On photography, literature and life
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
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
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
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
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!)
Flickr holds my entire online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
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 …..
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
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…
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.
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
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
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)
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
One from the archives, an early morning view travelling to Huntly, Aberdeenshire. The December light was casting long shadows, and the mist was slowly rising from the valley and the far hills. I love B+W photographs, but it still mystifies me – why is it so effective to remove the natural colour? So I’ve written about it as an article Take away the Colour trying to sort out what it is that so appeals to me. Not sure I’ve found an answer, but writing it made me think!
On Flickr you can find my B/W Tinted and Mono album
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
A new 6-part series on the Lensbaby optical system for DSLR camera.
It’s a personal journey through 6 years of shooting with the Lensbaby. It covers the basics of what the Lensbaby is and how it works – then the 3 optics I have used, from the original Double Glass, to the Sweet 50, and then the Edge 80. Finally there are two gallery pages, one looking at composing shots with the Lensbaby, and one of the delightful surprises that the optics can give.
The shot above was taken last November, when the autumn colours were almost gone. Using the Double Glass optic at F2.8. I caught the slight signature circular swirl in the middle, and the distinctive zoom-like bokeh fading to a gentle blur towards the edges of the frame.
Meet the Lensbaby
On Flickr you can find my Album of Double Glass photos
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell