Sometimes the only thing I want to do when I get home from work is to thaw out in the warm with a cuppa and today, with its biting wind, was just such a day. Eventually though, having warmed up a little, I steeled myself to spring into action and find a photo for my blog. The light had gone, meaning outdoors photography was out of the question so I raided my 'bits and bobs' tin for inspiration. Over the years I've picked up dozens of pebbles on beach walks so I gathered together all the ones of a similar hue and set about creating an abstract design with them. I've also got a good number of pebbles with pink tones but they can wait for another day - I wouldn't want to use up all my 'rainy day' subjects at once!
6 January 2018 - A miracle of modern technology
There are times when my inspiration to go outdoors to take photos evaporates and the only alternative is to photograph the cat. Of course, being black, Lucy always chooses the darkest corners in which to sit, creating some technical challenges. Over the years I've become quite adept at handling these and the modern technology in today's cameras certainly helps! This afternoon Lucy decided to sit in the middle of our living room to have a quick wash and brush up, presenting a handy photo opportunity.
My little mirrorless camera came in really handy with its articulated screen - great for capturing low angle shots without lying on the floor. My favourite lens, a little Leica-Panasonic f1.4 gem, and the ability to shoot at high ISO allowed me to collect enough light and in a few minutes I had a collection of cute feline portraits. Thank goodness for modern technology - I suspect even Henri Cartier-Bresson might have struggled to photograph a black cat in a dark spot with his Leica film camera!
The first car design to feature the Ferrari prancing horse on its badge
5 January 2018 - Under the skin of Ferrari
As most of you will know, I love anything to do with cars so the Design Museum's latest exhibition was right up my street. Kevin and I went there today to see 'Ferrari: Under the skin', an exhibition all about Enzo Ferrari and his iconic cars. The exhibition took us from Ferrari's first designs through to the present day and the brand's efforts to introduce hybrid technologies into their cars. Interestingly, because Enzo Ferrari previously worked for Alfa Romeo he had an agreement which prevented him from using his name when he first went solo - it was his second design which eventually took on the Ferrari name.
The wooden former at the bottom of this picture would have been used to shape the bodywork of the Ferrari above
As we walked around I took photos of whatever attracted my eye. With so much to see there were lots of distracting backgrounds to try and avoid and I found a number of my photos worked better in monochrome to minimise these.
Surely this must be one of the prettiest Ferrari designs....
Sammy Davis Jr and Miles Davis were both Ferrari owners, pictured here at a Ferrari dealership with an order form for one of their cars
If you're in London and fancy seeing the exhibition before it ends in April I can thoroughly recommend it.
This beautiful car was raced at Goodwood by none other than Stirling Moss
I couldn't visit the Design Museum without photographing its clean architectural lines again. I spotted this lone visitor and managed to include him in my composition by leaning round a corner on the stairs!
4 January 2018 - Keeping it simple
After my rather overcomplicated attempt at focus stacking yesterday I thought I'd create a much simpler photo today to share how I did it for those who may be interested. I decided to use my little Lego photographer and allow him to take his own picture of an acorn I picked up somewhere. Instead of requiring lots of pictures to capture the entire scene in view I used a smaller aperture and shot just two photos. In one I focused on the acorn and the second one concentrated on the Lego figure. You can see in these two pictures that the second subject in each one is blurred because it's outside the depth of field.
Using Photoshop I was then able to combine them, using layer masks to reveal the in focus areas, to create a picture where everything is sharp. Of course, having only two files to deal with, my computer complained much less and didn't crash once!
3 January 2018 - Pulling focus
The Photoblog theme this week is 'New Inspirations', intended to get everyone out trying new techniques. I decided to try my hand at focus stacking, although that choice did bring some frustrations as well as inspirations!
The idea behind focus stacking is to use it when you have a situation where you want everything in your photos in focus but the laws of physics prevent you managing this in one picture. Macro photography is a case in point so I picked this feather and framed up my camera on a tripod. I then took multiple pictures, shifting the focus a little further back through the frame with each one. The next step was to stack these images in Photoshop and let some computer wizardry figure out which bits of each picture. Of course, my somewhat elderly computer found this a huge challenge as it's inevitably lost some of its computing power over the years. Eventually I found a way round this (stacking smaller JPG files rather than the original large RAW files) and the end result has proved to be more successful than I expected for a first try!
