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


Tuesday 29 November 2011

Tuesday 29th November 2011

Statues in my favourite Thai restaurant, Blue Chilli.


65mm, 1/30s, f/5, ISO 400

Monday 28th November 2011

More carol singing practice.


59mm, 1/30s, f/5, ISO 400

Sunday 27th November 2011

Water splashes in a fountain.


130mm, 1/400s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 26th November 2011

It questionable whether this is my best photo of the day, I have some nice ones of large lamps against a black background, but it's not every day I go to the rugby so I thought I'd post a rugby photo and this was my best one of those (shame about the official photographer in shot though). This is the New Zealand Ferns (left) and the England (right) ladies teams. England won 10-0 but New Zealand won this line-out.


184mm, 1/80s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Sunday 27 November 2011

Friday 25th November 2011

Home-dried home-grown chillies. I love the shininess of their dried flesh.


92mm, 1/80s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Thursday 24th November 2011

Blanket and cushions at home.


270mm, 1/50s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Wednesday 23rd November 2011

This is the descender (device used to go down ropes) I use when I'm caving, just playing with lighting.


33mm, 8s, f/8, ISO 200

Thursday 24 November 2011

Tuesday 22nd November 2011

I love this photo. What's more it was one of those evenings where I haven't planned a photo and I'm clutching straws about what to take. Snapping away at some ferns lately followed by a comment from a friend obviously inspired me for this shot, and it just goes to show that the 365 project is still inspiring me to some up with unexpected goods. This is a prayer plant that I've had many years but have never got to produce more than a handful of leaves.


270mm, 1.4s, f/8, ISO 200

Monday 21st November 2011

Carol singers warming up for yule.


18mm, 1.50s, f/3.5, ISO 800

Sunday 20th November 2011

Today was a relaxed but unexpectedly awesome day. We first went to Scaleber Force and went wild swimming behind the waterfall and into the pool. Then drove to Malham and walked to Janet's Foss and on up to Goredale. Here the mist fell and we just got to the road before the sun set, and managed to get back to the car in the misty twilight, neither of us having brought a torch. This is a photo of the beautiful Janet's Foss, the plunge section of the waterfall apparently being a screen of deposited rock on a layer of moss. I'm really pleased with this photo, in fact all the ones I took of Janet's Foss - it's hard to choose between them.


27mm, 0.8s, f/10, ISO 200

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Saturday 19th November 2011

This photo was taken on the second pitch of Diccan Pot in the Yorkshire Dales. There will be a trip report to follow on my sister blog soon, watch this space!


7.6mm, 1/74s, f/3, ISO 200. (auto)

Monday 21 November 2011

Friday 18th November 2011

The impressive Falcon Manor hotel in Settle, Yorkshire Dales.


20mm, 13s, f/8, ISO 200

Sunday 20 November 2011

Thursday 17th November 2011

Home grown banana peppers. They're now turning a lovely shade of orange.


200mm, 1/60s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Thursday 17 November 2011

Wednesday 16th November 2011

This is Saint Werburgh's Parish Church on High Lane, Burslem. It was built in 1953 to replace a smaller church in Hamil Road as the congregation was growing larger. I've been meaning to try this photo for a while. I noticed the statue of Jesus but it's fairly hidden away to the side and under a tree. I had an idea that if I took a photo of the church at night and illuminated the statue more than the natural light illuminated the church, it would create a nicely balanced scene. I think it mostly worked.


18mm, 25s, f/11, ISO 200

Tuesday 15th November 2011

Stairs and pillars.


119mm, 0.5s, f/8, ISO 200

Monday 14th November 2011

Window graffiti in Hanley. I was just walking through the city centre, and thought 'oh that would make a good photo', so, as I often do, I just stopped in the middle of the street, got out my camera, and took a photo.


23mm, 1/15s, f/8, ISO 200

This was an editing error but I think it's fantastically brain melding. I've done it before but wasn't sure how, not I understand how I did it (although it still doesn't make total sense!) and also it had the lucky feature of being centred around an un-moving door.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Sunday 13th November 2011

The day dawned misty and the rock was damp which frustrated my climbing friends, but it was a bonus for me as it meant I got a stroll down Padley Gorge with a couple of mates, snapping away at the autumn colours and rushing cascades. I find HDR works really well with water, as does a polariser, so I stuck the tripod in the water and got this, showing the water flow and some of the lovely bright green vegetation.


