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 29 July 2011

Friday 29th July 2011

Pond skaters are more colourful than I thought!


250mm, 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Thursday 28th July 2011

Another play with light-painting. SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera).


141mm, 1s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Thursday 28 July 2011

Wednesday 27th July 2011

Second orb-painting session and my little purchase allowed me to create a multi-orb. SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera).


18mm, 30s, f/4.5, ISO 400

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Tuesday 26th July 2011

A 'pick something and photograph it' kind of day!


250mm, 1/80s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 200

Monday 25th July 2011

Young jays.


250mm, 1/200s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 800

Sunday 24th July 2011

Macro purple flower.


1/50s, f/11 (approx), ISO 800

Saturday 23rd July 2011

I was invited down the Roaches this evening so I planned my bike ride to finish nearby, then dragged my weary body to the Upper Tier. It was a pleasure to be able to take photos of this photogenic route - Neb Buttress. The light was amazing, and the photo looks great on my screen, shame the colours look washed out and noisy as soon as I upload it to flickr! The rocks in the centre are the Lower Tier of the Roaches, and in the background on the left is Hen Cloud.


18mm, 1/160s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 23 July 2011

Friday 22nd July 2011

Home made tiger bread, yum yum yum!


250mm, 3.2s, f/8, ISO 400

Thursday 21st July 2011

I took more grasshopper photos today but although I'm still homing in on that ideal shot, I don't want to keep posting them as my photo-a-day. With a side-line interest in light-painting, I decided it was about time I created an orb, as it seems like the thing to do. I'm not a big fan of them, too circular, but you've got to try everything once! And actually mine's not particularly circular. I thought it would be easy but I don't actually know how people create them, I just did it the way I assumed it's done!


18mm, 30s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Friday 22 July 2011

Wednesday 20th July 2011

Still working on the grasshopper shoes and I think they're improving, what do you think? I'm now going in search of a certain shot, rather than just trying to photograph grasshoppers close up. Plus this guy had a pretty colourful tail, which helps. At first just taking any photo is hard enough, but after a while you get used to the setup and the subject mannerisms and can start to bring composition into play.


1/60s, f/11, ISO 800

Thursday 21 July 2011

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Monday 18th July 2011

What's going on here then?


183mm, 6s, f/11, ISO 800

Sunday 17th July 2011

A greylag at Ely.


141mm, 1/125s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 16th July 2011

The worm eaten bark of an old apple tree.


250mm, 1/1000s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 800

Friday 15th July 2011

Moon sinking into cloud near the Lovell telescope. I wasn't happy with any of the other photos I took today, so I chose to up this one up as my photo-of-the-day even though it wasn't quite what I was after as there was a low bank of cloud in the way. Still, it's not bad that that's the only thing that went wrong given all the variables involved. For more of a clue about what I was aiming for, see here and check back next month to see if I manage it then!

Big thanks to the chap in the BP garage who told me of a location where I would get the line-of-sight that I wanted. I actually found a place on the road without having to walk along the lane, but I wouldn't have found it without your suggestion.


155mm, 0.6s), f/8, ISO 100

Saturday 16 July 2011

Thursday 14th July 2011

Tonight's photographic experiment didn't work out quite as I'd hoped, but instead of post the gone wrong efforts, I'll have another go next month, and here's a picture of a nosey cow's dribbly nose instead.


70mm, 1/40s (auto from aperture priority), f/7.1, ISO 800

Wednesday 13th July 2011

This one's for Steve! Just to prove that it's not all about the bugs now, there's still experimental fun to be had.


50mm, 1/250s (auto from aperture priority), f/7.1, ISO 800

Tuesday 12th July 2011

Today was a reassuringly rich photo day. It included some bugs as usual, but on the way to the reservoir I stopped by a patch of beautifully vivid flowers just by the side of the road, that I'd spotted on my way to work the day before. I don't know who planted these as it's an unextected clump on a grass verge but there is a vast array of vivid colours, striking enough from the car but even lovelier up close.


218mm, 1/125s (auto from aperture priority), f/8, ISO 400

Friday 15 July 2011

Monday 11th July 2011

More grasshoppers! When I took today's photos I was fairly pleased with them, thought I'd captured everything I wanted in a photo, but when I looked at them on a computer they seem to be looking that special zing, or maybe I've just been taking too many of them. I think I need a bit of a break, no more grasshoppers for a while!



1/100s, f/10 (approx), ISO 800

Thursday 14 July 2011

Sunday 10th July 2011

My intention today was to walk into Durham from my friends' house and have a look at the city. It's meant to be an hour's walk down the country lanes but I got repeatedly sidetracked by butterflies, bugs and barley, and it took me 2.5 hours to get there, by which time I was parched and hungry! I didn't mind the diversion though, since the aim had been to find something to photograph, and I found plenty, even if it wasn't the urban experience I had expected! I was quite taken with these lines through the barley field.


65mm, 1/640s (auto from aperture priority), f/11, ISO 800

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Saturday 9th July 2011

This is the look you may wear when it is suggested that this lady, who swings a mean right hook with the bag, could be your wife.

The photo is a little grainy as it was taken at a fairly high ISO from the back row of seating at an outdoor theatre production at full zoom! I think it's acceptable though.


250mm, 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 1600

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Friday 8th July 2011

I took a stroll round the lake at the end of my road hoping to find grasshoppers, but there didn't seem to be any around. I took in one more field before heading home, and happened upon some gorgeous salmon coloured damselflies that let me get REALLY close to take photos. I think they were female Common Blues. A spot to return to!


