Tag Archives: Photography

#NZpicoftheday

Photography, , ,

Having just returned from New Zealand where we an amazing time was had and spurned on by Mr Dan Slee; Instead of attempting to write a rambling blog post about everything we did and saw that will never get finished and hence will never get posted, for the next few weeks – maybe even months I will instead be posting a photograph a day here.

It will be cross posted here from my Flickr page, where it will also post to my Twitter stream using the #NZpicoftheday tag, Finally I’ll add it to my Facebook page so If you forget to visit here – there are plenty of other places for you to see them.

The first will come later as I’m just too damn jet – lagged right now to even contemplate it!!

Breaking the rules

Family, Photography, The Blonde Kid, , , , ,

Playing with the sun

I love my camera, I just always wish I was more proficient with it, so I’ve been reading lots and lots of articles to try and improve, The most recent one about shooting into the sun so I thought I’d give it a go.

Generally the rule is shoot with the sun over your shoulder, so it felt a little odd blinding myself through the viewfinder but I persevered took a couple and this one was my favourite.

I’m not 100% happy with it but I’m not sure what it is that I’m unhappy with maybe it’s just that I’m not used to deliberately creating glare or maybe it would have worked better had the blonde kid being looking towards the camera?  I don’t know but I  guess I’ll carry on reading and shoot some more, dragging my ever (un)willing test subject out again to try and find out.

Capturing images….

Facts About Me, Home, Memory, WBIAGW, , , , ,

When I was in school I used to love art class but when it came to my GSCE years and we  had options the choices offered to me were Music, PE , Art OR Drama.

P.E was out straight away – choosing to spend the final 2 year of my life as the most unsporting person I know in the company of a PE teacher I hated (ahem,  Miss Dickie) oh no no no no that wasn’t going to happen. Music there was no chance I can’t hold a tune to save my life and the coordination to play a musical instrument….forget it, so that left Art or Drama, I went with Drama. I love Drama (being somewhat of a drama queen) and enjoyed being on stage, performing in several shows extra curricular to my school activities, where as in Art I really only ever drew when I felt like I WANTED to draw, when I really felt like I was really interested in the subject and I got to choose when that happened, so I let it slide – sometimes I wished I hadn’t.

Sometimes I wished I’d kept it up and had the skills to capture the images I take with my camera and turn them into something special with pen and paper – sometimes I wished I’d tried harder….

So last year I did.

Leaving work on my lunch one cold wintery day I spotted a leaf on the ground and did what every sane person would do I picked it up and carried it around with me until I returned to the office and snapped a photo of it with camera phone – I don’t know why I just felt like it, it’s not the most spectacular image in the world but I kept it all the same I then threw the leaf away.

That photo sat on my phone for ages……

A few months later I spotted a drawing book on sale in The Works and bought it, I still had a set of nice drawing pencils at home and I had half an idea that I would draw something , I just didn’t know what – then I started looking through the photos on my phone and inspiration struck, I knew there was  reason I’d picked that leaf up on that day, I just didn’t know what until I had my pencils in hand….

It’s not the most spectacular drawing in the world, it’s not even a true likeness of the image on the left, but it’s my drawing,  it’s the first I’d properly attempted since opting out of art class for drama when I was 14 and I was kinda happy with it.

That was over 12 months ago now. My pencils have sat in the box since un-thought of until today when I came across the photo of the leaf again and I thought it about time I gave them another airing. I’ve sat and pondered for a while about what I could draw and after a while I realised I was wasting my time….

…30 year old me is still suffering from the affliction 14 year old me suffered and maybe it will be another 15 years before I pick up my pencils again. I can’t think what I want to draw, what I’d be able to draw so I don’t and as what I draw isn’t as good as what I’d like it to be anyway I think I’m better off staying hid behind my camera lens instead after all I could never recreate this image with my hand!

Winter 2010

Flickr

Facts About Me, Photography, ,

As you may have guessed from previous posts I enjoy photography. I enjoy photography enough that when it came to a choice between new clothes or a new camera lens I chose a new lens – and I’m a GIRL!

I post photos to moblog (albeit a lot less frequently than I did before) and soon there will be my own website (but the story of that deserves a whole post of it’s own) but at the moment I mainly use flickr.

I like flickr because it’s a fantastic learning platform – it forces me to improve my photography as when I compare it to some of the work on show mine pales in comparrison and I love it because of the groups.

Groups are a great, you can share your photos, start discussions and in some cases arrange to meet other people to walk talk and take photos. Groups can be based on anything – a theme, a style, a geographic location.

Recently I’ve taken part in a few flickr projects that I want to blog about but without first talking about Flickr they make no sense at all.

My Flickr:

My 4am

4am Project, Photography, WBIAGW, , , ,

On the 4th April 2010 at 4am I was walking the streets of Wolverhampton with 5 other idiots enthusiasts with cameras documenting our world.

Why? Well because I could, BUT why then specifically? Because of this: 4amproject. The 4amproject is the brainchild of Birmingham photographer Karen Strunks, she was driving home one morning at 4am and realised just how different her world was at that hour and decided to document it, on it went from there taking the rest of the world with her.

I really wanted to take part in the first 4am project, I set my alarm and everything but when it went off 12 months ago I woke looked out of my window thought hell where do I go as a none driver to take “interesting” photos around here now? and went back to bed. When I rose the next morning and explored Flickr for some of the results I could have kicked myself – I could have just literally walked out of the front door and shot my empty street if I’d wanted as at 4am that IS interesting, so this year I was determined that I would join in.

I made plans with Rich to drive into Birmingham, but we decided that it might be more fun to join the Wolverhampton group,  but then on the afternoon of the 3rd he realised he was maybe being a “little” ambitious trying to take part in the 4am project with me and then driving his wife to Manchester for their flights to Egypt at 5am – so what should I do? Go alone but James wasn’t happy with the idea of me walking around town looking for a taxi once I’d finished with the Wolverhampton 4am-ers , but nor did he want me out on my own locally either, he even offered to get up with me and we’d take TBK out with us so I didn’t miss out. While trying to decide what to do  I tweeted:

Trying to decide; @4amproject is it worth taxi fares to get to town as my ‘driver’ can’t make it, do I go local, or do I just sleep through

Twitter is full of amazing people and the ever lovely Lee Allen saw my dilemma and made me an offer of a lift home – (Thank you again sir) – So I set my alarm for 3am, booked the taxi for 3.30am charged my camera batteries and that was me set.

I met up with some lovely people Lee, Adrienne (and her much coveted LensBaby), Dave (T), Dave (B) and Dale – some of whom I had briefly met before some I hadn’t. We encountered one bemused security guard, one amused cyclist and one confused man topless covered in blood and his lost ambulance.

Lee made a video of us doing our thing:

4am Project in Wolverhampton from Lee Allen on Vimeo.

–Adrienne and Dave (T) have written about it on their own blogs, and despite being told I was crazy by everyone who was tucked up warm in bed at 4am Sunday morning I can’t wait to do it all again next year – which  Rich for the record there will be no backing out of 😉