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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, 6 May 2011

Saturday 30th April 2011

I was sitting in a cafe with my camera set up for reverse lens macro to take photos of a periodic wasp, when a little green fleck jumped onto my finger. It was such a sunny day that even with an aperture of f/9 or f/10, I got a fast enough shutter speed that the photos came out crisp even though I was hand holding the camera, and some were pleasingly in focus (focus is even harder to obtain hand held when things are magnified). This is my favourite by far because the compound eye seems to be reflecting the colour of the scales. I've identified it as a weevil, although I'm not quite sure whether it's a green nettle, acorn or vine weevil. I was amazed how much detail I could see, so fantastic to be able to see the world in miniature just by looking through a couple of pieces of glass.


18mm, 1/80s, f/10 (approx), ISO 400
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6 comments:

  1. squirrel6 May 2011 at 18:17

    I love this photo - I don't think my camera is capable of quite this level of macro so I'll just have to admire your pics for now.

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  2. Sarah Clough6 May 2011 at 18:55

    I have to use some trickery to make mine capable of it!

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  3. drupka7 May 2011 at 15:10

    Weevils are just great! ;-)
    (Maybe its my solidarity with other large-nosed creatures!)
    Also amused to see that your sensor is nearly as filthy as mine - I thought it was my screen at first.
    You've done well with the focus, my only suggestion would be to try it in a square crop.

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  4. Sarah Clough10 May 2011 at 15:03

    I'm not sure whether it's the sensor or the back of my lens (the front when reversed), but yes it's filthy!

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  5. George31 May 2011 at 08:56

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. George31 May 2011 at 08:57

    Hmmmmmm... They usually hang around in pairs and this looks like the smaller of the two, so must be the lesser of two Weevils...

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