1:20am
and I’m wide awake again.
Have you stopped breathing?
In Bed After Camera Club
Mill Road Winter Fair | Gallery
Went out with a 50mm to make myself interact with folk more (!). Had a lot of fun. A great atmosphere on a freezing day.
Long Exposure Workshop | Gallery
Sunday I attended a (2:1!) long-exposure workshop with Antony Zacharias. These are my shots. I did not do an awful lot of long-exposure stuff, not least because Antony showed me some of his images (see the link to his website) and I was distracted by how wonderful and inspirational they were. Nevertheless, here they are. I quite like some of them and, regardless of the quality of these efforts, the workshop was excellent.
Click to view full-size.
PDI Panel 2023-2024 (Cambridge Camera Club)
My first Panel competition, so not entirely sure how to do it… So I’m extremely satisfied with a Highly Commended (equal 4th) for this panel of five called “British Sign Language”. (It’s 1x5 but if you view this on a phone they’ll stack vertically, which is wrong.)
Click for bigger.
Judge: Colin Southgate FRPS DPAGB
Arcminute Microkelvin Interferometer
There’s probably a way to get the moon not blown out, and still benefit from the moonlight, but I’m buggered if I can work it out.
Off-Camera Flash
Experimenting with off-camera flash. I mean - really back to basics. Well, not back. Just… basics. Like… why isn’t the flash working? Oh. Electronic shutter. Dimwit. I need to play with flash more to understand it. And I need to play with kittens less, because they’re a fucking nightmare.
Scape Print - 23 Nov
Royston Photographic Society ‘Scape Competition. Scored as follows:
Scores:
Needle Rock & Old man of Storr - 19/20 - Didn’t like that it was backlit.
Piscine - 15/20 - Had nothing critical to say… but fifteen nonetheless…
St Monans - 15/20 - Felt the shadows were to dark. Fair. My monitor is WAY too bright and I don’t do my own printing.
Phil G suggested that the latter two images were quite magenta-y and I think he is right. I’d kinda noticed really, but not doing my own printing means it’s impossible to check this for the physical copies. I need to spend some money. The winning few images today were all on nicely chosen paper and looked amazing. cf Peter Baker for example.
HERON!
Yet another image of a heron. But I like herons.
Pale Blue Dot
Street Level | Gallery
I found a remote trigger that also allows burst firing (Hähnel Captur), so put the R5 in a cage, and hung it at the bottom of a monopod for street-level captures of dogs. Click for full images.
There were some quite cool kids too.
Norfolk | Day 3 | Gallery
Click for bigger…
On reflection, it appears that I am obsessed with groynes. Also, that I am a big fan of symmetrical portrait formats.
Norfolk | Day 2 | Gallery
Norfolk | Day 1 | Gallery
A long weekend in Norfolk, despite the weather. Minns’ book tucked under my eager little arm… Click to embiggen.
Key-lines
Frankly, just working out how to add a key-line to an image…
Flash. Ah-aaah.
Yes. I bought Nik. And am lumbering around in it.
Pep Ventosa, but table-top and therefore not
Experimenting with subject rotation and blend modes. And Nik.
I do NOT know how to do this...
Distilled water on rain-x’ed glass
I CAN’T GET TO GRIPS WITH THIS!
This one is oil in water, but I’ve been tried too with (distilled) water droplets on glass. Whatever I’m using I cannot figure out how to get the drop AND the image in the drop in focus. People seem to manage this by mistake when taking pictures through rainy windows, but I can’t decode what that means for doing it intentionally. This image is focus-stacked and it still doesn’t do what I’m after…
Walala Jazz
Monochrome Print - 19 Oct
Judge: David Steele
I was a little miffed because David held back (I think) ten, but decided to award 1st place 20, 2nd place 19, and 3rd place 18, so 17’s for the rest. It would have been nice to have a little separation amongst the held-back-but-didn’t-place images. (Final Race was held back. Hence ire.)