My recent posts haven’t been particularly colourful, so I thought I’d add one with a touch of colour today. These silk thistles were being sold on the street stalls to tourists along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Canon 300D, 1/100sec, f/7.1, ISO 400, focal length 44mm
I pass Norman Foster’s Swiss Re Building (better known as the Gherkin) on my way to work every day. Early one Sunday morning in January this year I saw these cleaners in their little yellow box, polishing the building before the office workers returned on the Monday.
Canon 400D, 1/160sec, f/8, ISO 400, focal length 24mm
When it snowed in London earlier this month I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the exposure compensation feature on my camera. Most of the shots I took weren’t particularly successful, although this one was OK. I set the exposure compensation at +1.
It’s a shame the person’s dark hat is against the dark background.
Canon 400D, 1/200sec, f/9, ISO 400, focal length 24mm
It’s not actually called Post Office Tower anymore, but most people still call it that. This was taken earlier this month from Regent’s Park in London; it was the one and only day that it snowed this year. At first glance it looks like it’s a black and white image although in fact it is full colour.
Canon 400D, 1/125sec, f/9, ISO 200, focal length 70mm, vignette added in Elements
This is the third of my three sun images. It was shot in August 2005 at Punta Suárez on the island of Española, one of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. It looked as if this huge ball of fire was slowing sinking into the sea. The photo looks a lot better when viewed at a larger size where you can really see the sun burning.
Canon 300D, 1/125sec, f/5.6, ISO 125, focal length 300mm
This image was taken at about 10:30 on a Monday morning in November 2006, on the shore at Burntisland, Fife, Scotland. It was a dreary day but the sun kept popping out from behind the clouds for a few seconds at a time. I was experimenting by using a fast shutter speed to add some atmosphere to the picture.
Canon 300D, 1/1250sec, f/22, ISO 400, focal length 18mm
This image is my personal favourite, so I thought it would make a good first post. It also reminds me a lot of my home town.
It was taken on New Year’s Day 2002 at the English seaside town of Southend. The sun was going down fast so I had to set up quick — I didn’t own a tripod at the time so rested the camera on the sea wall. It was taken with a Canon 500N, the first SLR that I owned, but I have no idea of the exposure etc
I remember there was a light aircraft showing off by looping the loop and diving, although I didn’t include it in this shot.
I have a couple of other sunscape shots, so I’ll post them as well over the next few days.
I’ve started this photoblog really to help myself with two things:
(1) to encourage me to carry my camera around more often and give me more confidence to take photos whenever I see something worth shooting.
(2) to teach myself how to use my camera properly. I know the basics but would love to learn more.
The idea is that it will give me an incentive to learn and improve.
I’ll be posting a mix of my existing images, experimental images, or images of subjects I just find interesting. Hopefully I can produce one or two decent images along the way.
I’ll try to post exposure details etc (mainly to help myself) wherever possible. Where I give the lens length for a digital shot, it is the length recorded by the camera (so you would need to multiply it by 1.6 to be comparable with a film SLR). Any post that mentions a camera other than the 400D means it’s an archive shot, unless stated.
I prefer not to use image-editing software to manipulate my images too much, except for colour correction, cleaning up or cropping. Anything other than minor cropping or manipulation, I will make clear in the relevant post. With most images, however, I do find that I need to brighten them a little for use online (usually auto levels or contrast); this just makes them a bit punchier. I use Photoshop regularly in my job, and besides, my intention is to learn how the camera works without the need to manipulate.
To start myself off I’ll post some of my existing images over the next couple of weeks, and then take it from there…..
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