A Championship Winning Score (2) (Photo 32)

A Championship Winning Score (2)
NEX-6, 55mm-210mm E-Mount Lens @ 159mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/500 secs, ISO 100, f/8 Zoom Blur effect added in Photoshop Elements 10.

During my 3 month absence from posting to this blog, I attended the Le Mans 24 Hour Race in France with 5 friends, but I have held off from posting the photos purely because I took others that I was more excited about in the meantime! You might be forgiven for thinking that this post will be all about fast cars and ridiculous engines, but I’d rather take you through the Le Mans experience in more detail than that! As there are quite a few photos to share, in order to provide you with as much information as possible, I have decided to do so through the medium of a list of Do’s and Don’ts, so here goes…

DO borrow a 7 seat people carrier – make sure the 5 in the front bays have limited but adequate room, whilst the poor bugger in the back is cocooned by all of the luggage.

DO get to the camp site early, to make the most of the health and safety-lacking communal power supplies! Gaffer tape is useful at this point; and at all other points over your 4 day camping experience.

DO make sure to take a 6 man tent, dining table, chairs, fridge, stereo, plastic cups and plates, and a BBQ. Beer, Merlot and meat can all be purchased at a local supermarket in Le Mans, ensuring that you only lose all feeling in your legs for the last hour of queuing to get in to the campsite. All of this MUST fit in the people carrier with yourselves, your rucksacks, sleeping bags and pillows.

DO make sure that your vehicle is decorated accordingly.

DON’T run out of time to order the vinyls for your car, and then end up having to make your own (tasteful) versions. Electrical tape is also useful over the course of the holiday.

Those are a few things that you will want to consider whilst planning your trip, as is making sure that you arrive on the Thursday – giving you time to set up camp and give yourself a hangover for Mad Friday! This is when the real fun begins, and has become a long-standing tradition over the years, whereby people in cars perform burnouts on the access roads to the campsites (all around the town and track areas), egged on by people in fancy dress with beer and water pistols. Here are some more tips, this time to help you survive Mad Friday…

DO dress like a bunch of ****s. This provides you with an excuse to drink cheap French beer and get very (too) involved with the festivities.

DON’T ride through the crowd in any sort of open chariot.

I said DON’T ride through the crowd in an open chariot!

DON’T be a policeman! Especially in an open chariot!

DO drive through in a car, but keep your windows up, and your doors locked!!!

DO take a vuvuzela. This makes a lot of unpleasant noise and can also double up as a drinking funnel – beer or merlot. Another reason gaffer tape is useful, too.

DO use the vuvuzela to annoy the over-zealous Germans who are pouring water in to the cars of innocent passers-by.

DON’T annoy the Germans when they have possession of a very powerful water bomb catapult!!! Unless you want to have a little lie down like this chap.

DO make a Formula One-style STOP/GO sign, to encourage burn outs. Gaffer tape is useful for this as well.

DO use said sign for any passing vehicle, even when it may not at first seem appropriate.

DO perform burn outs for the crowd! It causes cheers and makes everybody drink more.

DO get as close to the action as possible. BUT be aware that the cars don’t always go in a straight line.

DO take a horse head.

DO make friends with a girl who has come in her Aston Martin.

DO take a photo of her driving round the track in the Aston Martin.

DON’T forget that it is no longer the 90’s!

DON’T forget to watch at least some of the racing! Although you will hear it constantly for the 24 hour duration, this is easily done because of all of the other entertainment (beer and merlot).

DO keep your camera ready along the drive to Le Mans, as you never know when a brand new F-Type is going to fly past.

So, that is my main Do’s and Don’ts list finished, and if you stick to it you should come home alive and without too many injuries (Colin would also not recommend borrowing a bicycle when drunk, but I don’t have a photo of that to share, unfortunately!). Despite all of the fun to be had on the campsite and around the track, we did manage to see a good few hours of racing at the start and finish of the race. Which gave me a chance to take some shots of moving cars – something that I hadn’t really attempted before. I have read a number of tips in the past on how to go about it though, but as with most other aspects of photography, practice makes perfect.

This was one of the Audi entrants (sadly I missed a photo of the winning car – but it looks exactly the same really). These diesel-powered beasts went by with a strange whooshing noise, more akin to a jet engine, whilst the other petrol-powered cars roared and crackled.

The main points to consider really are that you probably want to have a forgiving depth of field f/ stop, unless you really know what you’re doing, and a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the car but allow the background to blur. When shooting from the side, as in these shots, you will also need to track the car and keep your camera moving with it whilst you press the shutter release, and until the shutter has closed again. In practice, this means that it is best to keep the camera moving for a short time after you think it has finished exposing the shot. Le Mans cars move extremely quickly side to side, from 50 metres away, so this will require a little getting used to. If you are in a position to shoot head on to a car, then the focusing with be slightly easier to perform, or you can even pre-set your focus and wait for a car to pass through the correct spot.

