Saturday, 31st July 2010 - Photo #212

"It's all about the light!"

The sun came out on the patio for a couple of minutes and I grabbed my camera and Kirsten, I took a close up like this of Hope awhile ago and have been wanting a matching one of Kirsten. There was a bit of a breeze which messed up her hair a bit but that's her I'm afraid. I love back lit photos, although depending on where I stood meant better or worse shadows across her face, I think I should have used fill in flash or ran upstairs for the reflector, as I didn't think in time to do either here is the result! The sun went in quicker than a tramp on a sandwich after I took it!!

Friday, 30th July 2010 - Photo #211

Kirsten has finished a short summer school course at the Quad today, it was for three days and was about Storytelling. Here she is with my Mum and her finished book. She had to find out about stories and how they are formulated, write a story (after going around the Market Place for inspiration), draw a storyboard and finally produce the book. She has really enjoyed it and made a couple of new friends.

I love the windows of the Quad and the reflections and colours in it. They got fed up waiting for me to take the picture as I stood right on the other side of the market place and and had to snap away as people walked past.

Thursday, 29th July 2010 - Photo #210

After seeing some lovely sepia prints at Costco of simple white flowers I thought I would have a try myself. Used my navy background (black one is up in the loft but it didn't matter), flashgun and close up filter. I tried a few different positions for the flash as I wanted to show the petals up but in the end I put the flash behind the flower to allow the light to shine through which I thought gave quite a good effect and more importantly no harsh shadows.

Wednesday, 28th July 2010 - Photo #209

Had to drop Kirsten off today at the Quad in Derby so took the opportunity for a different subject to blog. Found the back of the cathedral which I haven't really noticed before. You can just see the statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie in front of the cathedral too. Turned it black and white to give it a more arty feel and left quite a bit of the foreground in as the path reminded me of an arrow, also turning it black and white shows up lines in the sky.

Tuesday, 27th July 2010 - Photo #208

Learnt a valuable lesson today about preparation of your subject (especially food shots). These cakes that the girls made at Mum and Dad's have silly faces on them and I thought they would be great to blog. However, the first shots I took were of the cakes in their cases as they came out of the oven. The cake mixture had run over the sides of the cases and burnt in the oven. This made the pictures look rubbish and I decided to take off the cases (don't worry they are reusable) wash them and put the cakes back in. Loads better, I like the pastel shades of the cases better than the cakes but don't tell the girls!

Monday, 26th July 2010 - Photo #207

Been a sad day today as we have been to the funeral of our friend Keith, so not had much time or inclination to take a photo today.

However, walking Zac back from the field I noticed the weathervane that I always look at on the roof of a farm building near our house was pointing in the right direction to get a picture. I have made it black and white but there was hardly any colour in the picture and the sky was totally grey. I think there should be more weathervanes about!

Goodbye Keith x

Sunday, 25th July 2010 - Photo #206

On our walk around Elvaston Castle today, I noticed this reflection in the little pond, I was looking for blue damsel flies which I have seen there before but there were none about. This picture seems exposed ok but alot I take of water seem too bright and I find I have to adjust the shadows to bring out the true colours.

Saturday, 24th July 2010 - Photo #205

We had to drop Kirsten off at the Derby County Training Ground in Ockbrook today for a free training session which she really enjoyed. Instead of coming back home we took Zac around Locko Park in Spondon. It is ages since I have been there and forgot how lovely the lake and hall are. The hall is now able to hold weddings and we passed a couple of suited and booted chaps putting these signs up. Shame I don't know who it was getting married as photos of the little touches are sometimes overlooked but they still take time to arrange and it would be nice to have a picture to remember them.

I haven't put a vignette on the picture although it does look darker towards the top which I quite like. Maybe I should have left a bit more space to the left of the arrow for it to point into (too much time spent listening to competition judges me thinks!)

Friday, 23rd July 2010 - Photo #204

"Sorry - this one's taken!"