If you'd like to join in the weekly theme and see what everyone else has created for it do pop over to the Photoblog forum to take a look. You can find it here.
2 January 2018 - Taking a wide angle
It's a quarter of a century since I last visited Hampton Court Palace. I had a film camera in those days but, as far as I can remember, I don't think I took many (if any) photos on that trip. Today we returned to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's palace on the banks of the Thames and it was fascinating how little I remembered of the place. Of course, when Wolsey fell out of favour with King Henry VIII the King claimed Hampton Court for himself and it remained home to English royalty until Georgian times.
The ceiling of the Great Hall. Originally this would have been very colourful but the Victorians saw fit to strip it back to bare wood
Our wanderings through the palace took us through history, from Henry VIII and his six wives, through the Stuart period, finishing with changes made in the eighteenth century by the four King Georges. I knew it would probably be fairly dark inside but hadn't anticipated quite how challenging the gloom would be for my camera at times!
I couldn't resist the wonderful shadows cast on the floor by the railings on this amazing staircase
The ornate ceiling in one of the Georgian rooms. I shamelessly laid on the floor to take this - who cares what the other visitors thought!
My two lenses of choice today were my 12-35mm lens (equivalent to a 24-70 on a 35mm camera) and my super wide angle 7-14mm lens. I went expecting to just use the wide angle for the bigger pieces of architecture. However, it proved to be a really handy tool and fifteen of my eighteen final photos were taken with it as it often gave me the opportunity to find a different angle on the architecture.
The entrance to the Chapel Royal. Sadly photography isn't allowed inside so I wasn't able to capture the glory of its spectacular blue and gold ceiling.
The King's toilet. I can't help feeling a velvet seat would be less than hygienic but I guess he liked a little luxury!
Henry VIII's wine cellar
1 January 2018 - A lone lapwing
The start of a new year can mean many things but for us it meant a trip to Ikea this morning to buy a few bits and bobs. We arrived early to beat the rush, which gave us time for a sneaky visit to Rainham Marshes on our way home. Sadly the weather gods evidently hadn't received our email about providing glorious sunshine so instead we had leaden skies and drizzly rain! This was hardly conducive to successful photography and even the tame robin was reluctant to come out from the bushes to greet us. Eventually we found there was some bird life to be photographed from one of the hides and I came away with one moderately successful shot. I can't help feeling my solitary lapwing would look even better photographed in good light but at least he posed for me. I guess one day I'll get to use my new long lens under sunny skies but I fear it may be a while yet!
All that remains is to wish all my Photoblog friends a very happy new year. I hope 2018 brings you many wonderful photo opportunities and look forward to sharing my tenth year of daily photoblogging with you all!
31 December 2017 - Preparing for a wild 2018
One of our plans for 2018 is create a wildflower zone in our garden to attract more insects and bees. I gave Kevin a bug hotel (plus some wildflower seeds) for Christmas so he spent some time today applying a coat of varnish in readiness for the spring when we hope we'll be able to attract some solitary bees to inhabit it. We also bought some seeds which I'll plant in a couple of months to add some colour elsewhere in the garden. All we need now is some warm weather to attract the insects and help our seedlings to germinate!
30 December 2017 - A big book for a little bear
The little pocket bear I bought recently (christened Cuthbert by my Mum) decided to better himself today by reading one of the books I received for Christmas. Bystander, a history of street photography, is a hefty tome - so weighty in fact that it's not the sort of book you could use as bedtime reading without doing yourself a mischief!
Of course, the words proved a little too challenging for a bear of small stature and a brain made of wool so he decided in the end just to read the pictures. I, on the other hand, will be reading it from cover to cover when time allows!
29 December 2017 - St. Albans Cathedral
Over the years I've visited many Cathedrals but somehow St Albans has always eluded me. We put that right today and we spent an hour or two exploring every corner of this ancient building.
The Cathedral was originally an abbey and is the resting place of Britain's first Christian martyr, St. Alban. It was founded in the eighth century but the building underwent many changes over the centuries. It was damaged by an earthquake, storms and vandalism, not to mention looting following the dissolution of the monasteries, and it wasn't until the nineteenth century that the building was restored to some sort of completeness. It also finally became a Cathedral in 1875.
Because of the Christmas holidays it was quite busy today so patience was the name of the game when it came to capturing wide, sweeping architectural vistas. I wasn't entirely successful but I found plenty of interesting details to photograph and it's near enough to home for me to pop back for another try on a quieter day.