After a few attempts and more careful shot composition, this was probably the best image of the cars that I captured.

I chose to use this for the featured image because I had aimed more carefully to avoid getting the track’s fencing in the shot. I know that the final image does look a little cheap with the zoom blur effect, but the point of this blog is for me to try out different photographic techniques, and this means that post-processing is something that I want to try out as well. I actually followed a tutorial from Digital Photo magazine, which was quick and easy to do. Well that’s all for this post, with more photos than writing for once! Just one last thing to say though…

Sadly, one of the driver’s (Allan Simonsen) crashed after 10 minutes of the race starting, resulting in fatal injuries, but the race continued in his honour. It wasn’t announced for a few hours after the crash, and it was definitely a sobering moment when the news did come in over the radio. I’m sure that everyone around the track and campsites took a moment to reflect on the tragedy, remember the dangers that do still exist in motor sport, and think of the brave people that do risk their lives to entertain us and themselves.

The Face of Innocence (Photo 31)

The Face of Innocence
NEX-6, 50mm E-Mount Lens @ 50mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/125 secs, ISO 100, f/1.8

Following on from my last post, Wedding Magic (2), I am using some more of the images that I took at the wedding, and the featured photograph is of my friends’ recently born daughter, Poppy. I have chosen this because of what looks like a smile on the contended face of Poppy, along with the fact that it is difficult to find something more innocent than a newborn. I was using my new 50mm Prime, E-Mount lens (SEL50F18), which has a maximum aperture of f/1.8 and gives sharp results with great bokeh and depth of field effects. The wide aperture means that it is possible to use the lens hand-held in low light conditions, as the shutter speeds can be kept high enough to prevent camera shake, and the ISO can be set lower to prevent digital noise affecting your images.

The original, colour image that I took of Poppy.

When comparing the featured image to the one above, it is fairly obvious that I have again carried out some post-production work; the obvious differences being a conversion to black & white, along with the addition of some vignetting. I didn’t bother cropping the photograph, which may have been good in order to follow the rule of thirds, because I wanted to keep Poppy’s face central and away from the vignette, and I also thought it was nice to show that she was on the shoulder of another of our friends, Jayne, to reinforce the contact between baby and adult. When children are being carried by a parent, or other trusted adult, I think it is possible to get some really good shots of them looking comfortable and secure.

Flora resting her head on Alice’s shoulder.

During the wedding ceremony, I was sat behind Alice and Flora, and so I took the opportunity to take the above photo whilst the congregation stood during a part of the service. I had a little bit of time to set up the shot, so set my NEX-6’s point of focus over Flora’s eye, and also composed the shot so that same eye is around the cross-section of the rule of thirds grid. I again converted the image to black & white in Aperture 3, with the original looking like this:

The original shot lacks a bit of punch and vibrancy.

This is the untouched RAW file, and as such I would expect it to require a little bit of work to make it look closer to what I saw in my head when pressing the shutter. The great thing is that shooting RAW gives you the flexibility to alter your images and create something more akin to your original idea, without losing any detail. It also lets you play around further with images, allowing you to discover potentially unexpected results. The two images above both show a relaxed (if slightly bored) little girl, who is resting her head calmly on her mother’s shoulder, and looking into the camera’s lens inquisitively. The scene can appear quite different, however, with some further adjustments to Curves and Levels, along with changing the tint of the image.

Colour tints and more aggressive adjustment of Curves and Levels can give a grittier feel to an image.

It is probably just me, but the tint applied here, combined with darker shadows, lends a less optimistic feel to the image, and looks more as though it was taken in an A&E corridor with Flora’s look seeming to be caused by confusion and concern now. It is interesting how the colours in a photograph can really change the dynamic and feel of it, and it is something that can be quite a powerful tool as is seen in films which choose to utilise certain colour schemes. Apart from the moment captured above, Flora was rather camera shy and not interested in letting me take her photograph. I did, however, manage to capture another two candid shots of her.

Flora excited to see her Dad, Graeme, who was busy with Best Man duties for much of the day.

Neither of these other two photos are particularly great unfortunately, but I was glad to capture this one of Flora smiling (which her Mum had bet me would not happen!).

Flora sitting on the grass, not looking at the camera as usual.

This was the only other half-decent photo that I managed to take of Flora. It can be quite challenging taking photographs of children who have no interest in being photographed, which is why you have to think of ways to capture the shot and adapt to taking the types of images that you can. A few things can help, such as ensuring they are fed and watered, and don’t need the toilet – maybe give them something to play with, or get their parents involved. After all, who wouldn’t want a great photo of themselves with their pride and joy? It is also nice for the child to be able to look back in years to come, and see what their parents looked like without (too many) wrinkles! Obviously, I haven’t achieved this in the above photographs, but it is definitely something to keep in mind when attempting similar photos yourself.

