Inspiration in Full Colour

I would like to share with you a photographer called Robert Peel.  I have absolutely fallen in love with his work and I think everyone should have the privilege of seeing his collections.  This is a link to a collection of what Robert deems to be his best most recent photographs, and I think you'll agree... They are absolutely spectacular!!

http://www.malmesburyphotos.com/top-selection-recommended

The range of colours in his work and the clarity of his images is just incredible.  I found myself transfixed on each image, getting completely drawn in to the landscape, wishing I was there at that exact moment!

He is clearly using a wide angle lens for these shots; a normal kit lens doesn't frame the same view in one shot...I've tried!! :)

Roisin

Smoke Trails

Here is a wee home shoot from earlier this evening.  It's another task from college on 'smoke trails'.  I decided to make an oil burner out of an old cider bottle, a sock and some olive oil!  I set it in front of a black backdrop and back lit the smoke to make it more dramatic.  I was holding the camera for these pictures so they're not as focused as I'd like...I really need a tripod for my Canon!!

Roisin

Splash! Photography

Another on of our tasks from college was splash photography.  As I'm keen to get into food and still life photography this year, this was a challenge I was keen to undertake.  I watched a couple of tutorials on how to do it correctly, and went ahead using a black backdrop and 2 LED torches, which did the job nicely...I thought!  

It's hard to do this yourself unless you have a trigger trap, and as mine is broken, I enlisted some help to drop the lemon.  I had the camera on burst mode so I took a lot of photos, after a little post processing, these are the ones I like the best.

They're not quite as sharp as I'd like them to be, I don't have a tripod that fits my Canon EOS 40D, so I perched it on top of a shoe box.  I'm still happy with the results for my first attempt though!

Roisin

Experimenting with Exposure

Recently at college we have been given a series of exercises to capture some images, the first of which being exposure.  Our lecturer showed us some images that had been captured in RAW and each image had been under exposed by up to 2 stops.  The images were very dark and I couldn't really discern a lot from the them, then with some quick editing and they were perfect; the tones, colours, highlights and shadows.

I quite often capture images of under exposed sunsets, but I'm typically doing this for the silhouettes.  I would normally discard any images that have been under exposed, but now I know that they can still be saved.

Here's some images I took the other day in the glowing late afternoon sun...what beautiful weather we have had lately, perfect for getting out and inspired again! :)

 The first image was under exposed by -2 stops, and as you can see it's really dark.  Here is what I did in RAW editing, I then opened levels and adjusted the light to get the bottom result. 

The next image was shot using a UV filter and under exposed by -1 stop.  

 I did the same edits for this picture too, without having to use the recovery as the uv filter had already done the job of toning the sky correctly.

The next image was over exposed by 1 stop and pointed in the direction of the sun.  I wanted to get it as washed out as I could to see how much I could still recover...I'm very happy with this result too!

Here's the editing I did to achieve this...

I like to what extent I can now edit and correct images that I would normally deem useless, I'll definitely be using this editing a lot more in the future!

Roisin

Why does the internet hate me so much?

So I have been shockingly bad at keeping up my blogs this month...but I swear , it's not my fault!!

My blasted internet has been the bane of my life these past few weeks, but of course it works fine when I'm at college or work; which prompted my internet provider to suggest a change of lifestyle, in which I stay in during the day and switch college to night classes! :)  

Anyone who knows me, knows fine well I have not evolved well with technology, so you could imagine my panic when he starts telling me to change the filters... I thought, 'we're not dismantling a Dyson here!!'  But in the end he sent me a new router and all is as good as knew now!  If you don't count the fact that my laptop has clearly got the lurgy, but we'll ignore that for as long as possible!! :)

Even though my internet is working again, and I can easily post all the wonderful pictures I have taken lately...I don't really have any!  Trying to find the inspiration to get out and take at least a few photographs has been hard recently, between working full time and moving, I'm struggling to even stay awake let alone pick up the camera and take photos.  I need to be in the right frame of mind to be able to go out and take pictures, otherwise it just feels like a chore and I don't achieve anything...and I haven't recently!  I need to be much more motivated and committed, and find the time to get out and enjoy it again, cause I do love it!!

Here are a few sunsets I took recently but haven't had the time to share...

 

Roisin