A bubble blown through the rear end of a bottle cleaner using Fairy Liquid.
It was the photographed with a macro lens and cropped further in Lightroom. The lighting was a single studio light with softbox attached.
Peter Bargh
Sights & SoundsArchive for the ‘Photography’ Category
I couldn’t believe it when I saw the word Chilli on a packet of extra strong mints, but closer inspection proved my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Yes, as if extra strong mints weren’t hot enough, they’ve added red chilli to the mix. I had to try some. You get the usual enjoyable hot mint with a underlying kick. They leave your mouth tingling.
So today’s picture a simple photo of a mint and its packet.
A glorious day today, low winter sun streaming through the windows and through some internal patterned door glass. This lead to shadows and light shaped on the wall.
I took a few photos and then started playing around with the shapes, by adjusting the angle of the door so the light rays lengthened. I also noticed that a shadow of the camera was appearing just below the pattern, so I moved it to a lower position and held my hand spanned out in front to make a more interesting shadow. Light was also catching the lens of my reading glasses and threw even more light and shade to the wall.
This is the result of a carefully positioned head, door and hand. My Photo365 project is making me go off in experimental directions that I left behind many years ago and I’m thoroughly enjoying the revitalised abstract creativity. I hope you do too.
Some days my head does feel like it’s spinning, but not today, so I made it spin!
I’d always intended doing some spinography – where you set the camera on self timer and throw it into the air spinning as it falls down the shutter fires and you get a revolving shot. My first attempts today were average so I started to rotate the camera in my hand and the results were smoother but still too erratic and not too interesting. That gave me the idea of using a Lazy Susan (rotating platter)
I laid the camera on it back down, lens facing upwards in the centre and set the timer to 2 seconds. I then triggered the camera and set the platter spinning, the shutter fired and I got a 360degree turn and half before the shutter closed.
It’s a self portrait (I was looking down into the camera) and you can see the ghost-like person blending in with the circles.
A ceiling with more going on would give a different pattern.
What a day…miserable most of the day at home weather wise but I saw a break and thought it would be worth going out to Derbyshire with the Lee Filters Big Stopper to get some cloud movement shots against rocks.
How wrong I was.
It was cold and extremely windy. On the edges so windy I nearly got swept off my feet. Not good for one minute Big Stopper shots. So I stuck to normal exposures, even then the drizzle played havoc on the filters so getting a decent shot was virtually impossible.
Here’s one with the tripod low down and the Lee 0.6 Grad filter. I added the blue sky shade using Lightroom.
I’ve had the gas mask for ages now. I bought it for model shoots, but I hadn’t realised they were dangerous due to asbestos content. So it’s been in a bag in the garage. I also bought a smoke machine over two years ago, also with the intention of doing atmospheric model shoots. So today I decided to make use of both and try and create an atmospheric still-life.
I like the results but I failed to get the smoky atmosphere. I laid the mask on the garage’s concrete floor and shot from above. I placed the smoke machine just behind the head of the mask. The camera was set to auto and the garage light turned off. I then used a Gorilla Torch to paint light on the mask as the camera recorded the exposure. It took a few shots to get the right effect, but no matter what I did I couldn’t get the smoke looking effective around and above the mask.
I even tried using the torch at a low angle to try and get rays of light but the shot just lacked contrast.
I won’t be beaten. I have another idea but for now here’s my first attempt.
A long overdue overall of my TV aerial meant an old aerial was taken down and the house rewired to a new more powerful one. The signal on my TV is now wonderfully tuned…and the old aerial is ready for the skip. As it lays there I cannot help seeing an abstract art work in it.
So a cropped shot with all the cable strewn over the top has provided the abstract view for my photo of the day. It won’t win awards, but neither will many of the swirly surreal paintings it reminds me of. Perhaps if I colour in the shapes it will become a work of art!
Fruit can make good still life subject – either whole or, in this case, sliced and backlit. Certain fruit such as kiwi, lemon, lime, orange look great when lit from behind as the light shining through makes the slice look almost translucent with the seeds and textures picked up as interesting patterns and shapes. Cut the slice thinly for best effect.
It’s a good subject to fall back on if you’ve not got anything else lined up to photograph as I hadn’t tonight.
I used a Jessops light box as illumination and placed a slice on a cd tray to avoid messing up the lightbox.
It was taken with my Pentax K10D and 100mm macro lens.
I underexposed by a half stop to get increased saturation and richer colours.
Katie, a friend of mine, made a surprise visit today and called with her new born Sophia.
I took a few photos using my semi-retired Pentax K10D (the K20D has developed a fault).
I used window light and got some big reflections in the eyes.
This was one of my favourite.
I tend to realise I haven’t taken many days off somewhere around mid November, so this year I thought I’d spread them through the year. And my first day off was today to go on a walk with my brother and sister in law.
We parked the car at the wall of the Dam Flask in Lower Bradfield, nr Sheffield and walked around the dam in a clockwise direction. It’s about 3.5miles and more or less all flat. An interesting walk with a variety of wildlife.
We saw all the usual suspects – grey squirrels, blue tits and great tits, a cormorant, a variety of ducks and geese, chaffinches and magpies.
I took this shot from the overflow area of the dam. It’s taken using an Olympus EP2 with the 14-42mm zoom attached. It’s an ideal camera for walking. I didn’t notice the bird in the sky when I took the shot but I think it adds to the balance.
It’s for my photo365 project and I’m now I’m on day 1 of month two. My first month down 11 to go!