Anthropomorphic Animals (1) (Photo 28)

An Anthropomorphic Animal
NEX-6, 55-120mm E-Mount Lens @ 130mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/100 secs, ISO 3200, f/5.6

Well, it has been getting on for three months since I last posted, which is quite upsetting as it means I have fallen really far behind in my quest to complete the bucket list in just two years! However, I am hoping that once I have gotten back into the swing of it with this post, I will continue posting on a weekly basis once more. I haven’t simply just decided to be lazy – I have been away or out and about pretty much every week and weekend in these last few months – and if it helps, my house and washing/ironing piles have been equally neglected!

Another Anthropomorphic Animal – The way in which this little chap holds on to the grille over the light bulb reminds me of how a bored teenager might hold on to a railing or spiral iron staircase.

One thing that I have not neglected, however, is my passion for taking photographs, and my camera has been with me to Portugal, Le Mans and various family and friend type occasions – with a number of the images that I have taken ready to be used for posts in the coming weeks. So, on to the topic of this post – Anthropomorphic Animals. For those who do not know already, this means an animal that has something about it which reminds you of a human, such as the expression on their face, or the way in which they move or hold themselves, or maybe if they start having a conversation with you – such as Walt Disney and Pixar characters. In real life though, we would normally have to make do with monkeys and gorillas.

The expression on the face of this tiny little monkey looks very human to me – with the white moustache finishing off the look nicely.

I visited Chester Zoo with my Mum, Brother and Nephew back in April, and was keen to take some shots of the various animals that they have there. Unfortunately, as you may be able to see from the three photos so far, it is not all that easy to capture well-lit photos from a close distance. The featured shot was taken through a large glass window, in dim conditions, and coupled with my carelessness of forgetting to set the ISO to a lower number (less than 1600 ideally) has turned out rather flat and full of digital noise. To be fair, I wasn’t really expecting to have much use for it, because of the conditions, so I didn’t really pay much attention to the settings before shooting. It does have the most human-like expression though, which is why I decided to use it after all.

Not an Anthropomorphic Animal – or is it?! There is a striking resemblance to my ex-girlfriend!

For me, the favourite shot I took that day was the vulture above. The details in the beak and feathers are nice and sharp, with the colours on the beak adding even more interest. It is somewhat ruined by the fact that I was shooting through a wire fence of course!

An Amphibious Animal

Once again, my artistic intentions were ruined by the confines of the animals’s container, with thick glass being the culprit on this occasion. Along with the digital noise created by me leaving the camera in automatic ISO mode, allowing it to choose 3200 as the setting again. The twig in the foreground doesn’t do a great deal for the overall picture either, of course.

You may have realised by now that I didn’t take a note of any of the animal species that I photographed – these are birds of some description!

I was fairly pleased with this shot from the bird sanctuary, but you can still make out the blurred string fence which looks like a line of heat haze. The fencing often made it quite difficult to focus on the animals, as my camera’s autofocus often thought that the fence was more interesting. With a bit of help from the Direct Manual Focus (DMF) setting though, I managed to overcome that obstacle, and composed this shot along the rule of thirds grid that I choose to overlay my NEX-6’s viewfinder.

Not all of the animals were obstructed from view, but those that were not often had to be set well back from the general public, to avoid any mishaps, which meant that I was still unable to get anything resembling the award winning photos that I had intended to take when first setting out.

In reality, I should have been able to take some more interesting photos, with the issue being more about the fact I was photographing animals than about where the animals were and what they were behind. The fact that I was with a group of non-photographers, including a 21 month old toddler, with the attention span of a 21 month old toddler, meant that I did not really have the luxury of hanging around each of the animal enclosures for as long as I needed to in order to capture images of the animals doing things more out of the ordinary.

I am under no illusion that it would be far more rewarding photographic animals in their natural habitats, moving around freely instead of being confined to relatively small areas. However, it would also be much more difficult to do, in terms of time, finances, extra long lenses, danger and so on… So for now at least, I will have to stick with my local zoos whenever I feel like shooting (pictures of) exotic animals.

See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil
These three wise monkeys were huddled up in the top corner of their accommodation, and I needed to heavily alter the image to bring them out in to something resembling a view. They made me chuckle a bit though, so thought that I should include them here.

A Perfect Rose (Photo 27)

A Perfect Rose
NEX-6, 30mm Macro E-Mount Lens @ 30mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/60 secs, ISO 400, f/3.5

Each week, once I have put my post up here, I share a few of the photos on the Sony UK Facebook page, and earlier this week I received a request on there for tips about taking close up shots. So, I thought this weekend would be a good time to post ones I had taken of some roses a couple of months ago, along with a more thorough explanation of how I approached them. I chose the featured photo because I feel the composition fits in neatly with the title – it fits the golden ratio spiral almost perfectly.

