Tuesday 27th December 2011

This is my cousin Rob, and his youngest daughter Maisie. I love this photo, it's something a bit different and I think it conveys a nice sense of motion, an instance where the built in flash works really well.

I'm going on holiday to Austria tomorrow, I'll be taking my final few photos while I'm away, and I shall upload them once I'm back.

18mm, 1/15s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Pylon shot.

76mm, 1/40s, f/11, ISO 200

Tuesday 15th November 2011

Stairs and pillars.

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

Tuesday 25th October 2011

This is the town I work in, Tunstall, taken from the town I first lived in when I moved to Stoke-on-Trent, Burslem. This is a view that I theoretically see pretty often but while passing down this street your eye can see so much more and usually focusses on the road. When driving today I noticed how many of the nice buildings I could see in the distance so pulled over to see if my 270mm lens could get close enough in. It did, and the parts I wanted to capture pleasingly filled the whole frame, giving a different perspective to the one I usually see. Instead of trying to get round the street lights and the foreground houses, they actually made a more rounded image.

169mm, 1/100s, f/8, ISO 100

Thursday 20th October 2011

The composition isn't right on this photo, but it was a lovely building and the picture I had in mind didn't work, so this is what I was left with.

46mm, 1/80s, f/8, ISO 200

Thursday 13th October 2011

11 strings.

39mm, 2s, f/8, ISO 400

Wednesday 21st September 2011

The batteries have died on the SLR I have been borrowing, so I'm down to a digital compact (Ixus 850) until the insurance company sort my claim out. This limits the range of things I can successfully photograph, and I'm rather at the mercy of the weather as this camera doesn't perform well in low light indoors. Still, I shall battle on. This is the next in my series of Stoke-on-Trent sub-stations! This one is at the top of Greenbank Road and looks like a rather ornate old barn. I included the fencing as I think it reflects the style and the slight decay.

6.1mm, 1/60s, f/3.2. (auto)

Wednesday 24th August 2011

Cutting it fine tonight, this was taken at ten minutes to midnight,after our film finished. The Odeon in Stoke.

17mm, 3s, f/8, ISO 320

Sunday 21st August 2011

I really love this photo. I love the angle of the tree and I like the way the carpet of fallen green leaves reflect the leaves on the branches against the sky.

I gave this version a tweak with HDR/tone mapping and it really brought a nice balance to the scene - it took some of the contrast out of the leaves at the top so they're not too stark against the sky, and brought some warmth to the fallen leaves in the foreground so your eye is drawn to them more.

10mm, 1/6s, f/8, ISO 320

Here's the non-HDRed version for comparison:

Also here's a photo of the same tree the day before. On this occasion the sun had just come out powerfully after a downpour, and the tree was steaming in the damp heat. I needed more time and a tripod to get a good photo of it though, so this didn't make it as my photo-of-the-day for yesterday.

10mm, 1/8s, f/9, ISO 200

Thursday 18th August 2011

Another thing I can do with the Ixus is continue with a theme I started early on in the year. Two themes in fact - highlight some of the cool buildings in Stoke, and do a series of photos of Stoke sub-stations, since most of those are in cool buildings with cool brickwork. I've taken photos of this one before but wasn't happy with them. This one is better, but having reviewed what I took I also know what I'd do if I returned. Which I may, I just love the intricate patterns and the variety of tiles and bricks!

4.6mm, 1/125s, f/2.8. (auto)

Saturday 6th August 2011

A little something I'm working on (the object, not the photo).

168mm, 1/20s, f/5.6, ISO 400

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

Saturday 11th June 2011

I needed to get a couple of things from the supermarket and went on foot with my camera to see what I could find for a photo. The sun was setting and was shining through the clear panels of this block of flats, adding a dash of colour to the stairs inside.

27mm, 1.3s, f/8, ISO 100

Saturday 10th April 2011

Birch polypore fungus and blossom.

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

Friday 25th March 2011

It's typical of Stoke that you can wander through a park and come out the other side and find remnants of days gone by. I found a tunnel with a trickling stream, running underneath an abandoned railway siding with rusty freight carriages. I followed the old siding to a bridge that goes over the active section of the railway, although the bridge looked reasonably well aged.

18mm, 4s, f/10, ISO 800

Wednesday 23rd February 2011

I was drawn to some sparkly barbed wire as I was leaving work, and captured this by accident. I love it.

141mm, 0.5s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Thursday 17th February 2011

Something I spotted the other day and came back to. I climbed up a death-trap of a climbing frame (it's modern but seemed rather dangerous!) to get this angle.

39mm, 1/15s, f/11, ISO 100

Sunday 13th February 2011

Angles up in some roof beams.

32mm, 0.5s, f/4, ISO 200

Saturday 12th February 2011

Back to Kynpersley for a little longer today and following the final in my line of tip-offs to head to Gorton's Well, which is in the centre of a circle of tall, curving trees - I couldn't quite work out the shot I wanted to take of those so one to return to. In the meantime, after a little picnic, I took this.

39mm, 2.5s, f/16, ISO 400