Happy Birthday Melanie!

Today is my wife�s birthday so I would like to dedicate my blog today to her.

She is a wonderful wife and friend who I couldn�t do without.

 

Her smile lights up the room but it was her beautiful blue eyes that first captured my heart.

For you Mel a simple rose as just a small token of my love.

Happy Birthday Mel.

Technorati Tags: rose,love,Melanie,wife,friend,heart

Romanian Portraiture.

Taking portraits in black and white can add drama and definition to the subject.

When I took these photo's in Romania a few years ago, I consciously chose black and white to emphasise the culture and age of the subjects.

The age of this man is celebrated in the wrinkles on his face, enhanced by choosing to shoot in the medium of black and white.

The old women sitting in front of her house knitting.

The men socialising.

The Grandmother caring for her granddaughter.

I believe all these photos are aided by being taken in black and white.

Hopefully each of these pictures tells you its own story.

 The poverty of the people in the area where we stayed was noticeable but they didn't seem to be affected by it. The people of these rural, Eastern European communities smiled, laughed, and generally enjoyed life, without seeming to need the trappings we often take for granted in our western societies.

 Hopefully I have given you at least a peek of the characters behind the photos, through these black and white images.

These photos were all shot using black and white film on my old Canon 600 SLR camera.

Sky Pictures.

Sat at my computer I look out over the flat landscape of South Lincolnshire, England.

Because the land is so flat the sky plays a large part of the landscape.

This evening it was crying out to be photographed.

I didn't need to go far just to the boundary of our garden to get these pictures.

The constantly changing shapes of the clouds give a different picture from the same location very quickly.

Changing the format of the picture from landscape (above) to portrait gives a whole new effect to the composition.

The clouds in this picture above seem to be in three distinct layers towering over the landscape.

Unlike the landscape formatted pictures I have included the horizon in the frame. This was done to emphasise the magnitude of the sky and to give a reference point allowing the eye to pan from the ground up into the sky and clouds.

Looking out now on the same landscape there are no longer any clouds to be seen.

This goes to show that with photography half the challenge is being in the right place at the right time.

Not only that but seeing the opportunity for a photo and taking it.

The advantage with modern digital cameras is that you can take as many shots as you want and it will not cost you any more than taking just one.

You may take 50 photos of one subject and if only one photo turns out to be really good then it was worth it.

 Go on take some photographs.

Abstract Art - Reflections.

I was sat on my computer, which is conveniently next to my drum kit, trying to decide what to talk about. I had a number of ideas, but then I glanced at the reflection on the base drum these were all scrapped.

The question posed itself. How can I take a good photo of a reflection in a non-traditional mirrored surface such as the kick drum?

Grabbing my camera (which was sat next to me on the desk) and my tripod I set about experimenting.

First I tried just letting the camera choose the settings!

As you can see my first attempts did not turn out very well. There is a film to the reflection and it has a lack of depth.

Next I manually changed the aperture on my camera to give the deepest depth of field possible thus keeping the whole of the reflection sharp. I also added a polarising filter to the lens to get rid of the film of white light on the reflection surface.

The example below shows the changes the effect of these alterations made.

Looking around the room for other abstract reflections I came across this bottle of coke.

The contours of the bottle create a fish-eye style reflection of the room including me taking the photo. The polarising filter has not fully rid the picture of the film of light but it has helped.

Going back to the computer I found the monitor had switched itself off into sleep mode. This produced another interesting reflection.

I've blurred the frame of the monitor in the shot, instead focusing on the reflection only, to create this dark self portrait.

It was an interesting experiment and something I will have to practice more of to get it just right, but worth the experimentation.

Have a go yourself and drop me a message or leave a comment to say if you tried it and how they turned out. I may even post some of your photos on a later blog.

Thought I'd add a few semi-candid shots I took this morning outside church.

I've tried to catch the shot quickly so avoiding the sometimes awkward smile you get when they aren't quite sure what to do in front of the camera.

Esther

These are my children so they are used to their dad snapping away and just tend to ignore me most of the time lol.


Keziah


Harriet

I think I've managed to capture just a little of their personality in each shot.
I prefer a portrait that says something about the person.


If any one visited my site earlier this evening I apologise for the layout problems. I was tweaking the HTML code and got it a bit wrong, but its all sorted out now.

Feel free to leave any comments about the blog whether its about the photos, my comments or even the layout. I will attempt to reply to all and return the favour by dropping by at your blog too.

Thanks for visiting.