A similar shot to the featured image, but with the rose being centred in the composition.

When composing your shots, it often helps to follow The Rule of Thirds, which means that your subjects should ordinarily not be centred in the frame of the shot – they should be positioned around a third of the way along, and up/down, the image. This is fairly easy to achieve with the Sony NEX-6, as the electronic viewfinder can have such a grid overlaid for composing your shots as you take them. Even without this though, it is not too difficult to imagine and can always be fine tuned with a little cropping in computer software, such as Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom.

My first shot of the roses contained some blown out background, which I like as it makes the image look as though it has had the white background added in Photoshop.

The roses that I was photographing were the ones that my Mum had at her house from my Grandma’s funeral, as she asked me to come and take a few shots of them for her. The equipment that I used was my NEX-6, macro lens, tripod and reflector, and I think I used my Dad as a reflector stand from time to time. The fact that I used a camera is pretty obvious, but the other items could probably do with a little explanation for anybody who is looking to indulge in a little close up photography for the first time, and hasn’t read any other more helpful guides already!

The same shot as above, but with a cyanotype filter applied in Aperture 3. This gives the image a faux-infrared feel, which I think compliments the blown out background.

Whilst a macro lens isn’t essential for close up photography, you will find that it allows you to get much closer to your subject than an ordinary lens will, as ordinary lenses will not focus on objects that are very close to them. My macro lens does not magnify anything and cannot be zoomed, but it does allow me to focus on objects that are literally a few millimetres away from the front lens element, which means that if you wish to get really close to your subjects, and capture every possible detail, a macro lens is going to give you the very best opportunity to do so. However, using a macro lens does come with its own set of unique obstacles; the biggest of which is the fact the closer you are to a subject, the narrower the depth of field becomes. You can see this in my featured image, for which I naively used the widest open aperture of the lens – f/3.5. The sharpest area of the shot is the top of the petals in the centre of the flower, but if you look to the left, you can see that the detail on the petal a few millimetres further from the lens is already starting to become blurred. With macro photography, your depth of field really can come down to millimetres, which means that you will often have difficulty in creating an image that is truly sharp across the whole range.

This shot was taken from further away, with an aperture of f/8, but the background is still more blurred than you might expect from that setting. Again, this is due to the lens being much closer to the subject than it might ordinarily be for other types of photography.

As a result of every millimetre being important, it really is a good idea to use a tripod when attempting macro shots. This allows you to set the camera’s position, manually focus on the exact spot that you want to, and then release the shutter to take the shot. If attempting to do this hand-held, you will more than likely move the camera a millimetre here or there, which can ruin your shot before you even take it. The simple act of depressing the shutter release can cause you to move your hands slightly, and adjusting the camera’s focus ring can be even more troublesome. Use a tripod, and also a remote shutter release whenever possible, to make sure that your camera is kept absolutely still – then all you have to worry about is the wind moving your subject (if you are outside)!

I used what little artistic thought I have, and scattered a few fallen petals on the table to make the background more interesting. Even with an aperture of f/11 here, the depth of field is still relatively small. If shooting a landscape, you would expect an aperture of f/11 to give you a fairly sharp image from front to back.

Another reason for using the tripod is that the smaller your aperture, the longer your shutter will need to remain open for, in order to expose the image correctly. Photography, at its most basic, is about capturing light and recording it, and the amount of light that you capture affects the final image by either making it too bright, too dark, or well exposed. There are three elements to this exposure triangle, which are your aperture size, shutter speed, and ISO setting – as you change one, you will need to change another, in order for your images to remain well exposed. Personally, I usually set my camera to Aperture or Shutter Priority, set my ISO level manually (to keep it as low as possible and avoid unwanted noise in my images – when I remember to, of course!), and then let the camera choose the other remaining setting for me.

The sun coming in to my parents’ living room was very bright, as you can see from the deep shadows to the right hand side of the roses and their petals.

As great as natural sunlight is for illuminating your subjects, it is essentially a very strong light source that shines from only one direction. You can affect the direction by positioning your subject accordingly, when outdoors, or waiting for the Sun to be in a certain position. However, this may not always be practical, so it can often be very useful to use a reflector. This is usually a large shiny surface, that you position on the opposite side of your subject to the Sun, and it bounces some of the light back to give you a more even exposure and prevent very strong shadows from overwhelming your subject. You can use different reflective surfaces, to change the colour of light, and also the intensity of the light you reflect back, but the general principle is the same. In the shot above, there was no reflector being used, but you can see the difference compared to this next shot, when I did have a reflector and reflector stand (Dad) in place.

The reflector bounces sunlight back on to the roses from the right hand side of the shot, bringing light, colour and detail back to the image, where previously there had only been dark shadows.

