Week 1 Assignment

The assignment we were given to focus week 1's photography was to take pictures of things that look like letters of the alphabet. At least 2 of the pictures were to be along these lines and the others could be whatever we liked. I chose 3 of my "Letter" pictures to post to Open Studio :




The other pictures were taken during the rest of my long, busy bank holiday weekend - Friday night / Saturday was spent at my girlfriend's parents' in Mid Wales (the letter pics were taken in her mum's back garden), part of which consisted of a walk on Forestry Comission land in the hills above the village :





Sunday was a trip over to Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire for a Medieval Festival - with the main event being jousting - unfortunately due to the lighting conditions and a less than ideal viewpoint I didn't get any passable pics of the jousting itself - but the falconery faired better :





Monday rounded off the weekend nicely, with a trip up the road from home to watch the British Superbikes at Oulton Park with my parents. Great day for us all as the rider we support Shane "Shakey" Byrne (Number #67 on the red bike in pic below) won both races!





All in all I enjoyed the first week - it was a little frantic as we had the auditors in at work so was working late and trying to fit in all my photo work (made lengthier by my first attempts at shooting in RAW and processing them in Lightroom which caused my laptop to have a hernia - think I need more RAM and /or a faster processor...). The material for this week was really just an overview, but I picked up one or two interesting points and am starting to get to grips with the software side of things.

Task 1.7.1

The next task we were given was to take 3 different photographs of a bottle, one that emphasises light, one colour and one viewpoint.
Not sure quite how effective these are, but I've had a go (comments welcome) :

Light :



Colour :



Viewpoint :

Task 1.1.1

Well, we're up and running, looks like there's lots to wade through (not that I'm complaining), but I'm going to try and take my time as much as possible and digest everything slowly without giving myself overload. The first task we have been given is to browse explore on Flickr and pick out five images that have caught our eye in some way. We then need to explain why we were drawn to these images, and think about whether there is anything that could be done to improve them.

Greedy Grebe

This is a stunning image, well captured in a fleeting moment. It's nice and sharp, and well composed, with the bird facing "into" the picture. I also love the water droplets flying up from the fish's tail, adding interest to the right hand side of the picture.
It's difficult to pick out anything I don't like about this image, but if i'm being picky, the water droplet just above the fish's fin is slightly distracting so I might be tempted to remove this.

Primavera

The colours and light in this photo are lovely, and it has numerous nice contrasts, between the mountain and sky, trees and blossoms. I was drawn to it as it's the kind of image I often aspire to create, a nice foreground subject, with the background blurred enough, but still recognisible to give a sense of setting and scale.
My one criticism would be that, in my opinion, it is ever so slightly over exposed, so I would probably "correct" for this a little.

The Heavens Above My Head

I'm an absolute sucker for a sunset/sunrise photo, in fact if I'm being truthful they are probably my most favourite thing to photograph, so I was bound to end up with at least one in here! Stunning shot, dark above and below to give framing, nice light area in the centre, just enough flare without being too much, and beautiful highlighting on the edges of the clouds.
The one thing I dislike, however, is the choice of crop. I think a more rectangular vertical crop would give the picture even more impact, expecially since there is a slight feeling of empty space on the right hand side.

Colours

The title says it all really, great colours and abstract shapes really keep the eye roaming around this image finding layer upon layer of detail. Not the most obvious shot in the world which makes it all the more interesting.
I like what I assume is a Gondola pole at the top, although perhaps I would have positioned it more off to one side rather than in the centre.

Watch My Step...

This is my favourite out of the five. To me, light is everything in photography. That may sound blindingly obvious, but in my mind it means being drawn to images that have that subtle lighting quality that can be so hard to reproduce. There is so much light in this image without it feeling over exposed. The patterns in the sand and grass produce a rich array of shadows and light areas that is visually stunning. It also has a lovely sky which doesn't dominate but adds contrast and colour. I am transported...

Martin Mere WWT

Had an outing to my local Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre on Thursday, and managed to take an entire 1GB memory card (445 shots). Needless to say sorting through them took some time, but you can see those that made the cut here (there are also one or two in there from previous trips, mostly taken with my Nikon F75).
I've included a few of my favourites below (no photoshopping done aside from a bit of cropping here and there) :

Fiddle, fiddle

A bit more subtle photoshopping here. Enhanced the colour saturation, sharpened, and tweaked the colour of the sky a little. I'm fairly pleased with the end results.

