Concept



This year I will be mostly... taking a photo every day, and posting it up here for you all to see and comment on if you feel inclined (please do). It's not an original idea, I stole it off a friend and many other people are doing the same as I speak, but I thought it seemed like a great idea to get used to my new toy, my Canon Eos 500D with Tamron 18-250mm Macro lens - my first digital SLR.

A lot of sites online talk about 'project 365' where people are encouraged to take a photo every day, but while their take on it is to create a personal history of the photographer, I wanted to make it a bit more abstract, more about the world around me. So this isn't meant to be a photo diary of my life, I am striving for each photo to be 'good' because of its artistic and technical merit, not because it's personal to me. Having said that personal subject matter will inevitably creep in as inspiration, but that's allowed, the book I'm reading claim that "every picture we take is merely a self-portrait of our inner psyche"!

I had a think of a couple of ideas for themes and settled on 'moods'. Then I was hit by indecision as to what to do if I take a photo I like and want to upload as my daily snap, but it doesn't fit the theme. So I have decided that the theme is just for inspiration rather than as a criteria, the photos can be of anything. That way I get the most flexibility of what to upload, and still have a muse.

While I'll be taking photos every day, I'll only upload them every few days, so keep checking back. I'm not anticipating the photos to be groundbreaking (at least not to start with!), the whole point is to improve so I won't be great initially. But I'll still try my best which will hopefully keep it interesting. Please feel free to add whatever comments you like (hopefully constructive!) as that will help me as much as the process of actually taking a photo a day, I will endeavour to reply to them all.

For my trip reports blog see http://fidgetsadventures.blogspot.com


Friday 22 April 2011

Thursday 21st April 2011

More reverse lens macro! This subject sat still.

I'm heading off to Scotland tomorrow for a varied break and won't be near my computer so there won't be any posts for a few days.
Rest assured though I will still be taking daily photos and I will update on my return (backdated). Have a lovely double bank holiday all!


150mm (approx), 1/50s, f/11 (approx), ISO 400

Wednesday 20th April 2011

A few weeks ago I went along to help some crazy men dig the rubble out of a tunnel in a cave that filled up with sediment last time they tried to dig it out. I went back this week, and took a camera with me since I hadn't managed any other photos during the day. This is the last part of the entrance pitch into Rowter Hole in the Peak District. Many thanks go to my obliging assistants, shining lights and hanging on the rope.


18mm, 20s (auto from aperture priority), f/11, ISO 400

Tuesday 19th April 2011

Climbing at the Roaches.


50mm, 1/250s (auto from aperture priority), f/4.5, ISO 400

Sunday 3rd April 2011

It appears that I missed out a blog day as I got confused about how many days I spent in Scotland on my last trip, so here it is, better late than never!

This is from the walk out from our Munro adventure.


35mm, 1/40s (auto from aperture priority), f/13, ISO 400

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Monday 18th April 2011

More reverse lens, of this obliging little fellow. He was less than a cm long, maybe 5mm. I think it might be a robber fly, although my book in insect identification is in the post! With my reverse lens at its closest I could get him to fill the frame but he was too dark, so I had to move back a bit in order to fire the flash. I have photos with more of its body and wings in, but I like the character of this one, where it looks like he's peering over the top of the blade of grass at me (maybe he was!) and it's most reminiscent of this amazing photo which I aspire to.


150mm (approx), 1/10s, f/11, ISO 200

The following photo was taken without the lens reversed for comparison, at its closest focussing distance at full zoom. It also gives a better idea of scale...


250mm (approx), 1/400s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Sunday 17th April 2011

Getting air.


18mm, 1/800s (auto from aperture priority), f/4.5, ISO 400

Saturday 16th April 2011

I finally managed it! A reverse lens macro shot of my own eye, and I'm really pleased with it. Now I'm getting on top of the idiosynchrasies of reverse lens macro I'm ready to upgrade my equipment to make it a little easier and enhance the variety of shots that I can take.


200mm (approx), 1/8s, f/13, ISO 200

Friday 15th April 2011

When I tell people I live in Stoke-on-Trent, the usual response is along the lines of "ugh, bit grim isn't it?", or at best "what's it like?", and then I reel off many good points! I can't say its pub and clubs are amazing as that's not really my scene, but when it comes to theatres it has a choice and not only do they put on some imressive productions, but they look cool too. This is the Regent (in case you couldn't guess).





18mm, 13s, f/8, ISO 200

Thursday 14 April 2011

Thursday 14th April 2011

This is more like it! This was a gift of a photo, everything set up just as it was. A daddy long legs curled round a tooth mirror (shame it wasn't on the reflective side!) on the bathroom windowsill, drenched in natural light. I flipped my lens round (with f/11 to ensure enough light for me to see the shot, even if it meant a very shallow depth of field) a took a test photo at 18mm - the creature was magnified so much I only captured its head, and the view was a little dark. Realising I could zoom out, I did so to 250mm (everything works in reverse with the lens reversed) which meant I could get further away, and also that meant the flash worked. With the flash popped up the live view works better, so even better if you don't have to flip it back down again to take the photo. I tried to zoom in on the live view screen to nail the focus better but the subject was wobbling around in the display, so I fetched a tripod and just managed to plant it on the edge of the sink, and then could zoom in to 10x. With mirror lock up and a 2 second timer which finished counting down just as the display stopped oscillating with the movement of my finger press, I got a nice crisp shot. I thought the daddy long legs might be dead as it didn't stir when I moved the tootbrush holder further and further back so I could get more of the creature in (this is actually one of the closer shots, as the further back ones lost the blue background of the toothbrush tube), and I felt a little like I was cheating and a little gruesome. However when I rotated the mirror inside the pot to get the blue background back it had enough and scarpered off up the window. But I had a shot that I liked!


