Bank Holiday 2

ISO125, 105mm, 1/200s, f/5.6, -2/3ev, cropped, colour balance (reduce green reflection)

A woodland butterfly ponders life amongst the undergrowth. Backlit by the Sun to highlight the transparent wings and rim-light the feathered edges.

Bank Holiday 1

The first of 4 scheduled blog posts to celebrate the double bank holiday weekend. All taken at lunch break thursday.

ISO800, 105mm, 1/500s, f/7.1, -2/3ev, noise reduction

A Trio of Dandelions

The seasonal favourite for April with so many photographers, the humble dandelion.

Three shots taken yesterday in an attempt to capture it in different ways.

ISO400, 105mm, f/11, 1/200s, -1ev, levels, noise reduction, desaturate yellow

Two images layered of the same frame, just two different focal planes

ISO400, 105mm, f.5.6, 1/200s, +2/3ev (purposefully over exposed)

My favourite of the trio. ISO320, 105mm, f/7.1, 1/200s, -2/3ev. Desaturated, noise reduction.

Pick 'n' Mix

Starting this week with an odd selection of left over images of possibly the most diverse collection of subjects that even I have posted before. They're an acquired taste I must admit, but hopefully something of interest ..

ISO100, 275mm, 1/6400s, f/5.6, -1ev, levels, colour balance (reduce yellow), desaturate blue

Sunlight refracted through ice crystals in a cirrus cloud. The pure beauty of this is way above the abilities of me and my camera to capture, so much of the subtle colours have been lost. I often don't post up things like this, considering it a failure to capture how something looked, but maybe it's possible to look at the image and let your imagination make up for it's short-falls.

You can always rely on great light inside an old church it seems. This time inside St John the Baptist church in the fabulously history rich Colerne. The village has a long history dating back to hill fort remains from many year BC, it was mentioned in the Domesday book (11th century) and the church houses fragments of an 8th century Saxon stone cross. The church itself dates from 1190, with many medieval features still remaining, including a large array of well preserved gargoyles and carved faces. The bell tower holds 8 bells dating from 1652 and a single handed clock from 1685, one of only a handful of hour-hand only in England, but unfortunately not very photogenic since the clock face was restored in 2008.

Flowers at Lacock abbey walled garden.

Channel mixer, vignette, added noise, added texture, colour balance, reverse curves (lower contrast), dodge/burn and generally just trashed it to look like an old photo.

A bit of fun with an old car parked up at the suitably ye-olde looking Reybridge.

Wedding shoot went brilliantly on saturday, glorious weather, lots of happy people and no disasters. The staged studio lights were a complete hit, working really well technically and bringing out everyones inner celebrity, with a queue forming for the best part of an hour. Was great fun and got some really nice photos, bride and groom were happy, so another successful event in the bag.

Just one more lesson learned this time... when you're photographing the bride arriving and everyone else is making their way into the venue, make sure you don't get locked out!!

A midweek macro clear-out..

With the hope of restoring a bit more variety into the mix, here are 3 macro shots from the last few days. (None from today as I had a dentist lunch-break challenge).

ISO100, 105mm, 1/800s, f/4, -2/3ev

Not all butterfly shots have to be blazing with colours.

ISO160, 105mm, 1/200s, f/4

7 Spot ladybird on a bluebell.

ISO400, 105mm, 1/640s, f/4, -1/3ev, cropped, saturation

Thistle & Bee, taken at Lacock over the weekend. Pretty happy with this one, nice and clean, a good bee, a good pose, a good flower and the lawn colour background really makes it pop. Some more light or a catchlight on the eye would have been nice, but it's somewhere handy.

Studio Lights

Shot a bunch of test shots with my new studio lights this evening, just to make sure they don't have any nasty habits before they get their first serious trial at the weekend. Was good fun, and the lights were solid. Shot this dead head cowboy with just a single softbox to one side, nice and simple, then cloned out the tripod he was balancing on in PS.

Then a quick shoot with Paula and her new dark hair, which despite the addition of a bounced fill light off the ceiling, stayed dark.

Lunchbreak photofest..

ISO400, 105mm, 1/200s, f/7.1, -2/3ev, noise reduction, cropped

Today's lunch-break photo session was far from a challenge, so has been temporarily re-named. Although there is an unhealthy amount of macro flora and fauna on show, so maybe the challenges will be to get some variety back on the blog this week!

The first damselfly of the year in this shot. Certainly seems early and is the first I've seen despite walks along the local river and canal over the weekend. Always a welcome splash of colour on my blog anyway.