1/250s, f/10, ISO 800

Friday 8 July 2011

Thursday 7th July 2011

Just as I got home this evening I noticed a sun-dog (parhelion) in the sky at the end of the street so popped up the tripod and took a photo. I've seen plenty before but not seen one on these type of clouds, so it was nice to get it on camera.


129mm, 1/160s, f/8, ISO 100

Wednesday 6th July 2011

Another play with light-painting. After I took this I realised I hadn't managed to point the torch completely away from the camera (the idea was to strangely illuminate the subjects, not to make light trails), so I took another. However I got the zoom wrong (I'd forgotten a tripod so had the camera resting on the ground and the zoom changed when I picked it up and replaced it). Then I tried a third, but I used too much light and there wasn't any subtelty or pattern to it. Then my friends had to leave! So I'm going with this one.


18mm, 1/30s, f/5.66.3, ISO 200

Thursday 7 July 2011

Tuesday 5th July 2011

My crocosmia are coming into flower and they're an absolute pleasure to photograph, I took a few different shots and could barely choose a favourite.


129mm, 1/320s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Monday 4th July 2011

I decided it was time to diversify from macro grasshopper shots, although I'm still working on those for a particular photo I'm after. Today, instead, I went to the dragonfly pond at Knypersley reservoir and found a collection of Azure Blues. This one posed for me for a while letting me get right in close, all the others flew off as soon as I got within range for a photo.


1/50s, f/11 (approx), ISO 800

Sunday 3rd July 2011

I took my motorbike for a spin across the Peak District and stopped off at a climbing crag where I knew some friends would be. I spent a little while changing out of my biking clothes, then walked out of the layby, and right in front of the last car, fearless as anything, was this rabbit, just scratching about on the ground for food. It didn't seem at all fazed when I crouched down to take a couple of photos!


183mm, 1/100s (auto from aperture priority), f/8, ISO 800

Sunday 3 July 2011

Saturday 2nd July 2011

These small bugs (under a cm long) live in the hedge in my garden, and bit me when I give them their twice yearly trim. This one was crawling over my hand so I put it on the BBQ cover and grabbed the camera. Surprisingly by the time I'd reversed the lens it was still there. I haven't managed to identify exactly it as the red patches and black head are hard to place, but I've got it down to the order Hemiptera, possibly a male Stenotus Binotatus. But more to the point - look at the massive spike it's hiding underneath its thorax!


1/40s, f/10 (approx), ISO 800

Friday 1st July 2011

Second half of the year and I... forgot to take a photo! I meant to take one in the evening but by the time I'd done eventhing else and thought about it proplerly, it was 1am. Fortunately I did actually take one, just one, of the yummy yummy curry I made for some friends for dinner :0)


39mm, 1/8s (auto from aperture priority), f/4, ISO 400

Thursday 30th June 2011

I was driving back from a running race this evening and stopped in a little car park to investigate some interesting looking congolmerate rock outcrops. It happened to be at the same time as the sun was setting and the other side of the road, which, being on the side of a hill, afforded a fansatic view of the fireball of a sun lighting up the sky. This was just a tiny section of the sky, there was a long horizontal strip of cloud through which the sun was dropping and the rest of the sky above and to the side of these was still blue.


218mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 100

Wednesday 29th June 2011

Stafford Castle. Every year I got to a Shakespeare play there with some friends, and we have a picnic beforehand. The play is very well done, and the setting pretty cool too.


18mm, 0.4s (auto from aperture priority), f/3.5, ISO 800

Tuesday 28th June 2011

A little bit of fun.


92mm, 20s, f/16, ISO 400

Monday 27th June 2011

More grasshoppers!


1/50s, f/10 (approx), ISO 800

Saturday 2 July 2011

Sunday 26th June 2011

A graffitied door in Manchester, that I quite like.


21mm, 1/60s (auto from aperture priority), f/8, ISO 400

Saturday 25th June 2011

Today was our last day on Skye so we drove around visiting a couple of final places. Unfortunately the clag was down so we didn't get many nice views, but we enjoyed a selection of wildlife - common sandpiper, a deer, and some seals. This stag was eating a branch, but I like the way that the timing of the photo makes him look startled.


250mm, 1/100s (auto from aperture priority), f/6.3, ISO 800

Friday 24th June 2011

This is a typical path once on the ridge, working its way from a summit down to a bealach (saddle/col), before the route ascends again to the next peak. This particular section is after the Innacessable Pinnacle with Sgurr Banachdich ahead to the left.


6mm, 1/144s (auto), f/2.7 (auto), ISO 80 (auto)

Thursday 23rd June 2011

The Cuillin Ridge, what a stunning setting. This photo was taken on a Kodak EasyShare C713 that was given to me for free, that was small enough that it didn't weigh me down on the ridge. A lot of the photos I took with it were really washed out and pale, but this one came out with really nice light.

This is the Great Stone Shoot up Sgurr Alasdair, the lower section is obvious (the pale strip up the grey diamond), the top section zig zags up between the two peaks. Despite looking like a suicidally loose slope, it's a standard ascent and descent up and down the mountain, and if you look closely you may see a tiny person a third of the way up the lower slope.


6mm, 1/242s (auto), f/4.8 (auto), ISO 80 (auto)