Funny how a colour boost and a cheeky crop and transform an image. Flickr success seems to be hitting that style that is in at the moment.First there was HDR then Bokeh and now it seems to be minimalism with lots of colour (my observation at least).
Less is more?
It's a beautiful pea green soup
There literally were … plants galore …. and I muscled up enough courage to take my camera with macro lens along. I think if I had been by myself and a little more confidence at public photography, there would have been a ton of potential.
Anyway – I took a few decent snaps, one of which (the above) I liked just for the colour and background DoF.
Looks like pea green soup to me 
Finally snapped this shot
The location is on the road drving down to the Devon Motel, with the scene on your left. It is trick to get to as you have to park at the top of the hill then walk along a narrow verge, being battered by 60mph cars and lorries.
I’m not sure that the weather OR time of day is best for this scene, but those striking yellow fields bring any photo to live. I may revisit, but the chances are … I probably won’t. Thank you yellow fields of gold, I can cross you off my to do list.
It's all about the bokeh
I had a nice trip to Killerton House yesterday, a National Trust property set near Exeter, Devon.
Have to say, it was very nice. Not too hot and not too cold. Not too busy but enough people there to help build an atmosphere. The flowers and photo opportunity where there in abundance.
Came across this CreateHDR website the other day, where you get to upload an image then move some sliders around to produce a HDR type image.
It's HDR, but no as we know it
It’s not bad, considering the original files are not RAW, but on some of the examples on the website, I prefer the original image. Still, it’s free and worth a look
Homemade Bokeh baby
As it’s Wednesday and Happy Bokeh Wednesday on Flickr, I thought about what I could do to create my Bokeh photo. As I was walking Lucy to Nursery I spotted a giant Dandelion which gave me an idea for a shot.
When I got back home, I taped the Dandelion to an old tripod and set up a small shoot at the top of the stairs, outside the bathroom (a good source of natural diffused light in my house). I took a few snaps but decided something was missing – of course, the bokeh.
The first thing that came into my head for some man made specular lighting was … some crinkled tin foil as a back drop. A little bit of trial and error, and an aperture of f1.8, and the above image was created.
Not bad …. I mean not great either, but for a quick rushed job it served a purpose.
It is amazing how much fun and time you can waste with a £2.50 bunch of chrysanthemums from Tesco.
Decent macro flower photography is quite hard to get a decent shot – about 1% of what I took this morning was any good.
Had fun though
More proof that Spring is slowly starting to come. Snowdrops taken at Seven Steps, Nr Dunsford.
Captured with the charming Nikon 50mm @f1.8
It pays to just keep shooting. Take the above example. I was on a mini trip to Teignmouth with a friends the other day, just on a photo walk.
I was randomly snapping at things, nothing in mind just shooting at what I saw. When I got home to view my efforts, about 80% of what I took got sent to the trash can. The above shot though didn’t.
The original photo was much larger than this, the final image is a crop and yay – it works. It seems to work really well too as even my Mum texted me to say she liked it 
So my point – just snap and click away. It doesn’t waste anything (only battery power and mirror clicks) but you never know, there may be a shot hidden away in there some where
Well it has only taken me about 7 years, but today I finally made it inside Exeter Catherderal armed with tripod and camera.
For those that are interested, admission was £5. This give you “unlimited access” to the inside where you can freely take photos. Infact, the kind lady on the door informed me .. “you could even bring a film crew and shoot a hollywood blockbuster if you wanted!”.
Hmm, not sure if that would be the case, but still open access with a D80 is always good.
I got there early, about 945, which meant no poeple to distract the scenery. It was actually quite hard to photograph as the 10mm lens bent every line in site. Still, all good fun and at last …. I have done it
Have to say, there was not much to shoot at Haldon Forest this morning, so it was a case of the 50mm set to f1.8 and be trigger happy.
Best of a gloomy outing I’m afraid.
It’s not often I take photos in this orientation, but the only way I could frame this shot was to give in.
The original is quite dull and boring, but with some layer blending and textures, the final result is not too bad (well compared to the original at least). Shot on a 50mm at f1.8.
One of my favourite shots on Flickr I think. This tree was just begging to have it’s photo taken. Taken at Killerton House as you walk up to the main house – you cannot miss it.
The Sigma 10-20mm lens was perfect to capture all of it’s glory. It is shame there is no reference marker to provide scale the the size.
Post work was one shot tone mapped in Photomatix. Then some layer blending with a paper texture mashed in for good measure.