250mm (I think), 1/6s, f/11, ISO 400

Wednesday 13th April

I figured it was time to share a photo of what's taking up all my time at the moment and distracting me from photo duties. Presenting - my stairs! Nicely (as long as you don't look at the wrong bits) sanded.


77mm, 1/10s (auto from aperture priority), f/5, ISO 400

Tuesday 12th April 2011

I had a bit of a nightmare with photos today. At lunchtime I tried (again) to take a macro shots of my own eye - my laptop crashed and I ran out of time. I tried again in the evening - a series of errors (dead batteries being the final one) meaning that I failed again. Then I left my camera recording a star trail while I went to Asda but there was too much light pollution to make a decent photo. So instead, here's a photo of my lounge lampshade! I'm actually quite drawn by the pattern, and can be found staring at it when the TV is boring.


22mm, 1/14s (auto from aperture priority), f/3.5, ISO 400

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Monday 11th April 2011

I walked round the local lake this evening to look for blackcaps after possibly catching a glimpse of one on Friday. No luck with the birds (and I still haven't seen the elusive kingfishers there), but I did get a couple of nice photos of the low sun shining through the tufty edges of the bullrushes. Then suddenly there was this golden glow and the grass glowed green and the sky blue and I balanced on a railing to gain a little height to capture it on film (note - not *actual* film). I've done very little to this - a slight automatic tweak in camera raw, and a sharpening pass.


18mm, 1/80s (auto from aperture priority), f/8, ISO 200

Sunday 11th April 2011

It's been a while since I had a double posting but I'm tied between two today. Which would you choose?

Fishes amidst reflections


250mm, 1/320s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 400

or

A horse munching grass


18mm, 1.6s (auto from aperture priority), f/3.5, ISO 800

Saturday 10th April 2011

Birch polypore fungus and blossom.


77mm, 1/200s (auto from aperture priority), f/5, ISO 800

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Friday 8th April 2011

Goosegrass - Galium aparine. This stuff gets everywhere and I normally pull it up, but I've decided to let a strip of it take hold along the front of the greenhouse.


155mm, 1/200s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.6, ISO 800

Thursday 7 April 2011

Thursday 7th April 2011

One of a pair of gorgeous grey wagtails frolicking up and down an old mill weir.


250mm, 1/50s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 800

Wednesday 6th April 2011

"Why do you build me up, build me up..."


200mm (roughly, not recorded), 1/40s, f/11 (I think, not recorded), ISO 400

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Tuesday 5th April 2011

More splashes!





200mm, 1/100s, f/11, ISO 800

Monday 4th April 2011

I'm been rather rushed with tasks at home at the moment so unfortunately a few times my photo of the day has got left until the last moment. I've dug out my reverse lens macro adapter keen to try it, but unfortunately I think it's going to work better with natural light rather than a hand held head torch, so the results have been a little sub standard. Still, they give some interesting results - I was failing to take a photo of my own eye, and dusty eyelashes, to grabbed the nearest thing to hand which was a pair of glasses. I didn't expect to get anything more with macro than a bar of silvery colour, but the super close up revealed a whole load of stringy colourful dust, near enough invisible to the naked eye.


18mm, 0"4s, f/16, ISO 1600

Saturday 2nd April 2011

Today we endured various rain showers and snowy slopes, as well as more wet feet and strong winds (although not strong enough to blow us over today). We ticked off two Munros and on the descent from the second we were gifted with the sight of this beautiful rainbow, which made it all worthwhile!


18mm, 1/320s (auto from aperture priority), f/9, ISO 400

Friday 1st April 2011

There are so many 'moods' associated with this photo it's hard to find the words to portray them, so I'll give a little description of the situation and hope that the photo speaks for itself. We'd driven up to the Northwest Highlands from Glasgow in the morning and spent 6 hours walking into in to a remote bothy. The weather wasn't as bad as forecast but the wind was pretty strong and we got blown off our feet a couple of times walking up the second valley. There were heavy packs, river crossings, either wet or tricky, and then a lot of bog hopping and wet feet. The bothy finally came into sight although it was another half hour to reach it. Once safely ensconced inside, sodden boots and socks removed and beds laid out, we cooked up our dinner as night fell and perused the stories of previous fellow trekkers in the visitors book. The light of the head torch highlighted the comforting steam emanating from the lamb hotpot inside the foil package, and Jen happily chewed away restoring some of her expended energy.


18mm, 1.6s (auto from aperture priority), f/3.5, ISO 800

Monday 4 April 2011

Thursday 31st March 2011

On the way to Scotland this evening I used a technique that I've used previously but hasn't made it on to my blog as I already had a photo for that day. This is an abstract view of car tail lights and street lights.


18mm, 2s, f/10, ISO 100