Blended bush

Taken as part of my patterns project.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/rULvd5

Winter bush

Taken as part of my patterns project.

I got fascinated by leafless bushes and hedges while I was doing my patterns project. While patterns are generally repetitive, I saw the patterns in the branches even if they weren’t repetitive.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/rR57Jm

Retired bike

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/rwcnPg

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/rWCjpS

Black white leaves

Taken as part of my patterns project.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/rQ4qvS

50mm; f/2.5; 1/250; ISO 200

Fence of patterns

Taken as part of my patterns project.

Note,i became obsessed with patterns during my project.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/qPb5ub

A window portrait

I am so bad at updating! And now I’m so behind on editing my photos too. You know when you just want to take photos and not sit down and take the time to edit them?

Anyway I’ve set up an IFTTT task so whenever I upload a photo to Flickr, a draft WP post gets created. Hopefully that will help me to update more.

I took this one of my partner a couple of months ago. It took a couple of weekends to get it right. The first weekend I used flash to light up his face a bit more and make the background less blown out. That bit I was happy about because it was a technique I’d read in a flash photography book. I got a bit of feedback from a fellow photographer friend who said I should try with just natural light and get both eyes in the photo.

So I tried that the second weekend, did a bit of editing in PSE and this is what I got! I’m pretty happy with it.

50mm; ISO 100; 1/100 sec; f/3.2

It’s a cactus…duh.

It’s been a busy few weeks lately, which is why I haven’t posted at all (eek!). Mostly to do with getting my laptop sorted – yes, a new laptop after a good few years of managing with my old one. My new one is SO much quicker, using Photoshop Elements isn’t a drag anymore.

So, last month I focused on using flash. It’s still pretty much pitch black every night when I get home from work, so I guess lately has been the best time to practise using flash.

Anyway, here’s a photo I took with flash during the month.

f/3.5; ISO 400; 1/125; 50mm

It’s not really my fave. It doesn’t really say anything, I just wanted to show what I’ve been doing with my flash practise. However, I’ve been getting quite a few likes for the image on Flickr – so people must somehow like it?

It just looks a bit boring to me! And lately I’ve been feeling like most of what I’ve been producing hasn’t exactly been exciting. I guess a lot of photography I’m doing is just practising techniques rather than producing amazing images. Every so often, about every fortnight I’ll create something that I really like or love.

I’ll probably revisit this image again and see if I can add some effects to it in PSE to make it a bit more interesting. I did get some feedback, that it looked quite small. Not much I can do about that, since my lens doesn’t let me move in closer. But I have just got some extension tubes that I need to experiment more with too!

Happy today, happy tomorrow

Hi all!

At the start of this year, I set myself (amongst my many photography goals) the goal of writing something that’s made me happy on a piece of paper and putting that paper in my happy jar every day until 31 December!

So far, it’s going well and I haven’t missed a day.

Here’s my happy jar 🙂

f/2.8; 1/100 sec; ISO 400; 50mm

Unfortunately, I’ll have to let you all down here, because I didn’t actually make this myself – my talent and secretly crafty fiancé did…!

However, I did take the photo – so that’s good enough for me.

I’ve dedicated this month to learning how to use my flash gun. For Christmas, my mom bought me the book ‘On-camera flash: technique for digital wedding and portrait photography’, because I just DON’T GET FLASH. I’m slowly getting used to it and understanding it better now.

Post-process – fixed the exposure a tad, brought out the pink flowers a bit more. And then I thought I’d try something a bit different – I used solid colour layers (pink then yellow, to be exact) to just make it look a bit varied and a bit more interesting. I get a bit bored with having similar, realistic look all the time, and I need to learn PSE a bit better.

I’m mostly happy with it. Though I think it could have been composed better, just not sure how right now.

Converted Converse

Morning!

f/2.5; 1/400; ISO 100; 50mm

This was the other photo took when I went out for a walk with my brother. This was the image that I had in my head.

I took it at a few angles. I’m not sure if I prefer it in colour or monochrome. I always like the ruggedness and detail in monochrome, so I think it works better for the image I was going for. I think it tells more of a story.

Here’s the colour version.

An unexpected portrait

I promised myself I would post more frequently this year. I’ve even set myself weekly reminders! And I’ve got the WP app on my phone and iPad, so really there’s no excuse.

I’ve also promised myself that I’ll practice photography more and post process my images sooner too. Wish my luck!

I’ll start this year off with this portrait I took of my brother a couple of days after Christmas. I just got to post processing it last night, and it’s now in my favourite photos.

I made the conscience decision to go out as close to the golden hour as possible and capture and few photos with my brother. I knew what I wanted to capture and I got a few other good photos, which I’ll post another day, but this turned out to the best.

My brother isn’t a natural model or poser so getting him to look at the camera naturally wasn’t working. So instead I got him to walk naturally towards the sun and stop and hold still. And he did!

While I was post-processing, I stumbled across these tones. I loved them and they suited his skin tone. I increased the highlights and messed with the mid-tones a bit after watching this free tutorial on Morgan Burks.

f/3.5; ISO 100; 1/160; 50mm

I need to figure out how to get these tones again.

Don’t you just love it when the unexpected happens!