Went on an spontaneous trip to Killerton House today. Well – it is free to access the grounds. There wasn’t much going on, apart from a crazy whispy sky – hence the above.
Taken with a 3 exposure +/- 2 hand held HDR shot on a Sigma 10-20mm Lens and processed with Photomatix.
I finaly got to have an amble about town with my camera the other, but the weather was pretty gloomy. As per usual around Exeter, I ended up outside the Cathederal.
It really is an impressive building and always worth a photo.
Hand held HDR with the Sigma 10-20mm lens. Three brakets +/- by 2 stops then processed in Photomatix.
I was just fine tuning my Windows 7 Beta install, adding all apps that I usually use when I went to install Google’s Picasa.
I was just about to click on the “Download Now” button, when I noticed the small print reading:
Now, I’ve used Picasa on the PC for ages and one of the switching to Mac problems has been the lack of an equivalent Picasa app for the Mac. I was therefore very keen to try the Mac version of Picasa.
Obviously, it downloaded and installed without a hitch, then I ran the software.
WHOA!! It is a complete Picasa clone on the Mac (and on Linux too) and includes all of the editing and exporting features.
This is GREAT new for me, as know I can run Picasa on my Mac mini and have all of my JPG photos available for the wife to use without any need to go near the PC.
Trust me – this is a good day. I wonder how long the Mac version has been out there
It was brought to my attention the other day, that high street camera retailer Jessops could be on the brink of collapse.
The share price for the camera stockist is current at 1p per share. Yes, that is right, a mere ONE PENCE per share.
Only back in October this year was the share at £4′s odd. Naturally, I decided to take a punt and buy some. Well, only five quids worth, but should the share price ever return to that four pounds mark? Well – I’ll just say £2000
I’ve been out of action lately with an eye infection, so I decided to post some older work. The scene looks lovely and warm, but it was quite cold on the day.
It’s not all doom and gloom on my blog. I do have positive encounters as well as negative ones, and Redbox Cameras is one of those good experiences.
I had been in the market for a new DSLR, primarily the Nikon D80, ever since the D90 came to shelf. I had a suspicion that the D80 would drop in price with its release so started to add the potential of buying/upgrading to a D80 from my D40.
After spending some time looking into, I decided that a price of £380 was indeed amazing and should not be over looked. This is where Redbox comes in as it was them selling it for that price.
Before I leapt in to my web purchase, I decided to play it safe. After all, I had never heard of this website before and couldn’t afford to get stung this time. So, I checked the websites home page for a contact number – and there it was, as bold as day and it was a national number NOT a premium one.
I rang and within seconds a man answered. He answered my questions and I hung up feeling confident that this would be a good order.
As they shipped via Special Delivery, this would mean a Tuesday delivery where I would be at work, so I added a note requesting the camera to be shipped on Tuesday (the day was Monday) so that it would arrive Wednesday, when I would be at home. This was also agreed on the telephone when I rang to enquire.
Before I knew it – the order had been placed, and now it was just wait for Postman Pat on Wednesday
Wednesday morning came and I was, well excited to say but the least. I was slightly sceptical as I had not received any shipping confirmation, but still, I was excited.
At 09 am I had a phone call – It was Redbox Cameras ringing to say that they had completely cocked up the shipping instructions at their end, and that they had not yet posted the camera!!
I was initially furious. The man seemed genuinely apologetic and assured me that he personally would make sure it was shipped the same day. What else could I do?
After about 30 minutes, I had calmed down and accepted that fact my camera would not be there on that day. I reflected that it would have been easier just to have ordered it on Monday, let the postman try to deliver it, then I could have swung by the Post Office the next day at MY convenience to collect it. Never mind. I also thought that hey – people do make mistakes and at least the company made the effort to ring me and a) apologise and b) keep me informed.
I later found out that they had rung earlier that day, 0830am, when I was dropping the wife off to work, so the fact they tried again 30 minutes later to me speaks volumes.
Sure they cocked up, but the effort to resolve this is often more important and often more defining. The camera came later that day as intended – a lovely gorgeous new Nikon D80 in a big red box
I would definitely use them again – in fact I know I will.
RebBoxCameras.com 8/10
Yay – at last I have some spare time and a frosty morning. Sadly though, only about 8 minutes to wander about Heavitree Park looking for a snap.
I am quite pleased with the final result though, and think the new style frame fits quite well
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