Tag Archives: photography

The pleasure in making do

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Photographers can spend a great deal of money on equipment, especially if they want to shoot indoors, studio-style. This image is one of my most successful. It has won me several awards and has been accepted into juried exhibitions. Recently it was one of only seven images from Surrey accepted into the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain’s annual projected digital image exhibition. Judges often comment favourably on the fine control of lighting in this photograph. Yet this shot was taken in natural daylight in front of a black lever arch file with a piece of white paper as a reflector. I used my canon 400D and its kit lens, now considered by most to be outdated and barely adequate equipment. The tripod is more than fifty years old and was passed on to me by my father. A picture of my totally Heath Robinson setup (and very messy kitchen) is below. Who needs a posh studio? There is pleasure in making do.

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Holt’s Orchard

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On this day in 2009 we were travelling through Utah, on our way from Moab to Bryce Canyon. On the way, we drove through Capitol Reef National Park. We only had time for one stop, but as we drove through the stunning scenery of burnt orange canyon walls and rippling yellow grasses, we resolved to return. We stopped in the rather prosaically named Fruita, where the principal industry used to be the growing of, you guessed it, fruit. The top picture is Holt’s Orchard, in Fruita. In 1878, a small group of Mormons settled this land by the Fremont River. They found the climate suitable for growing fruit and, now run by the National Parks Service, the orchards continue to flourish today, the Spring blossom making a striking contrast with the imposing red walls of the canyon. Life was hard for those early settlers. This orchard was planted by the Holt family and a little plaque tells their moving story, from the death of their daughter at 3 months from a scorpion sting to the loss of their farm a few years later in one of the many devastating flash floods to which the area was prone.
The Mormons were not, however, the first settlers of this area. Ancestral Puebloans farmed this land from 700 to 1300AD and, just over the road from the Holt Orchard, a boardwalk now runs along the canyon walls to make viewing possible of the many intriguing and beautiful petroglyphs that remain as evidence of their presence (see picture below).

If you are interested in this area of the United States or you are looking for an really rewarding new blog to read, can I recommend Travels with the Blonde Coyote

If the link doesn’t work for you (no idea what I’ve done wrong!), try copying and pasting this into your browser: http://theblondecoyote.com

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No such thing as bad weather

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“Storm over Nantucket”

While I typed yesterday’s blog post, hailstones the size of marbles were rattling my roof. This April shower made me think of a saying which the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attributes to John Ruskin: ‘There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather’. Although it is highly unlikely that Ruskin had us mind, for photographers this saying is entirely apposite. Changeable weather brings interesting skies for landscapes. Cloudy weather brings diffused light that is perfect for macro work or portraits. Rain leaves colours refreshed, foliage sparkling with droplets. Mist highlights structure and outline in the landscape, and snow is the perfect natural reflector for portraits. Probably for the outdoor shooter, clear blue skies and baking sun are just about the worst weather there is. There’s no pleasing some people!

So imagine my delight when, after a ‘perfect’ summer day on holiday in Nantucket last August, the evening brought one of the best storms I have experienced. From the balcony of our pontoon-cottage I watched the show for a full two hours. Today’s photograph is my favourite from the many I took. This was my first experience of shooting lightning. I want more!
The technical bit: To take lightning shots you should use BULB mode with a cable/remote release. That way you can keep the shutter open and close it immediately after an arc. But, if your cable is broken (grrr!) you can try using long exposures and self timer. I used a series of 30 second exposures over two battery-draining hours. Sometimes the shots were over exposed as I couldn’t close the shutter for fear of joggling the camera. Sometimes I got lucky. ;o)
Canon EOS 5Dii, 24-105mm L lens, tripod. 24mm, f/8, 30secs, ISO400, -1EV.

The best outdoor studio ever

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Parakeets at sunset

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Incoming

On this day ten years ago we moved into our home. The house didn’t need much doing to it but the garden had only a few mature trees and shrubs, a mossy lawn and weeds galore. Over the years we have added interest, planting with wildlife in mind. Now ninety percent of my macro shots are taken in our garden. It is the best studio I could have, and literally on my doorstep. As I type this, a pair of blackbirds with nesting materials clamped in their beaks are flying to and from the climbing rose outside the kitchen window. An early brood of robins has already hatched in the front garden hedge and the coal tits are busy in their usual nesting spot out back. Every evening this week I have heard a hedgehog in the back garden. The borders already buzz with bumble bees and hoverflies and the other day a bee fly briefly hovered over my page, its characteristic long proboscis stretched out like a mini, and furry, concord!
All of the pictures in today’s post were taken in my garden.

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Falling

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Bee fly (bombylius major)

The secret world of small things

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Rose explorer (a tiny bee explores a rose in my garden)

Macro is one of my favourite modes of photography, particularly when the subject is mini-beasts. Perhaps with this subject more than any other, photography has revealed to me a secret world. I try to find points of view that create the impression of seeing the macro landscape as an insect might. My subjects are photographed in natural light, as I find them. I will never move them or otherwise deliberately interfere in their behaviour. I certainly will not immobilise them by putting them in the fridge as many photographers do! If they fly/crawl away before I get my shot, then so be it; it’s part of the challenge. I prefer to show insects interacting with their environment rather than zooming in really close for a ‘scientific’ style of shot.
My family find it strange that I photograph bugs as I used to be afraid of them. Could another benefit of photography be phobia busting? (But I am still afraid of spiders – don’t tell!)

A moment’s monument

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti famously wrote that ‘a sonnet is a moment’s monument’ (‘Introductory Sonnet’). The same could also be said, of course, of a photograph. (Hopefully I can get away with using Rossetti as my segue to this image as I am currently studying for an MA in Victorian Art and Literature!) This photograph was taken on my honeymoon in 1993. It is the sun rising over Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. Looking at it, I can recall the sounds of the African bush waking up, the slightest of breezes on my face, the feeling of warmth slowly returning after the chill of the night, and the anticipation at the start of my first Zimbabwe safari. A special memory, made even more special perhaps by the sad events in Zimbabwe since. All I have is a 6×4 print, having lost the negative. So the scan is inevitably grainy, the resolution too low to make a new print, but just about good enough to give the moment it records a new life on the net.

Just Starting Out

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Finally, I have succumbed to the lure of the photoblog.  Temporarily (I hope) unable to wield my trusty Canon 5Dii due to a back injury, I have to find another way to satisfy my compulsion for all things photographic. Perhaps this is it.  For those who don’t already know, I love photography. My favourite subjects are to be found outside: landscapes, either local or discovered while travelling, gardens, flowers and insects.  But I will turn my lens towards anything that captures my imagination.  I am not trying to make a living out of photography.  I am in this game for the love of it, and part of that fun is in sharing my images.  I hope you enjoy looking at them almost as much as I enjoyed making them.