Obviously it is not always practical to have a tripod with you, or somebody who can hold a reflector up, in which case it is probably best to search for a happy medium between shutter speed and aperture size. You should try to maintain a relatively large depth of field to prevent your point of focus becoming your point of non-focus, but also keep as quick a shutter speed as possible, to prevent blur from camera shake. You can do a few things to steady your shot, such as keep your elbows tighter to your body, lean against a post or wall, or even set your camera down on a solid surface if there is one suitable. There is always the possibility of increasing the ISO setting on your camera, too, but you will want to choose one depending on your camera’s low-light ability so that your images don’t start to contain too much grain.

A perfect example of the pitfalls of taking macro shots hand held.

This above shot was the one I shared on Sony UK’s Facebook page, which prompted this post, and it is actually one of my favourite photos that I have taken so far. However, it does serve as a good example of the problems that shooting macro shots by hand can cause. Firstly, I had not learned my lesson, and was using the aperture wide open, which has resulted in too shallow a depth of field – the central flower should probably be in sharp focus throughout for the shot to be truly effective, but instead just the leaves to the bottom are sharp. It also looks as though my main point of focus is either the flower above it, or the one to the left of it, which is as a result of the difficulty of trying to focus manually whilst keeping the camera completely still. Had I used a tripod, I would also have taken more care over the composition generally, and I would have actually taken a number of shots with different settings, to see what ended up working the best. Unfortunately though, I was rushing too much and did not get the great shot that I think this could have been (relatively speaking of course). Hopefully you might take more heed of my advice than I have done so far, if trying out similar shots…

Wedding Magic (1) (Photo 26)

Wedding Magic (1)
NEX-6, 55-210mm E-Mount Lens @ 191mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/100 secs, ISO 400, f/6.3

For the first of two Wedding Magic posts (there are two wedding photos in David Busch’s book), I had really planned on using a photo of the Bride & Groom together, enjoying their day, as this is really what a wedding day is all about. However, I couldn’t resist using this shot of one of the bridesmaids because I like the candid moment of her fastening her earring, along with the backlight coming from the sun shining through the large patio windows. The light, combined with the depth of field blur, just gives the shot a bit of a dreamy effect to my mind, and it was one of the few moments where Sarah was not painfully aware of the camera!

If I had been completely intent on using a shot that included the Bride & Groom, I would have used this as the featured shot – it captures the spirit of the whole day, with everybody smiling and looking on as the happy couple kiss.

I had been asked to take photographs of the Bride and Bridesmaids getting their hair and make up done in the morning, as the Bride is my best friend’s sister. She had a professional photographer for the main ceremony of course, but they thought that it would be nice to have photos of the whole day, whilst it would also benefit me being able to take shots for this blog, and so this was my very first experience of wedding photography. I’m glad that it was just a favour for a friend, as I certainly do not feel confident enough to have the pressure entirely on me of photographing the happiest day of a couple’s life just yet!

The day began with the girls having their hair and make up done. This is the Bride, Louise.

As I was excited to be taking photos of the wedding, I was awake by half six in the morning, even though I was not due at the house where they were getting ready until eight o’clock – I had even packed all of my camera gear the night before in preparation (for a change!). When I arrived, the first Bridesmaid was already in the chair, having her hair done and make up applied. I had done a little bit of research on wedding photography, to make sure I had some idea of what I should be doing, and so took this shot of Emma’s reflection in the mirror.

Whilst I do not think the shot is particularly flattering, I do like the composition of the mirror hinge directly down the centre of Emma’s face.

Unfortunately, the mirror being used was nothing like I had seen in the wedding photos I found during my research, and it was also a little on the dirty side. However, I think it was good how this allowed my shots to concentrate on the girls’ eyes to a large extent, as you can also see now with the third Bridesmaid, Karen.

I used a different angle here, to avoid cutting Karen’s face in half!

As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is seriously important to get your subject’s eyes in sharp focus when taking portrait style photographs, and so I was making a real effort to concentrate on doing just that. I was using the Focus Peaking setting on my NEX-6 to help with this, which highlights the areas of the shot which are in the sharpest focus – I believe that most Sony interchangeable lens cameras have this feature (if not all), which is not found on other manufacturers’ models. I also set the focus mode to Direct Manual Focus, which allowed the camera to autofocus quickly, whilst leaving me the option to manually adjust it by turning the focus ring of the camera’s lens for extra precision. This is actually a setting that I use a great deal, as I find that it allows me to focus on my intended subject in the shortest amount of time in most cases.

It looks as though Sarah is flashing a smirk for the camera here, but really she was smiling at the thought of how she could inflict the most pain upon me – if I didn’t stop taking shots of her without make up on.

I think that special mention should really be made of the make up artist in charge of getting the four of the ladies looking their best for the day, Sarah Green. I have been to a number of weddings where the Bride and Bridesmaids look really unnaturally made-up, but Sarah really did Louise and the others proud, making them all look stunning and natural at the same time. You should really check out this website for some professional images of her work and talent – www.sarahgreenmakeup.co.uk

I probably haven’t done justice to the make up with this shot, but I do enjoy the contrasting shadows and light across Karen’s face. Although it would have been better if the light was slightly higher up, and on her eyes.

Although the Bride and Bridesmaids are an extremely important part of a wedding day, the dress, flowers and other bits and pieces of the Bride’s outfit are also crucial, and something that should be remembered. I am a little bit more used to photographing inanimate objects than I am people, so felt more at home with the flowers that arrived half way through the morning. I did also take photos of the dress and jewellery, but not as successfully as I would have liked.

This is probably one of my favourite shots of the dress, which tells you a lot about the others that I attempted!

At least I had more luck with the bouquets (I think so, at least), and I even tried out a few special effects when processing those shots in Aperture 3 – mainly by playing about with the Curves adjustment, which is something that I have only recently started to understand the benefits of.

This was Louise’s bouquet, which I haven’t messed about with too much in Aperture.

This is a fairly untouched shot of one a Bridesmaid’s bouquet.

For this close-up shot, I couldn’t resist making the purples pop a bit more than they may have done in the original photograph.

This shot of a buttonhole rose is the one that I have altered most drastically, using the Curves adjustment in Aperture 3.

Taking photographs at a wedding has pretty much taken my interest in photography full-circle, as it was looking at the photos of friends’ weddings that originally made me realise what great shots were possible when using an interchangeable lens camera. I must admit that I prefer candid shots, over those where I would ask my subject to pose or do something specific – apart from the confidence issues that can surround telling another person what to do, I really enjoy seeing the natural expressions of people when they are not busy thinking about the camera.

The mother of the Bride 🙂

Once the hair and make up was all finished (only 30 mins late) it was time to get the Bride in the wedding car, and send her off to meet her Groom. Due to the fact that this was very much a rush, I didn’t get much chance to take photos of her getting in to the car and so on, but I did get the odd snatched moment to snap away.

Louise, waiting for her father before setting off for the wedding venue.

As the professional photographer was ready and waiting at the ceremony (and I was following the wedding car, making me as late as the Bride) I did not take any shots of the wedding itself, but did take my camera out again once that had finished, keeping it to hand throughout the meal, speeches, and until the first dance.

The Bride & Groom about to leave for a quick drive and bottle of champagne.

I suppose that one of the most magical parts of photographing a wedding is the opportunity to capture human emotions and all of the other special moments that combine to make a day that everybody will remember. Here are a few of those moments:

Fun & Laughter

Family

Happiness

Giving Thanks

Merriness

Last, but not least – The First Dance

I took nearly 600 photos on the day, many using my external flash unit (which I think was invaluable in helping the lighting of the indoor shots), used up both of my camera batteries, and was awake for much longer than I would normally care to be! It was a great deal of fun though, and really lovely to be a part of the couple’s special day. I don’t think that I could cope with doing it every weekend though – although I will possibly be taking a few snaps at another friend’s wedding later this year!

A Floral Abstract (Photo 25)

A Floral Abstract
NEX-6, 55-210mm E-Mount Lens @ 55mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 4 secs, ISO 400, f/4.5

After seeing a video on DigitalRev TV, where they were setting fire to flowers, I thought that would make an excellent subject for this week’s post – A Floral Abstract. After my problems with last week’s theme, I really wanted to get a good photo and I am definitely happy with the results, but as usual things did not go as smoothly as I first expected! Aware that this is often the case, I began my preparation on Tuesday, and started my hunt for Isopropyl Alcohol (which they used in the video that I saw) and some flowers.

My first attempt at a photo of a flower on fire – I like the shape of the flames, almost like a fire angel with a rose for its head. The flames are not delicate enough for the effect that I was looking for though.

It turns out that it can be very difficult to find anywhere that sells Isopropyl Alcohol, also known as Rubbing Alcohol for its cleaning properties, and so after stopping at hardware shops and chemists (as advised on the Internet) I was still empty handed. I also did not have any flowers, as the one florist in my local area decided to lock up before 16:40, despite advertising a closing time of 17:00. In the end, I decided to go to Morrisons where I bought a bottle of 40% brandy, along with a small bunch of roses and a small bunch of orange germini – the checkout girl must have thought it was somebody’s lucky night!

I chose orange germini, as I wanted the blue flames of alcohol to contrast with the orange flower.

Despite all the hype of setting Christmas Puddings on fire, this brandy was not catching light for me. Having had a number of flaming sambucas in my time, I am fully aware that alcoholic drinks are more than capable of being lit easily, but I think it has something to do with getting the right mix of vapour off the liquid and so on, and I didn’t have the first idea of where to start with figuring that out! Come to think of it, I should have tried lighting the brandy in my mouth – that would have been a good test to find out whether or not it actually was flammable. I have plenty left to test at least! Anyhow, things were not going to happen that evening, and so I ordered a bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol off Amazon as a back up.

