Walkabout photography

I read about something on the Internet which was designed to help develop your photographic eye. The technique was unnamed so I have called it

Walk about photography!

The object of Walk about photography is to develop your photographic eye. You do this by going for a walk and at random intervals stopping. When you stop you then have a take a photograph of something within 15 meters of where you have stopped.

I tried this today with my wife and she told me when to "stop". Take a look at the photos that I took on my adventure.

Cycle lane by Barking Park - this is two pictures put together in Photoshop as you can't get both the post and path in focus at the same time in one shot.

Here is a nice low depth of field shot of a tree trunk with moss on it.

This is a picture of a spike on a fence with it's paint peeling off. I thought this looked like a nice shot and the angle makes it look more dramatic.

Low depth of field shot of a brick wall.

This is a great shot. It's a picture of a pigeon feather that I stuck in the ground.

Pretty flowers

Hope you enjoyed looking at some of the pictures I took on my first walk about photography adventure. I hope you give it a try too.

Photoshop techniques

Well a lot has happened since February. I have now done a 1st Holy Communion and a Christening. I have my 1st Wedding planned for the start of August (very exciting) with a pre-wedding shoot this Saturday.

Well I have been playing with Photoshop and here's some example of what I have been able to do.

This is a simple black and white cropped conversion on a picture. I rotated it 2 degrees clock wise to straighten the frame across the bottom. This picture was taken in a mirror.

This picture was rotated slightly to make the pews straight. I turned it black and white and faded out the edges of the picture.

In this picture I used two layers and a mask to blur most of the photo and keep the features on the girl's face and hair sharp. This was then converted to B&W, I believe it looks better than the colour version.

Following the previous example I used the same technique only I converted to sketch instead of the blur effect. I then used a layer mask to bring out this gent so he doesn't look like a sketch and stands out from the rest of the picture.

Quite excited about the new things I am learning about Photoshop and looking forward to the wedding in a few weeks and creating promotional material for Going Wild Photography. I am also looking forward to creating the Wedding album for my portfolio.

Keep checking back to see how everything goes.

First Order

At 11pm on Tuesday evening I get the following email:

Subject: EMAIL  ORDER
Date: Wednesday 10 November 2010
From: JAMES MOORE 

Hello, My name is JAMES MOORE, I want to order some product items from your 
store to my below address in SCOTLAND  but before i proceed, i will like to 
confirm the type of credit card you accept as payment (VISA OR MASTER CARD) 
and if you can ship to the below address. Please let me know asap, so i can 
proceed with my request.
 
Best regards

JAMES MOORE
JMOORE STORE LTD
jmoorestores@gmail.com
18 Pulteney St, Ullapool, 
Ross-Shire, 
Highland IV26 2UP Scotland

I was so excited about the thought of having my first customer that I had trouble sleeping straight away. I also updated my web site so this James would be able to buy pictures from me straight away.

But...

The next day I did a search for James Moore on Google and found out that this email is actually a scam email.

I couldn't believe it I was so gutted.

The positive side is that I now have some prices on my web site (www.goingwildphotography.co.uk) the negative side is that I haven't had any customers yet :(

Oh well... Here's to the future and all those people out there that are going to enjoy my photographs.

God bless you all and please keep visiting my site I have some exciting things planned for the next couple of months.

What did I get out of the course

I learned a massive amount about how to take pictures, how to compose them and what I can do with my DSLR. I learned what Shutter speed, aperture and ISO are and how to use them. I also learned about using the Manual mode.

I learned how to print images and a great place to print the images from (ProAm). Since finishing the course I have started to work on a 16"x12" (A3) portfolio to show off my work to potential customers.

I have some fantstic shots that I have taken while on this course and am looking forward to the images that I will take in the future.

I have started my own photography company (Going Wild Photography) and at the moment have 6 jobs on the books, as a result of printing my portfolio, which I am doing at a reduced rate or free to bulk up my portfolio.

April 2011 is the date I have planned for the launch of Going Wild Photography and the date when I plan to start taking paid jobs and selling prints. I have an eBay shop planned and a web site, I am also thinking seriously about branding and image at the moment.

Keep coming back to this blog as I'll be updating it and showing off some of my work as it continues to improve with practice.

I have also ordered 2 new lenses which should be with me soon.

• The first is a 90mm - 300mm telephoto lens for my wildlife photography. If it arrives before the weekend I will be going out on Saturday to find some Kingfishers.
• The second is a fixed focal 50mm lens, which is fast f/1.8 so I can get some good portraits and some nice shallow depth of field. I will be playing with this extensively before putting it to use for the baby, children and dog portraits I have on the books over the next few weeks.

And finally thank you to eveyone who has and continues to encourage me.

End of the 10 week intro course

The last two weeks of the course were fantastic. I really got a lot out of them and learned some really valuable stuff.

Week 9

This week we went through the steps needed to get our images ready to be printed by ProAm Printing. We all brought a RAW image in to process and send off to be printed as a 16"x12" image. We converted the image from RAW, changed the size of the image and even changed the size of the canvas to include a white border. At the end of the session we all had an image to send off for printing.

Week 10

The prints were back. They were great; I wasn't sure what the outcome would be of printing the images that big. I had always been a little worried thinking that the camera I was using is only a 10 mega pixel camera, even though it is a DSLR.

I was happy with the quality of the image. The only problem I had was that the focusing of the image was slightly out and the background was more in focus than the people in the picture.

Defection

After a little bit of confusion I have defected. Following the break and our eventual return to college it was a little unclear which days the classes would be running. In the end, however the Tuesday class continues to run on a Tuesday and the Wednesday on a Wednesday. This was unfortunate as I had booked up a couple of Wednesday nights.

I have therefore defected!

I am now attending the Tuesday group and will continue to until the end of the course. Granted that is only two weeks but it means that I have now spent half of the course in the new group, or at least I will have done by the end.

I have enjoyed the last couple of classes and the new group who seem quite vibrant. We're on a break over Christmas but we have been tasked to bring our best picture in RAW format after the holiday. We will then process out images as a class and send them off to be printed by ProAm. We will then compare pictures on our last class.

Introduction to Digital Photography week 6

Bottles

After four weeks off we return to college. This week Ian was off sick and we had another tutor.

When I walked into the studio (as this was where we were this week) there were 4 different still life set ups around the room. The setups were a bottle on a table with a light shining on to it. Each one had a different colour bottle and a different light. 3 out of the 4 lights were remote trigger flashes and the 4th was a daylight light. We were also given a light meter to read the conditions for optimal images using the M (Manual mode) on our cameras.

This is what the daylight setup looked like

When I saw this and found out that this was what we were doing today I thought "this is going to be boring". However when I started working my way around the room and working with the other students and comparing notes I found the session really interesting.

I really liked the way some of these pictures turned out and how the different lights worked in different way and gave different results.

Here is a small selection of pictures that I took over the course of the evening

F8 1/15 second

The focus on this one is half way down the bottle, so inside the bottle is in focus and the neck and wall behind are slightly out.

F11 1/60 second

F11 1/60 second

F22 1/80 second

Using the overhead light you can only see the bottle and nothing else that was present in the room. Brilliant

F22 1/60 second

 F22 1/60 second

I liked the way the light reflected on the table surface here