Pink geranium flowers. Sweet 50 with 16mm macro converter
Thinking of summer as the flowers start to bloom. A pink geranium that we grew in a pot, close to the porch so it could get the sun and be sheltered from the winds. It rewarded us with beautiful flowers. Shot here with the Lensbaby, which is one of my favourite range of optics. The Sweet 50 optic gives a sharp focus point called the “sweet spot” and a gentle blur surrounding that spot. There’s a whole series of articles here on the Lensbaby optic system On Flickr you can find my Album of Sweet 50 photos
… the rain has gone” Last summer (2018) we had a long hot dry three months. The impact was felt all over the crop growing area of the N E of Scotland, where a great deal of the local barley crop was stunted and shrivelled. Personally it was our garden we struggled to save, taking every drop of usable water out to help the plants survive. In the cool of the evening we could be found with hosepipe watering cans … and of course with cameras too! My favourite for catching the water droplets on the plants was an old Russian Helios 44-2 lens that I found in the back of a cupboard. The lens is frozen at F2.8 but it is such a delight! Serendipity, on Flickr tells more of that story. So here is the original shot I took of the late light catching the leaves on a miniature acer
Raindrops on miniature acer in colour. Helios 44-2 lens at F2.8
The slanting light, the water droplets on the leaves, and the light yellow of the entire bush – they are all there. But how will it change if I take away the colour, and transform it into B+W?
Raindrops on miniature acer in B+W. Helios 44-2 lens at F2.8
I did crop the right side of the image, which brings the leaves and the water droplets closer. But the overall effect of the change, for me, is to draw the eye more immediately to the sun falling on those leaves in the foreground, and to emphasise the cast shadow in the bottom right corner. There is more light and shadow, and more sense of the sun touching the leaves in the foreground. I feel that both versions are equally strong, and complement each other very well.
Too good to miss the sunset today! The sun sets over the back field behind our house, and sometimes gives us a magnificent light show. The fading light combines with the cloud-scape, and the darkening into silhouette of the trees and the fences. A perfect end to a warm and sunny day. Flickr holds an album of shots taken of the field behind our house here
Infrared shot of Fyvie loch with bench. Nikon D90 with 720nm filter
No, it’s not red! And it’s not winter here either! It is summertime at Fyvie loch, and I used a custom converted camera to take this shot. I’m writing a series of articles about my adventures in the ‘Wonderland’ of Infrared (IR) photography – quite as exciting a world as Alice found through the looking-glass! It starts here, and covers the three infrared filters that I have; the 720nm the 850nm and the 590nm (Super-Goldie) I’ve not finished it all yet, but the gentle 720nm was my very first infrared filter, and my way into the whole IR world. So I wrote about it first. It taught me about how the colours can be completely different and quite unexpected too. I looked at using it shooting still-life compositions, as well as the more familiar landscape shots. This is the section I have already completed. My first ever landscape shoot is followed back into the ‘studio’, with the post-processing here. I have a gallery of all the infrared photographs I’ve posted online on Flickr
There’s nothing quite as beautiful as the tiny delicate flowers of the Japanese plum tree in March and April. The wind may be cruel and cold, but the fragile blossoms cling to the swaying branches with such determination. Even overnight frost cannot defeat them. Spring will endure! I shot this with my favourite lens. It is an old Russian Helios 44-2 lens, from way back in the 1960s. It creates the most wonderful gentle colours, and a stunningly beautiful bokeh too. There is an album of photographs taken with this lens here on Flickr. The close-ups are with this exact lens; the longer shots with a second LOMO Helios lens (yes – I eventually got two!)
The sense that Spring is here and summer is close behind!
One of my little Kokeshi dolls in the Spring sunshine. Surrounded with flowers, it feels like summer can’t be far behind! Actually the prevailing winds are still blowing down from the Arctic to us here in Scotland, and the wind chill factor is keeping our warm winter coats and hats at the front of the wardrobe …..
Following on from yesterday’s post of a discarded eggshell. I was looking for something more playful and experimental to make from the original image. Some photo-manipulation is called for – which means more play time in Photoshop! Here I chose to add a macro shot of the inside of a plastic, multi-coloured slinky…
The original macro shot of a coloured slinky
But the full colour version would take the eye away from the egg. So I needed to make something more in tune with the existing dark background, but adding another dimension to the image.
The Eggstra-ordinary combination of design shapes and colours
Hopefully it works – giving some visual interest to the black areas, and using the curves of the slinky to echo the natural curves of the eggshell. The original slinky shot is on Flickr: here The larger version of the photo-manipulation is on Flickr: here
I’m not a big fan of eggs for breakfast, but Mike is. So I took the discarded eggshell and set it on a piece of glass, and shot it against a black velvet cloth. OK, I am a hoarder! I have a box full of shells, from small bird’s eggs to crab shells, to ordinary eggshells. And another full of feathers. And yet another full of seashells. You get the picture! Almost nothing is discarded before I get my hands, and my lens on it. From flowers to fruit, they all have to take a detour into my ‘studio’ (usually the front room window sill) before they leave the house ;o)