I thought that three flowers in the same plant pot would create a reasonable effect, but my lack of lighting for this shot stops it from working I think.

Wednesday came around, and I searched the Internet for suggestions of where to buy Isopropyl Alcohol on the High Street. I came across one post that mentioned Maplin, the electronics retailer, so I called the local branch and they confirmed that they had it in both spray and can form, so I opted for the spray in order to have more control over where I applied it to the flowers, and also to prevent myself from getting it everywhere. That evening, I took all of my equipment outside and started taking shots of the flowers in plant pots that I have on the wall – I originally bought these to grow herbs in, but as the herbs died within days of me planting them I’m just glad that I have finally found a use for them.

I have three plant pots, so stuck a flower in each and set my lens’ aperture to the maximum size, to create a shallow depth of field.

Other than the featured image, the shots that you have seen so far were taken on the Wednesday evening, when I finally had a reliable flammable liquid. I was using my camera in Aperture Priority mode, as I wanted to control the depth of field, but wasn’t too concerned about what shutter speed the camera was going to choose. However, I forgot to change the ISO setting out of Auto, so the camera chose the maximum Auto setting of 3200 (the maximum manual setting of the NEX-6 is 25600), which is why the shots look too grainy for my liking.

This was my favourite overall shot from my first attempt with the flowers. It looks sharp, and I like the fact that the colourful pots are included too.

Unhappy with myself for forgetting to set the ISO manually, I had another quick attempt at photographing flaming flowers last night. Due to the bitterly cold, strong wind and the constant light snowfall that we have been experiencing across the UK the last two days, I decided to take the shots in my kitchen, with the tiled floor presumably being fairly fire-resistant if the worst were to happen. Luckily, nothing terrible happened and I did not cause any fire related damage to the house, but I did get a couple more shots that I was really happy with – the featured shot being one of them. I also really like this next shot too, as it seems to be the sharpest of the photos that I took, with the flower’s petals also being quite untouched by the flame at that point.

My 2nd favourite shot from this week’s post. It is reasonably sharp, with good colour and flames, but it would have benefitted from a smaller aperture so that the stem is also in sharper focus.

My technique for capturing the images was basically the same both nights (apart from the ISO setting of course). I used a tripod to keep my camera steady, and decided to use my telephoto lens as it seems to give a more pleasing depth of field effect than my kit 18-55mm lens does. I positioned the flowers and then sprayed them with the Isopropyl Alcohol, before lighting them with a standard plastic lighter. I set my camera to Aperture Priority mode, and allowed it to decide what shutter speed to use, as I knew that it would decide on something around a second or longer, due to the lack of ambient lighting.

I edited the original shot slightly, using CameraBag 2, to see what other effects I could get with the image. I prefer the stronger circle of light behind the flower here, but the highlights in the flames have been pushed a little too far up, losing some of the detail.

The longer shutter speeds allowed the flames to be captured with more of a blur effect, and I used my remote control to take the photos to prevent any camera shake from blurring the flowers as well. As I also wanted to control the point of focus, I was manually focusing on the flowers beforehand, and left the camera’s focus mode in manual, so that it did not try to refocus once I was ready to take the actual shots.

I applied another CameraBag 2 filter to create this black and white version of the featured shot.

I chose the featured image because of the slightly vintage feel I get from the background. The 4 second shutter speed allowed more ambient light to come back off the background, and I added a vignette in Aperture 3 to create a more circular effect to that light. It is not as sharp as my second favourite shot, but I prefer the overall effect. Incidentally, my second favourite shot was taken with a shutter speed of just one second, which is why the background looks completely black, as there was not time for enough ambient light to reflect back on to the NEX-6’s sensor.

I hope that you have enjoyed the photos, and if you’re going to try, please do be careful not to let any burning liquid fall on to children, pets or soft furnishings – do it outdoors if you can.

While a City Sleeps (Photo 19)

While a City Sleeps
NEX-6, 55-210mm E-Mount Lens, Manual Mode, 2.5 sec, ISO 400, f/14

I decided to attempt this week’s theme as it coincided with me taking a night time photography course, with Manchester Photographic, which my brother and his wife kindly bought me for Christmas. I have interpreted the theme slightly differently to the literal meaning of taking photos in the middle of the night, as the photos I have were all taken between around 19:00 and 22:00, but I think that the important part of this is learning to tackle photography after dark.

I chose the featured image because I like the way the lighting catches the stairway and throws shadows on to the brickwork. It also gives the sense of a deserted industrial building during the night, and I have added a tint, before de-saturating the colours in the image by quite a large amount, using Aperture 3. The image is just a relatively small detail of Meadow Mill in Stockport, which I visited on Friday evening whilst searching out subjects for this post.