21mm, 2.5s, f/20, ISO 200

Saturday 12th November 2011

I was hoping for a shot of the fireworks in the greater context of their location (the land outside the Peak Cavern show cave in the Peak District), but that wasn't to be. A lot of my shots were over exposed because I was trying longer exposures in order to get the background to burn in, but this one just happened to fill the frame and I like it for that.


18mm, 16s, f/16, ISO 400

Friday 11th November 2011

How to fix a broken video player, Obviously.


119mm, 1s, f/8, ISO 400

Thursday 10 November 2011

Thursday 10th November 2011

I made it back up to the colliery tonight (see yesterday), but with a friend so that I wouldn't get scared off by any hissing noises (there was still much hissing, but I realised it was probably owls). This photo represents various things I've been working on, one being the colliery (see previous photos here and here), and one being a silhouette of a person (which I keep trying down a cave, and failing on). This is one shot, no HDR, just with a bit of 'dodging' in photoshop. I think it looks a little un-real, which I really like about it.


20mm, 30s, f/10, ISO 400

Wednesday 9th November 2011

Tonight I thought I'd try a photo I've been want to take for a while, and walk up to the colliery. Trouble is I got spooked by some hissing noises before I got to my photo spot, and retreated. Instead I went for a different photo that was long overdue - Burslem town hall. This is a very impressive building built between 1854 and 1857. It was superseded as town hall in 1911 by a different building behind it. The novelist Arnold Bennett often mentioned it and referred to the gold angel on top.


18mm, 15s, f/10, ISO 200

Tuesday 8th November 2011

The next estate up from mine. Stoke-on-Trent is fairly hilly so wherever you go you're not far from a 3-dimensional view. I like how the houses appear stacked on top of each other when you zoom in to something far away.


270mm, 4s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Monday 7th November 2011

I made a little outfit for a friend's baby and persuaded Sam ted to model them for me. Poor boy.


54mm, 1/10s, f/8, ISO 400

Sunday 6th November 2011

Pink sky on my way home from Oswestry.


76mm, 0.4s, f/16, ISO 100

Saturday 5th November 2011

Banjo love!


33mm, 1/80s, f/4, ISO 800

Friday 4th November 2011

Can you guess what it is?


270mm, 1/5s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Friday 4 November 2011

Thursday 3rd November 2011

I am told this is the old 'Home & Colonial' store in Stoke. I don't know what it is now, or why it is lit up at night, but it's quite a nice feature.


155mm, 8s, f/8, ISO 200

Wednesday 3rd November 2011

Gorrillas in the mist. Well, more like trees.


76mm, 1/15s, f/5.6, ISO 200

Tuesday 1st November 2011

Cute as a button!


270mm, 1/15s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Monday 31st October 2011

I quite liked this abused street sign in the glow of the street lamps.


30mm, 30s, f/8, ISO 400

Thursday 3 November 2011

Sunday 30th October 2011

A slightly more atmospheric photo of the Nissen huts at Cultybraggan camp, see yesterday.


18mm, 1/200s, f/8, ISO 400

Saturday 29th October 2011

This is one of the Nissen huts at Cultybraggan camp. This weekend a friend and I headed up to Scotland to take part in the OMM (Original Mountain Marathon). The accommodation for the first night was in Cultybraggan camp, which I knew nothing about before arriving, and was fascinated to find it's a POW camp from the second world war. It was a called Camp No. 21 and was designed to hold category A or 'black' prisoners, the toughest and most fanatical Nazis POWs. When you walk into the huts, lit by electric lamps strung up on cables along the corrugated ceilings, with decaying curtains and no other real decor, you feel like you're walking straight back to the time it was built, especially when arriving in the dark, and it left a slightly ominous feeling over the event in which we were about to participate! The camp has been owned by the Comrie Development Trust, a group set up by local villagers, since 2007.


30mm, 1/6s, f/5, ISO 400

Friday 28th October 2011

An autumnal tree lined avenue next to Penrith Castle.


18mm, 1/20s, f/8, ISO 200

Thursday 27th October 2011

Another cider related photo, this is the press used to extract the yummy juice from the apple pulp, ready for fermenting.


70mm, 8s, f/5.6, ISO 200