I could quite easily spend the whole winter taking photos of berries. They are so very well behaved and cheery to look at, and certainly brighten up a cold, old winters day, don’t you think?
PS – There’s lot’s more wintry cheer to be found in the 100 Days of Winter flickr group
Number one on my photography wishlist is a tilt and shift lens – specifically this one, which, when you see the price you’ll realise why it’s not on my ‘lenses I own’ list!
For now then I will make do with the pretend tilt and shift setting on my Canon G12 (the ‘miniature’ mode).
Here’s how todays sunset looked…
Autumn can be quite show-offy and brazenly colourful at times, don’t you think?
Often though it is quite muted and serene.
These are from a late afternoon stroll in the old cemetery over the weekend – it was dark by teatime and a brisk pace was required to get out of there before the veil of darkness (and spookiness) descended…
I had the great pleasure on Friday lunchtime (11-11-11) of visiting a local country park and photographing a friend and her sweet (almost exactly, just one day to go) 1-year-old boy.
I was after just such a willing volunteer – after my previous family photoshoot earlier in the year I have been pondering over doing more of this type of photography and I wanted to work out a few things…
Well, thanks to my two gorgeous models I am much closer to having definitive answers to those questions.
Do I have the skill?
Some of them, yes, but I can see there’s still lots I need to learn and adjust to. I definitely need to do more corralling of my models and give feedback about what’s looking good and not so good.
How long will a photoshoot take?
I was pleasantly surprised with how much we achieved in just over an hour. That’s a long time for a little one.
Do I have the right equipment?
I am lucky enough to have some amazing photographic equipment – the camera I used (Canon 5D MkII) was faultless, the lenses though gave varying results.
The 135mm was the star, it was long enough that I didn’t have to get right into peoples faces, it worked well in lowish light, amazing depth of field, but what really made it stand out was the speed that it focussed. A big lesson I learnt is that getting to people to make ‘nice’ faces at exactly the same moment is a split-second thing when one of the models is only a year old – you need that focus there in an instant.
The 85mm f/1.8 was WAY too slow to focus, didn’t even come close on a lot of shots. The 17-40mm was slightly better – the wide-angle, there was a little more light about when I was using this one though so it wasn’t a very scientific test. Suffice to say I am now drooling over lens review websites!
How long will the post-production take?
This is the bit I thought would be the most familiar and straightforward but actually took a lot longer than expected. Rather than dealing with photos on a one-by-one basis I think it’s important to treat them as a group of images that should have a relationship with the others in the group. The lesson here is to get super-slick with using Lightroom (and look at getting some more RAM).
Was it fun?
Oh, yes!
I have an itchy shutter finger – it feels like ages since I took a photo!
Greenwich Meantime sucks, it’s always so dark – I am currently reading all about taking photos at night time in a bid to blow away some photographic cobwebs. Do you have any tips or tricks in this area? Please share, I am getting a bit crazy!
Sanity should hopefully prevail though as tomorrow I have a free afternoon and a couple of willing models to photograph which I am very excited about – I hope the weather holds.
Meteorologists have been saying that when autumn finally gets started then the mild weather we’ve been having should mean it will be a very colourful one, leaf-wise.
Well, I think it’s finally got started and it is indeed looking spectacular – I went for a wander with the Mr, my brother and niece. Look at us all with our camera gear – watch out trees, you’re about to get ‘papped’!
It’s rather handy having a National Park full trees on your doorstep…
And not just any old trees, no, this here is the tallest tree in England – even taller than Big Ben apparently…
But it’s not just the trees though, there are also some amazing fungi…
And of course there’s the New Forest ponies, including this blonde beauty…
But mainly it is about the leaves. So many leaves and so much colour – I love it…
All photos taken with my Canon 5D MKII
Have you had a lovely weekend? I have – it’s been one of those ones where you don’t do much apart from read papers, drink coffee, wander your local streets and chat.
Obviously (for editorial puposes) I am choosing to omit all the drudgy bits – the scrubbing of the funny smelling salad drawers from the fidge, picking out all the hair from plug-hole of shower, etc etc. No one needs to hear about any of that.
All photos taken with Canon 5DMkII and 50mm f/1.4 lens (my version of travelling light).
I had the afternoon off work today, it was lovely – a long, lazy lunch, sunshine, fresh air and photography!
The trees are mostly still green but you can tell they are about to change – I don’t wanna shock you or anything, but that means autumn is acomin’ !
As I wandered round our little city wildlife-centre (which some might uncharitably describe as a small park full of weeds) I realised, I feel so much more comfortable and sparked into creativity when I have to seek out beauty and work at getting the best photo.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore visiting stunning locations like The Lake District and taking photographs there. When I do though I feel a certain amount of pressure to do the magnificent scenery justice and take photos that are interesting and un-clichéd. Hmm, as far as being stressed goes, this is probably the best sort to have!
As most of my time is spent away from jaw-dropping natural phenomena I don’t have to worry too much about this particular type of stress in my life – luckily for me, there are plenty of weeds and trees to keep me occupied when I do bunk off work early!
These are some of my favourite things to photograph if I need to just relax and let go. What do you like to photograph to ‘de-stress’?
One of the things you notice when you’re in the Lake District is that there are sheep EVERYWHERE!
Fluffy cloud-like blobs pepper every vista…
Mostly they are harmless and look a lot like cuddly teddy bears.
I snuck these two sweetie-pies into the boot of my car, they live in my back garden now…
However, it would seem that sheepingtons come in all shapes and sizes – look at THESE bully boys – especially the one on the right, he really scares me! I was glad they were behind a dry-stone wall (those are everywhere too) – they look like the badly-trained Rottweilers of the ovine world.
PS – You know I’m not really sheep-napper, don’t you?