A much wider view of Meadow Mill, with passing cars creating light trails.

My inspiration for the way that I have approached the majority of these photos comes from recently being introduced to dibec.com, by somebody who will hopefully be helping me out with his artistic vision in some future posts – JP Hubbard-Byfield, whose own blog you can take a look at right here, for some awesome imagery. Dibec’s photos are stunning, with a good number being taken at night, and seem to capture the beauty that is created by mixing light and darkness, with some very clever composition thrown in for good measure. I can’t claim to have even nearly perfected his technique, but I have enjoyed trying to approach photography in a similar way.

Another area of the mill, lit by a single light and surrounded by darkness.

The above photo of the entrance to KC Autos is the sort of thing that I had in mind, but I had to zoom closer in than I would really have liked to because there were a number of lights in the surrounding background – ideally, I was looking for an illuminated subject completely surrounded by darkness. I added a green/blue tint to this photo, along with the strongest available vignette to make sure that any surrounding areas are not visible in the final image. I also tried a black and white version, with a little bit of colour brought back through. I’m not too sure if I like the effect, but you can judge for yourself – I think I probably needed a few more details across the image to bring colour back to:

The same photo as above, but treated differently in Aperture 3.

The mill was quite an interesting subject to photograph overall, with lots of details and shadows to capture. I used a combination of Manual, Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes for the photos, but my main concern was to use fairly high f-stops on the aperture, in order to get the starburst effect in the lights that were on show. For this type of photography it is pretty much essential to have a sturdy tripod, as you will usually be using shutter speeds of at least one second or longer – it is possible to rest your camera on inanimate objects of course, but that limits your ability to point it in exactly the right direction. Here is one more shot of the mill, which is a close-up of some illuminated arches and another staircase – I also de-saturated the colours in this photograph:

Close-up of Meadow Mill, with de-satruated colours, but not to the point of turning it black and white. It roughly follows the triangular rule of thirds.

My initial attempts at taking photographs for this post were from my MCR @ Night course, which was on Tuesday. The course was interesting and the tutor gave everybody some useful hints and tips for taking photos at night. I had come across most of them, but then I do read quite a lot about photography! We went out in a group of about 12, and stopped off at various places to take some shots – I lost count of how many people asked us who we were waiting to photograph though, as we looked like a group of paparazzi waiting for celebrities! We started off with some traffic shots of light trails, at the top of Portland Street, near Piccadilly, where I caught a couple of fire engines drive past:

The flashing blue lights of the fire engines gave a slightly different effect than a normal vehicle’s headlights would do.

We then moved further down Portland Street, where I took the next image, which I thought was slightly closer to the style of some of Dibec’s shots. The one problem with modern Britain though is that councils just love to plant sign posts and railings absolutely everywhere – with the introduction of health and safety saving so many potential victims of Darwinism, people’s common sense can no longer be relied upon! It seems almost impossible to get a clear view of interesting buildings/objects, so please excuse the crowded composition of this:

I chose this shot because I wanted to capture the light trails of a bus wrapping around the corner of the building.

Chinatown was the next stop along the tour, where it started to rain (unusual for Manchester!). I managed to get one hurried shot, where I like the effect of rain on my camera’s lens, before losing my bottle and putting the NEX-6 back in my backpack to stay dry. The composition leaves plenty to be desired, but with a little tinting I think it has a pleasing effect overall:

My one shot in Chinatown, before I decided not to test the NEX-6’s water resistance!

Thankfully the rain relented as we moved on to Mosley Street, in order to take some shots of the Metrolink trams, where I managed to get a little closer to the style of photos that I was really keen to take. I chose to take the following shot from quite a wide angle, so that I could make the strong lines of the buildings into one of the main features of the image. I again tinted the final image, with greens and blues, which are complemented by the orange lighting that I also captured:

Light trails from a tram travelling down Mosley Street.

I used the same tint for the following photograph as well, which is of the reception area from 58 Mosley Street. I really liked the bright interior contrasted against the dark, wet night that we were in outside:

58 Mosley Street – I’m not sure what the building is actually used for, but it looked like an interesting image to capture.

I have to say that night time, urban photography is definitely something that I really enjoy. Once you get over the slight awkwardness of being out in the streets with a camera and tripod, whilst people wonder what you are doing, and whether or not they need to call the police on a crazy person, it is quite a relaxing experience! I suppose that is because you are forced to slow down by the fact that you need to use longer exposures and a tripod, meaning that you naturally take more care over composition and camera settings. I will leave you with one more shot, which I took in St. Ann’s Square, of the Town Hall. I used the bracketing feature of the NEX-6 for this, which means it takes 3 shots of varying exposures. You can then put these together in computer software and create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image. This means that you capture detail in shadows and light, when with just one shot you would have to choose one or the other…

Black & White HDR image of Manchester Town Hall.