Day 158 - Clematis in Glass

Combining my recent interests of flowers and glass, here's a flower in a glass.  Aside from quite liking this shot from an aesthetic point of view, I'm really pleased with the range of tones in the grey that the lighting brings out.  This also gives me another tool in box for effectively photographing glasses of liquid.  Rather than relying on edge definition with a separate colour out of shot, this uses the gradient in the background and its reversal when viewed through water to tell the viewer that there is a liquid there.  Lovely bit of optics for the scientists out there.  Hello Robin.

Day 157 - wind bottle and glass

About time I had some more practice with tricky lighting, so here is some more glass for you.  As in previous low key glass photos, I placed a large white board just out of shot to give the lovely edge definition.  I like the way the light on the label gives the shape of the bottle and so more depth to the shot, but really the label could do with lighting separately so we can read the writing more easily.

Day 156 - flower portrait

And another... Not quite sure what these are called.  Back in the garden for this one, shooting in the evening but using the background to block the direct sun to soften the light.

Day 155 - Linthwaite Sunset

I was experimenting this evening, looking at how the colours are given a huge boost when underexposing an evening sky.  The real sunset wasn't really this dramatic to the naked eye but underexposing allowed me to bring out the contrast in the brighter area near the sun.

Day 154 - Clematis

Another diffuse light flower portrait, this time shot in the kitchen and converted to mono.

Day 153 - Scabious

Similar technique to the other night.  I made sure I was above the flower so the shallow depth of field caused the stem to fade out.

Day 152 - Redcurrant cutting

This was an attempt to make use of some clever techniques for shooting glass, without it looking too much like an exercise in lighting theory.  Cutting stuck in water, lit using diffuse window light with black boards to left and right to give the edge definition in the glass.  High contrast conversion to mono to bring out the texture in the leaves.

Day 151 - Clematis

The first of a number of natural light flower portraits that I'm planning to shoot now life has returned to the frozen land of Yorkshire.

This was shot in the garden using natural light on an overcast evening.  I placed my big white foam board behind the flower, set aperture to f/1.8 and set exposure compensation to +1 stop.  Fairly minimal post-production work means this is pretty much seen as shot.

Day 150 - Sea Holly zoom burst

Another technique that I've never played with before is a zoom burst.  You could do also this in post-production, but I think I've made my thoughts on that approach clear now!  My subject was a sea holly on white, which isn't really a classic zoom burst shot as it doesn't have the radiating blurred lines in the background.  However, I quite like the effect so here it is.

After a bit of experimenting, I put the camera on a tripod and used a shutter speed of 1/2 sec for this shot.

Day 149 - Self Portrait

I wanted to experiment with some very strong side lighting, so I put myself in front of the camera for the first time in a while.  I used one flash in a shoot through umbrella camera right and placed a second one rear camera left on the background to give a tonal gradient opposite to the one across my face.  I asked Sian to press the shutter as I find the trial and error of using the remote release and a tripod a little frustrating.  In return, she suggested I take my t-shirt off.  Fair's fair I suppose.

Day 148 - Growers and Grocers

I had a fantastic day shooting with Marie-Claire for a story she's writing about Slaithwaite's Green Valley Grocers and the growers who produce local, seasonal goods for the shop.  Frankly, I was astonished at the gardens that we saw.  They ranged from small terrace plots with a few fruit bushes to huge greenhouses and orchards.  Best of all was the enormous three sided plot dedicated to rhubarb - Slawit's own rhubarb triangle!

As well as being a professional journalist, MC doubles up as a member of staff at the shop, so she didn't escape the camera either.  I'll save the rest of the pictures for elsewhere!

Day 147 - Leeds Uni Skyline

I was at an evening meeting on carbon footprints at Leeds Uni tonight.  It would have been nice to take more of the great skyline but I was dashing for the train so this had to do.  Shot with the toycam filter of FX Camera for Android.

Day 146 - I spy with my little eye

I think this is my most frequent view of Jessica, so it's good to record it for posterity.

Day 145 - lemon on a DIY lightbox

I made myself a quick DIY lightbox to take this shot.  I stuck a sheet of baking parchment over the hole in a tissue box, ripped open one of the ends, stuck the flash inside and triggered it using the Cactus V4 wireless trigger.  All very technical you understand...

Day 144 - Dandelion head

I've been wanting to try something like this for a while but needed to recruit a volunteer to do some blowing.  I used the Sigma 530 DG  Super set to manual to get the exposure right on the flower head.

Several dandelions later...

Day 143 - Acer leaves

Shot flat on my back looking up through the leaves of a little tree in our garden and given a cross-process look using Gimp afterwards to suit my hazy summer mood that day.

Day 142 - St George's Square

Kirklees Council have had some stick for the renovation of St George's Square, but I don't think anyone watching the kids (and big kids) splashing about in the fountains on a sunny afternoon could have any complaints.

I could fill an album with the shots of the girls enjoying the water, but this was my favourite, just for the expression on Jessica's face.  Shot with a blip of fill in flash to lighten the shadows on her face in the harsh midday sun.

Day 141 - Nicola Toomes

Nicola manages a hyperlocal new website, Aboutmyarea, for the HD7 postcode area.  She very kindly volunteered via Twitter to pose for me as part of my project on people in the Colne Valley.  Nicola grew up in Slawit and this was taken in her Aunt's back garden, looking over the reservoir where Nicola used to play as a girl.

Day 140 - man heading for a beer

Snapped with the camera phone on my way home using the Polaroid filter of FX Camera for Android.

Day 139 - Impressionist blur and a short rant

I saw a photo magazine piece recently about creating an impressionist style picture of woodland using Photoshop's motion blur filter.  It struck me that this is a perfect example of the side of digital photography that really annoys me.  More accurately, it is the absence of photography that really annoys me.  Techniques like this are interesting, but can equally be achieved in camera with the same, or sometimes less, effort.  It just takes a bit of thought with the camera in hand, rather than more hours spent in front of the laptop.  Photographers, and photography magazine editors in particular, seem to be forgetting the photography part of digital photography.

The most ludicrous example of this that I've seem was a recent magazine focusing on the use of flash.  One article spoke about the use of fill flash to improve daylight portraits.  The following piece was about how to replicate the look of fill flash using Photoshop.  Is there anyone out there incapable of finding the button to pop up their flash?  Is there anyone reading a digital photography magazine who doesn't have a flash on their camera?  Why on Earth should anyone need this technique?  Even most mobile phones have a flash capable of giving a usable bit of fill light.


This reliance on digital to fix things that shouldn't need to be fixed goes right to the top of the photographic tree.  In "Annie Leibovitz at Work" the great photographer talks about her famous portrait of the Queen.  Famous in part for the controversial editing of a BBC documentary that cost the Controller of the BBC his job...  You can read an extract from the book here, but the most interesting thing for me was that Annie shot Lizzie W in front of a grey backdrop and added the garden later.  Now, Annie Liebovitz is one of the greats of modern photography, but I have to say I was disappointed when I read this.


So, at the end of all that, here's my impressionist woodland with motion blur.  Technical details - Blur created with the moving-your-damn-hand tool in Photographer 1.0 with my camera phone.


If anyone else has examples of cutting edge in-camera techniques (or "photography") used in place of old school Photoshop, let me know and I'll post them!