Found a field full of thistles today on Zac's walk and noticed how much they attract the bees. I put my close up lens on for this one but it was really tricky as I couldn't find one thistle in flower with a bee on it that wasn't surrounded by grassess and other foliage. This is about the best one although I have cropped quite severely to get rid of the distracting colours behind it. I noticed too whilst I was cropping that there is a green beetle thing on there too!!

Thursday, 22nd July 2010 - Photo #203

As it has rained today and absolutely threw it down at dinner time, I tried to take some photos of the rain hitting the flat roof outside, unfortunately, even with continuous shutter release I struggled to get a good sharp splash picture. Then I noticed a snail on my Green Man plaque. However, when I was editing the picture I decided I liked it better with only one eye showing, looks abit spooky I think. It's a stone plaque but has got that verdigris shade to it due to the weather.

Wednesday, 21st July 2010 - Photo #202

Mum's new broadband has been installed so tonight we went over for Carl to do a few last minute tweaks that she needed doing. Sorry it's flowers again but due to the really hot weather we have had, alot of flowers are getting past their best and I will be sorry when it's autumn that I didn't take them.

Here is a Montbretia but I tried to get a different angle on it. I turned the camera on it's side and photographed along the line of flowers instead of straight on at it. I like the colours too. Used my close up filter, I was after the bees that this flower attracts but they move so quick all I get is their bums sticking out!

Tuesday, 20th July 2010 - Photo #201

On Zac's walk today I remembered to take my camera and most importantly my SD card (hooray). Thanks for the tip Nicky, I was careful to put it back last night after blogging. Found that a field that I have previously photographed is full of wheat and is a lovely golden colour. With Zac's lead wrapped around one leg I managed to take some pictures and I like this one with the bit of blue sky. Again I used a shallow depth of field to focus on the wheat itself.

Monday, 19th July 2010 - Photo #200

I have been playing around with depth of field and close ups tonight. Hope has made Mum a gardening book in Technology at school which she has embroidered. I took the flower on the front because I wanted to get a close up of the button but looking at them afterwards I chose this one because I like the texture of the material.

Wow, reached 200, I can't believe it.

Sunday, 18th July 2010 - Photo #199

Today was another blistering day, saw lots of red faces, shoulders backs etc etc OUCH! Here is a collage of my favourite bits, now you know what I meant about the mackerel!

Couldn't resist putting Tom Jones in there - sorry everybody!

Saturday, 17th July 2010 - Photo #198

"Sunset at Latitude"

Another great day coming to a close. I have a feature on my compact called Intelligent Auto and boy does it do what it says on the tin! It caught this sunset quite well I think, I find them really hard to capture. I saw the light had gone golden whilst in a tent and came out to snap this. It wasn't quite so dark in real life but hey ho, I still like it.

Friday, 16th July 2010 - Photo #197

Well here it is in all it's glory and the sun is shining too. This is looking across the main area to the Word Arena which is the second stage. I took this to show the amount of people that were there and the beautiful sky. Mackerel anyone?

Thursday, 15th July 2010 - Photo #196

Sorry no blog for a few days, we have been to Latitude Festival in Southwold, Sussex. It has been great, very tiring, very hot, very good music and best of all very good friends with us. We pitched the tent in so strong winds that three of the tent poles snapped but thanks to some good neighbours, a quick bit of gaffer tape fixed them and we didn't have to bunk down in Alison's awning!!

Once pitched and sorted we made our way into the arena for a good look round and, hopefully, to catch Tom Jones who was playing a set in the woods (no really). Unfortunately, 25,000 other people had exactly the same idea and we had to make do with listening to him whilst eating a pot noodle in the tent.

Of course, I've taken loads of pictures, they are with my compact for security reasons and the fact that you have to pay to take a DSLR into the festival but have turned out quite nice.

I like this one it's of four people on stilts who's costumes all of a sudden blew up and then lit up. It was amazing to see and this picture shows the lights in their heads. Weird eh?

