lot of light coming from the fire.

I haven’t edited this image as I was pleased with the original. I love how you can see the ash around the outlines of the fire along with the silhouette of the wood. I hope you’ll join me in saying congratulations to my grandmother – she did well!!!

Bex

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Stalls

This is another photo from my holiday, as I still have many to upload and so little time to take new pictures!! I took this photo on the first full day of our holiday when we went shopping.

As described in a previous post, the shopping centre opens out to reveal a long high street with small pathways spiralling off of it. I’ve visited the same place several times, so I’ve been down most of them. The trouble is that they ALL lead to another winding alley, which leads to another and another, and so on.

I walked a little further down the street before turning off this time, and I found two large archways in what seemed to look like a long forgotten part of town. I heard noises so walked in to see what was going on and was faced with the buzz of a traditional market place.

I took this picture using ISO 1600 so that I could get a fast enough shutter speed whilst still being able to use an aperture of F8 to get a deeper depth of field. I didn’t do any editing apart from noise removal, as I wanted to keep the photo as close to the original as possible.

It’s near impossible to find the same streets more than once, but I certainly hope that I’m able to find this one again- I love it!!! Retro sweets anyone?

Bex

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