Kit Update

Well, it's my b'day tomorrow and the folks are getting me a new head to go with my dad's 2nd hand Manfrotto. Mainly as he used it for a telescope and the new head will make it more camera friendly - including being able to take portrait photos on the tripod which I can't currently do. This tripod also spreads much closer to the ground than my Velbon, and the centre post can be taken out and put back in upside down to allow for really low level shots! Also with the added bonus of being heavier therefore more stable in the wind.
I will also be able to use with my scope when I get a handle on digiscoping (don't want to invest too much in kit for that just yet, until I've had a chance to get an idea of what's available). They run occasional courses at my local WWT Centre on digiscoping which I hope to go on at some point. They apparently give you tips on what kit to get etc.

First forays into Photoshop

Well, I decided to have a go and see if I could figure it out. Using Paintshop Pro 9, as this is the software I currently have and have messed around with in the past. The original image was snapped with my little S200 in the car on the way up from Chester to Wigan.



I liked the rather dramatic sky and the parallel lamp posts, but the signs and car rather detracted from the image. So I patched out the signs and cones and upped the contrast to emphasise the thundery atmosphere. I'm rather pleased with the end result, I'm sure there's a lot more I could do, but it's a start...

My Kit

Nikon D80
Sigma 18-50mm F/3.5-5.6 DC
Nikkor 28-105mm F/3.5-4.5D IF Macro
Sigma 70-300mm F/4-5.6 APO Super Macro II
Sigma 58mm DG UV Filter
Hoya 58mm / 62mm HMC UV Filters
Sandisk Extreme III 1GB/2GB SD Memory Cards
Nikon Coolpix S200
Velbon Delta Tripod (but soon to inherit my Dad's old Manfrotto which has much more options positioning wise for photography)
Kowa TS-501 (just a baby I got to supplement my bins, but will probably upgrade once I'm more au fait on the old digiscoping)

Course Overview

For those of you who don't already know what I'm going to be up to :

The course is designed to be studied over a ten-week period, with approximately ten hours of study each week. There are two pieces of work that must be submitted during the course, however, to get the most out of the course we advise that you also take part in the weekly photo assignments (not assessed), and if you miss a week, that you are able to find time to catch up (for example, spend 20 hours the following week).

The course is a creative mix of practice, learning, sharing and reflection:

• Practice: each week you do a practical photographic activity that broadens and strengthens your photographic experience. Together these activities form the basis of your portfolio that you’ll draw upon for your end-of-course assessment.

• Learning: each week you learn about different aspects of photographic techniques, as well as relevant aspects of the technology behind digital photography.

• Sharing and reflection: each week you share your work within the T189 online community of photographers. You’ll steadily develop your ability to reflect upon your own and others’ work, and to write about your increasing visual awareness.

The course will:

• teach you the key principles of capturing digital images and manipulating these with Photoshop Elements (version 5, for PC)

• equip you with basic skills to navigate technological developments in digital photography

• teach you how to critically evaluate your own and others’ work in the spirit of continuous technical and artistic improvement

• encourage you to experiment with the principles of digital photography and imaging as part of a supportive online community

• help you to develop a portfolio to be proud of.

Software

The image editing software is Adobe Photoshop Elements (version 5 for PC), which will be provided (and is yours to keep after the course has finished), and by the end of the course you’ll have a good grasp of it. (There is no requirement to use this particular software if you already use an alternative photo-editing package).

You will learn

The course will introduce the full range of basic aspects of digital photography including:

• ‘ways of seeing’ and the elements of composition

• the basic principles of capturing light information digitally (e.g. sensors, memory, file types)

• the digital workflow (capture, organise, edit and share)

• how to control exposure

• how to control focus and Depth of Field

• digital colour management – an introduction

• how to print and project your images

• how to technically and creatively improve your own or others’ images using Photoshop Elements.

Just under a month to go

Well, here we are, the course is going to start soon. I'm really psyched up for it and ready to get cracking. I can't wait for my pictures to start improving, particularly the photoshop side of things which I've barely touched on.

At present I'm a shoot first, ask questions later kind of person. I'm always seeing things I want to photograph, especially when it's totally inappropriate!! (Like I'm in the middle of an important conference call).
I'm hoping to put more thought into the picture beforehand. Currently it's point and shoot, look at results, change some settings, shoot, see results, lather, rinse, repeat and still never actually come out with the photo I want.
I particularly want to improve my ability to judge exposure before taking the first shot - not that important with digital you might think, but as my favourite type of photography is nature, and more specifically birds and insects, getting a good shot quickly is key.

I'm posting what I think is the best photo I have ever taken. The reason for this is to have some tangible measure of my progress, and also to show the original as I'm hoping to improve it further once I'm up and running on Photoshop.