Wednesday, 14th July 2010 - Photo #195

It's getting to that time of year when the children at the playgroup where I work get ready to go to school. It's very exciting for them and lovely to see the progress they have made but it is a little bit sad too as we will miss them. Here is a present from one of the children in my group. I love the cat's expression!

I've cropped the photo slightly and bent down to take the photo looking upwards at the card and plant to avoid lots of shadows as it is late and all the kitchen lights are on. Always thinking - not really, I drove past a lovely church tonight with my camera in the back of the car only to remember once I had parked that I had left my SD card(S)! at home - boo.

Tuesday, 13th July 2010 - Photo #194

Been an interesting night, Barry at camera club did a presentation of Studio Lighting and I was able to have a turn at taking a stunning gerbera that he had brought along. He used two lights (thanks Nicky!) and gave us some good tips on settings/positioning of lights etc. Here is one of the gerbera taken against a black background. Right, what is lying round the house that I can take photos of.......

Monday, 12th July 2010 - Photo #193

Been over to Mum and Dad's tonight and yet again got carried away with Mum's gorgeous flowers. Even better it had just stopped raining so I managed to get this bud that was full of rain really close up. I had to be careful not to knock the bud as it would have dislodged the water. I have rotated it to make the bud stand out more, although I do like the grey behind it (it's Mum's newly painted statue).

Just noticed when I enlarged this image that it is a bit grainy, guess what, forgot to change my ISO from the fan experiment last night. Hey ho, hold on all is not lost, the guest speaker at camera club last week said that any grainy pictures usually look ok in monochrome. What do you think?

Sunday, 11th July 2010 - Photo #192

Ok ok, so these two pictures aren't very pretty and certainly won't win any prizes but I have wanted to experiment with shutter speeds and ISO settings. The first picture is taken with my flash gun which as you can see has frozen the blade of the fan. (Notice the fan is on and set to speed one on both pictures). No good, it's nicely lit but the fan looks switched off. So I switched off the flash, slowed the shutter speed down and increased the ISO to 500, it's a bit lighter but you can definitely see that the fan is on and almost feel the breeze from it!

Saturday, 10th July 2010 - Photo #191

"Happy Birthday Max"

It's been Max's party today and here is his cake. Great weather, great food and great company.

Had to take this quick before the jellies on the top disappeared, thanks kids! Cropped it because I got reflections on the glass table that were a bit distracting. Still need to get that "Marks and Spencer" shot though!!

Friday, 9th July 2010 - Photo #190

Been a busy day today for taking photos as I have taken the photos at work of the keyworker groups for the children leaving to go to school in September. So tonight when I got in I was photo'ed out! Anyway Zac was enjoying trying to catch the water from a water pistol that Carl was firing at him so I grabbed the camera and plonked it in Sport Mode and bam.

Look at those teeth!

Thursday, 8th July 2010 - Photo #189

I pass this window quite regularly as it is opposite a car park I use when I go to town and everytime I pass I think "I must take a photo of those graffiti canvasses. Well today was a bit of a rush and I didn't take my camera, all I had was my phone so I nipped over to the window to take a quick picture. Whilst I was taking it a very nice young man came out to see if I was ok. I had to explain that I was studying photography and am doing a daily blog. I don't know if he believed me as I only had my phone on me but he didn't seem to mind. Maybe I should have asked permission first as the window actually belongs to a youth enterprise centre (although I don't think many people were inside). I know of the perils of trying to photograph in the Westfield and other public places so be warned and ask permission first.

Wednesday, 7th July 2010 - Photo #188

"Whiskey"

Had a bit of a photo shoot for Jamie, Angie, Sarah, Joe, Jack and Whiskey, Jamie wanted to try out the lights with his camera and we got them going although it was far too hot for poor old Joe in his suit and the front room just isn't big enough. Here's one of Whiskey who is much better behaved that Zac who at one point nearly knocked the lights over. Bad dog!

Chose this shot because, even though he isn't looking exactly straight at the camera, there are catch lights in both eyes. See listening to the judges on competition nights at camera club is paying off!!