In A Rush

Bex and I didn’t have anything planned during today so we went down to the harbour in our local city. It was quite late by the time we got there. So I thought instead of trying to get a sharp image, I’ll make the most of the conditions and use a slower shutter speed to blur the movement of passing cars.

We were walking alongside a busy road which gave me the idea of blurring the movement of a passing car. So for this photo I slowed the shutter speed of 1/30^th of a second this means that the background will be blurred but the car will still be relatively sharp. As it was dark I used the widest aperture of F4.5 which gave a shallow depth of field.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and the brightness. I did this because I thought the photo could do with a bit more ‘punch’. I also de-saturated the photo because I thought the photo had a bit of a colour cast to it.

Overall I am impressed with this photo, and I really like how the lights of the car have become refracted through the lens to make the patterns on the image. I’m glad I didn’t change much in the image because I like the overall effect that I created.

Mat

Take a Trip

My laptop broke today, so I'm going to have to take a trip back in photographic time as I'm currently using an older laptop while I wait for the other to be repaired. However, this is the exception; I went on a wander today with my new lens. I tried to focus on wildlife, in order to test the lens at higher focal lengths. I took this at 200mm as the seagull was landing in the water. It’s been incredibly cloudy all day, so I decided to couple the effect of the clouds with the theme of time.

To exaggerate the effect of the sun behind the clouds and take the theme of time into account, I edited the image in Photoshop. By taking the photo into the sun, most of the colour had been lost so I converted it to black and white. I then darkened highlights and increased the contrast. I sharpened the image and removed noise. I then selected everything apart from the bird and increased the contrast further, in order to make the cloud pattern more prominent.

I liked trying to follow a theme for a change, it made me a little more focused and provided a source of inspiration. I did suffer for my hobby today; I had to towel-dry my hair when I got home!!!

Bex

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Industrial

This is one of my favourite photos that I took on my walk around the harbour yesterday. An event was organised to showcase the history of the local area. Train tracks snake around the harbourside, in between the many cranes. In this event train carriages were placed in various locations around the harbour and the cranes and buildings were lit up.

As I walked up the road towards the harbour this view presented itself and I loved it! I used my wide-angle lens to capture it as best I could. I didn’t want to use my tripod, so had to use a wide aperture and the fastest shutter speed possible. On screen, the image didn’t seem to have much detail but I loved the view so tried to recover as much as I could in Photoshop. I don’t often use the shadows and highlights tool, but thought I’d give it a go in the hopes it would help my case; it did!

Apart from lightening shadows, I haven’t edited this photo at all. I love how it’s captured the light shining on the wet pavement and how the wide aperture makes this picture seem endless. I didn’t try to remove any noise, as it is most prominent in the sky but I like the texture that the noise gives it. This is one of my favourite images that I have uploaded, and I’m really pleased with it. I will definitely be using this tool more often!!

Bex

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Watching the World

Perhaps not the world, but certainly a small part of my local area! I took this photo during an early evening walk around the harbour this evening. Although it may feel a little depressing that Christmas Day has passed and the days are incredibly short, I don’t let it get me down!

I went on a trip to my local harbour this afternoon. I took my tripod, my wide-angle lens and my telephoto. I took this particular photo on my wide-angle lens to try to get a larger view of what was across the water. I used a slow shutter speed coupled with a high ISO to enable me to use a narrow aperture (giving me a larger depth of field). I have seen a few photos of busy towns that have tried to convey the passing of time. I took inspiration from these photos and tried to use their results in my image. Each of the shots I saw were dark and focused on lights and signs, so I tried to do this in my photo. To add to the image I incorporated the reflections on the water and used a starburst filter.

To draw more attention to the lights, I edited the image in Photoshop. As a general improvement I sharpened the image and removed noise. I decreased the brightness slightly and increased the contrast by about 50% to lose most of the detail in the shadows.

Overall, I’m pleased with how this image turned out, and I’m pleased how I can see some small features that are similar to my w sources of inspiration, while retaining some originality. If you want to see the kind of images I took my inspiration from, search “night city” on Google.

Bex

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Community Christmas

Among other things, Christmas is a time where a sense of community is most strongly felt in a small town or city. This is normally reinforced by a large variety of events taking place throughout the festive period. I’ve tried to visit quite a few as they always provide great photo opportunities. I took this photo at one of the events I attended.

This particular event attempted to showcase the large diversity of culture that we have in our local area; exhibiting this through traditional cooking on the part of each culture involved. One of the stands that I saw as I walked around was Spanish. I liked how they had a long row of pans at the front, advertising their food. It was intriguing to watch them cooking, as much as it was trying. I decided to try to capture a sense of the rush in my photo. I used an aperture of F11 to encourage a larger depth of field. I had to use a slower shutter speed to accommodate this, so some of the people are blurred through movement, but I think this adds to the effect.

Because light was shining through a coloured gazebo, the photo was hard to edit and a few colours came out looking a little odd. I edited the picture in Photoshop to try to dampen some of the effects. I changed the hue, increased the contrast and sharpened the image to bring up finer details. Considering I was being pushed in a busy crowd and only had one chance to take this picture, I think it turned out well.

Bex

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Merry Christmas!

It’s finally that date- yes, it’s 25th December and if you’re anything like me, you were up at the crack of dawn from all the excitement and anticipation of the day ahead. Christmas is a time for relaxation and being with family. I admit that this relaxed attitude has stretched to my blog post. This picture is more of a snapshot than a picture, but I really wanted a photo of everyone looking at the tree before they moved away. I took this photo at a Christmas lights switch on that BSR were involved in.

At the time I could hardly see the screen or through the viewfinder and the lens was covered in fake snow so I’m incredibly surprised that I managed to get any form of decent picture. This photo took a lot of editing in Photoshop; I used the dodge tool to darken some of the faces that had caught too much of the flash, and burned in some more important details. I also increased the contrast and brightness, removed noise and sharpened the whole image.

I hope whatever you did today, and whatever you plan on doing tomorrow, you have a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoy the festive season. It’s the blog’s first Christmas, and I really can’t wait for the year ahead. All that remains of today is for me to say a very merry Christmas to all of our readers. Pass the chocolate!

(A very festive-feeling) Bex
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Origami Birds

Sorry to bore you with more photos from the harbour light event but I took quite a few photos that I was very pleased with. For one of the displays they had made some large origami birds and attached them to the sides of the harbour cranes. I liked the display and took quite a few photos from various angles, and I think this one came out the best.

To make the most of the composition I used an aperture of F8. Because of this I had to use ISO 1600 to enable the use of a fast enough shutter speed. I tried to frame the photo so that there was roughly an even number of birds spread across the frame. I did this so the photo didn’t appear cluttered. I had boosted the sharpness in camera so I didn’t need to change this in the editing stage.

I didn’t edit this photo because I was very happy with the overall effect that I had captured. As I had increased the sharpness in camera I didn’t change this. Also the camera had exposed the photo perfectly so I didn’t need to change anything.

It’s Christmas! Or at least it is tomorrow. I hope that you all have a very merry Christmas.

Mat