Friday clearance..

A clear out of the last weeks left-overs to add a little fun and colour..

Church jug

ISO1600, 27mm, 1/25s, f/4.5

Selective levels, selective transparent lightening blur, noise reduction

Moody natural lighting (an ever present commodity in churches it seems) side lights a great old religious vessel. Not a photo that will ever dazzle, but more of a still life study in light, shade, texture, detail and tone.

Finally received my studio lights yesterday too after Royal Mail lost the first set and THT Trading (Amazon) took four weeks to send a replacement. Not best pleased, but the item seems decent enough, I will set about trying them out this week and see what I can come up with...

Photograph-y Hell..

Stuck at my desk with the Sun shining on the world outside. Photograph-y hell.

ISO500, 20mm, 1/30s, f/2.8, -1.1/3ev

Selective: levels, curves, blurring, cloning, spot removal, noise reduction, colour balance

Vale of Pewsey

ISO100, 16mm, f/14, 1/50s, circular polariser, -1/3ev

Selective curves, dodge/burn, 2 raw exposures combined

The Kennett and Avon canal meandering across Wiltshire, cutting a peaceful and pleasant path through the Pewsey Vale on a sunny spring day.

Friday flurry..

Another sunny lunch-break, another quick blog update..

ISO400, 105mm, 1/400s, f/4, -2/3ev, noise reduction

Spider macro against a nice clean background.

ISO125, 105mm, 1/160s, f/3.2, -2/3ev

The first bluebells are firing into colour in the local woods. Brace yourself for more photos of these beauties over the coming weeks!

ISO100, 105mm, 1/500s, f/4, -2/3ev, cropped, highlight recovery

A Brimstone Butterfly taking a breather on the woodland floor. It's wings turned out to be the perfect reflector and were extraordinarily bright, but rather luckily, could still be recovered while processing the RAW file.

Two bees or not two bees..

ISO200, 400mm, 1/1600s, f/5.6, cropped, levels, saturation

Another swift lunch-break challenge today, lots of bees and dandelions, so they were the target of choice today, with the aim of capturing one in flight. I'm counting today as a failure, since I'm not pleased with either shot, both having poor depth of field/focussing, but as always it was very nice to get out in the Sun anyway.

ISO200, 400mm, 1/1250s, f/5.6, cropped, levels, saturation

Lunchbreak challenge..

Fantastic sunny day today. Full speed on the bicycle to a local wildlife reserve and church to broaden my lunch-break horizons. Saw a few other photo opportunities on the new route which will provide suitable hunting grounds for future challenges, but settled on this one of today.

A peacock butterfly poised atop suitably photogenic twisting flowers, under dappled sunlight, against a shaded background.

Usually butterflies are too busy and full of energy mid way through a sunny day for the macro lens, but this one didn't seem too bothered by me.

ISO100, 105mm, 1/320s, f/3.5, -2/3ev

Not just for Christmas..

Pretty bleak out there today and no camera with me, so here's one I prepared earlier.

Taken yesterday through foreground leaves and branches to create a muted, hazy natural vignette. Not much choice in the matter since the Robin was at the centre of a spring flowering bush, but always good to be able to turn a potential negative into a positive.

With good weather predicted from tomorrow onwards we'll see what I can find tomorrow..

ISO400, 400mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, -1ev

Noise reduction, cropped, colour balance (to balance out the green light bounced and filtered via surrounding foliage)

Lunchbreak challenge..

Another overcast sky, perfect for a rolling landscape, but being constrained to push-bike range it was into another local patch of greenery looking for some macro detail again. Slightly more successful this time in that I actually got to blog pretty much what I was looking for, unlike last week. Nice subdued cloud filtered shading and great natural textures, but with colours that I just couldn't bring myself to turn black and white. Darkened fairly significantly in photoshop using levels to pop those textures.

ISO1000, 330mm, 1/640s, f/5.6, -2/3ev

Levels, noise reduction

Lunchbreak Challenge - FAILED!!

With gloomy skies and bleak lighting I was in search of something with contrast and texture that I could convert into a black and white photo .. something a little different. However, my three best opportunities for a decent snap were: a bright red bull-finch, some red, black and yellow gold finches or this swathe of flowers. So, my apologies, but for todays lunch-break challenge it's yet more colours ..

ISO400, 235mm, 1/500s, f/5, -1/3ev

Cropped, noise reduction, curves, transparent blurred lighten layer