Back to Nature!

I went for a walk with Hamish my Westie tonight and even though the light was fading, I still decided to take my camera and my 75 - 300mm lens.  

It's always a good time to try and capture some deer out grazing and resting in the fields, and although I was lucky enough to see them, I just couldn't get close enough to get a decent image.  It's my own fault really, it's exactly what I have the tripod for, and I completely forgot about it!  

I've been focusing so much on all of my college work, that I rarely get out to photograph nature anymore and I'm really missing it!  I'm going to set aside a few hours one evening and make use of the hides in the fields accross the road and get some worthy shots!!

But here's what I got today, from very far away and with an unneccessary shaky hand!!

 

Roisin

Food Advertising Photography

Wow...the most annoying thing just happened!!  I have spent the last hour typing a massive blog...and as I was trying to upload a picture...the whole blog deleted itself and I was left with a blank page!!  After screaming at my laptop for about 2 minutes, I had to leave the room and do a 10 minute workout on the punchbag to relieve my anger!!  

So...SIGH...and begin again...

For the last week or so I have been focusing on my advertising brief for 'Nestle' - given to me by my lecturer.  I have been set the task of promoting either their healthier products or to show their products being enjoyed along with a healthy balanced diet.  I have decided to use both of these ideas and create an ad campaign combining a few of their different products.

This afternoon after work, I set up my camera equipment in the orangery (conservatory), created my dishes and started shooting, with the help of everyone else who was working, holding lights and reflectors for me! :)

My message for this advert is that by combining their products, you can enjoy a healthy balanced diet and have this tasty and healthy dish for breakfast - it will get you going for the day by boosting your brain and body energy levels and concentration, and providing vitamins, minerals, omegas and antioxidants

  This is not necessarily the image I will use, it was one of many taken today but I do love it!

For this dish, I have used the following products and ingredients; Nestle Shredded wheat, Nestle Fitness cereal, (Nestle) Ski yoghurt's - plain and strawberry, Walnuts, Strawberries, Raspberries, Banana and honey.
 I have also created a nutritional information chart for this dish;

Nutrition Information	Per Portion 100g	% RDA Per Portion
Energy	336kcal	16%
Fat	9g	11%
Of which Saturates	2.5g	12%
Carbohydrates	59g	19%
Fibre	20g	N/A
Protein	12g	26%
Sodium	159mg	1%
Also containing;	Omega 3 oils
	Antioxidants

Hopefully I will be able to create an advert that will meet with the brand identity and be a convincing enough concept to be a Nestle campaign! (Theoretically)

Roisin

Weekly Tasks

I haven't blogged much about the photos I've been taking these past few weeks... Every week we are set a new task in class to photograph something different.  

Here are my attempts at the following;

Temperature

  

Levitation

Bokeh

I really love the temperature pictures.  I set the camera on a tripod...cause I can do that now!! :) And I set it to 1/8000 and high speed burst against a black backdrop and started flicking the lighter with my left hand while shooting with my right!  It took quite a while to get the images I wanted...as you could probably imagine, and my left hand was killing me by the time I finished!! ...Worth it though, I just love them...they look so magical!!

The levitation shots weren't actually as hard as I thought...although they where rushed, and clearly not my best work, I'm still happy with them!  The monkey was shot using 2 images and creating a mask in photoshop to delete the rest of the image I didn't need.  But for the image of the sighnsI used the cloning tool, as I wasn't sure how else to create it...I think it's worked ok though, I'm happy with the results!

My Bokeh images where shot over the christmas break and I've never got round to publishing them...so here you go!

I hope you like them all!! :)

Roisin

New Toys!!

So I have been meaning to Blog about my new toys for a whole week now, but I have just been so busy, that the only time I remember about it is when I'm lying in bed!! 

I have been given, from the same friends that gladly donated the tripod to me...a 35mm Pentax P30, a new flash...which is fantastic, seeing as my neice managed to break the 2 that I had, a x2 lens and a 75 - 300mm lens, both to fit the pentax!! :)

I was out today snapping away in the fields with my dog...Hamish.  I was getting some good macro's with the x2, but the only problem is that it's all so heavy and I don't have a proper bag to carry it all in!!  That's definitly something I need to be investing in - camera bags, and somewhere to store all of my equipement!  I now have quite a lot of camera equipement, including my portable studio, the problem is I have the smallest house and, I must admit...I'm a bit of a hoarder!!  I have cardboard boxes dotted all over the house, filled with camera stuff and broken flashes!! :)

 

Roisin

Ho Ho Hogmany!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!  

It's funny sometimes; growing up in Scotland and then living in England, it's easy to forget how differently we all speak!  The number of people I have had to explain to this week what Hogmany is, is hilarious!! (Even as I type, my computers telling me it doesn't even exist!)  It's not only that, I've lived in England for 5 years and this is the first time anyone has taken note of me saying it...haha thanks guys, nice to know you're all listening! ;)  But I did have a fabulous Christmas at home and  Hogmany was brought in with a family I was very close to growing up, and don't get to spend any time with now I live so far away, it was smashing!! ;)

I didn't actually manage to get any college work done over Christmas though, as I was just so busy all the time...it's hard being the centre of attention when you go home! (Haha..yeah right!!)  But I'm on a serious guilt trip now, I really have to start cracking the whip!!  

I did however manage to get my nieces to sit still long enough on the 2nd, to do a little photo shoot of them; the excitement of the portable studio going up in the living room was enough get my 3 year old niece ecstatic, but that quickly ran out after 7 minutes!!  Here's what I did manage to get however!

I shot these freehand as, surprise surprise...I still don't have a tripod for my Canon!  

Unfortunately the shutterspeed wasn't quick enough so they're not all of the best quality.  I always feel under pressure when doing any studio work, so my work often suffers as a consequence of me not taking the time to set up correctly...I always think I have,  and I'm later proved wrong! I need to remember that I am still only a student and so it's ok to take my time as I'm still learning, and I'm not expected to know everything...yet!! 

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

Juicy Salif Collection

These were all taken using my home studio kit and my Lumix FZ150 on a tripod.  

The light is just a wee light that sits in the corner of my living room and changes colour, I thought the Salif (ok, the lemon squeezer!) would look great illuminated in all those vibrant colour, and low and behold... I was right! :)

Welcome to my first Ever Blog!

Well here goes...my first ever blog post!  I'm not going to lie, the prospect of doing this has been extremely daunting, as I'm not in the slightest bit technically minded and fall out with my computer on a daily basis.  But as we live in an ever growing world of  endless social media, it's about time I jump on the band wagon and bare myself to the good people of the internet!

I have just started my second year studying an HND in Photography, I know what you must be thinking... 'a photographer who doesn't understand technology?'  but hopefully my images will convince you otherwise!

I'll start with some images I have taken in the past, to give you a sense of who I am and the kind of Photography I am drawn to.
I hope you like them! :)
 

I took this shot at a dare devil show about 2 years ago.  I knew he was going to be coming into shot performing yet another masterful trick, so I positioned the frame exactly where I wanted it and under exposed the image so that I would get the perfect silhouette.

I always thought this image would make a perfect wedding invitation.
If I had to name my images, I suppose I would call this one..

'Nature's True Love'

It always makes me smile when I see it! :)

I'm passionate about nature photography, I'll stand all day in a field (provided the suns out) and wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself, in this case it did.










These Images were all shot on my Lumix FZ150

Roisin x