I’m just back from a six hour round trip to pick up an eBay win that I bid on and didn’t expect to win.
On the way back I called for a pee break at the Hatfield Galleria in Herts and spotted a new shop. The Arsenal Store.
It opened on 19 Nov 2011 and had a bright window display with a red Christmas tree decorated with white baubles and a white tree with red baubles.
I took a quick snap without attracting security attention because I understand they’re quite sharp in there.
The Worksop town centre street illuminations went up last week. This is a sample on the pedestrian area of Bridge Street. The iPhone isn’t great for this type of photography, but I probably wouldn’t have taken a photo of the lights otherwise.
While at Donna Nook I spotted this interesting textured cabbage…the Savoy (Capitata var. sabauda L.). In the supermarket they’re normally less interesting, but a farmer sells fresh produce at the car park field of Donna Nook. You also find sprouts on the stem etc.
I thought it would make in interesting photo so bought one for just 50p
I placed it on a plastic table and backlit it with my home made ring light. The centre of the cabbage was dark so I lit that with the Joby Gorilla Torch. Exposure was 8 seconds at f/22 with ISO400 (I forgot to set that back to ISO100!) on the Olympus Pen E-P2 with 14-42mm lens.
I went over to Donna Nook today…it was cold! I had about six layers on and still had a chill. The seals were plentiful, despite last week’s unexpected high tide which split many pups up from their mums. This one seemed happy enough snoozing on a patch of grass. It was raining and you can just see a few drops as blurred streaks in the background.
Taken with the Olympus Pen E-P2 and 40-150mm lens at the 150mm setting
ISO400 1/640sec at f/5.6.
Another passage of light from the sun. This time through one window onto a kitchen cupboard. The light is so contrasty at this time of the year.
A sheet of A 4 paper cut into five strips and placed on top of another and lit from above left. It’s a bit of an optical illusion. No paper was folded. Each of the five strips were taped at one end and placed on their edge so they were about 1.5in high. Some didn’t touch the base all the way along so let light through underneath. This created subtle tonal changes and the effect you see here.
I’ve been meaning to have a go with incense smoke this year but never got around to it. Yesterday I bought some sticks…tonight i had a play.
This is using very basic equipment to show you don’t need to spend a fortune.
Incense stick held up on a chair using tape.
Budget auto flash set at f/4 and positioned to the left or right of the rising smoke.
Camera on manual 1/90 sec at various settings between f/4 and f/6.7
Black cloth backdrop held up using clamps from Poundland
Camera on tripod but it could be resting on a chair/table/bench
Light the incense stick and fire away (manual focus – focused on the stick tip and reframed to exclude tip)
Shoot in draft free room and waddle finger or blow to create movement / shapes.
I coloured it while processing in Lightroom just by altering white balance sliding temperature towards blue end of scale.
Here is the eleventh of 12 sets of pictures from my photo365 project. This one covers the month of November 2011
Click on the photo to see a larger version
See the individual pictures each day on my blog
I walk passed a large fenced off area most days and have been meaning to photograph this sign recently.
The fence went up when a huge Victorian property disappeared a few years ago. The large bricked building was demolished to make way for luxury homes. They never materialised and now all the fancy signs are looking a little less than luxurious…sign of the times.
I don’t think the company even exists any more…no doubt the land is being sat on until the economy improves, but the wooden fenced area is starting to look shabby. I imagine there are sites like this all over the country.
The title is a Roxy Music song – which is actually about a rubber doll, but i thought it suited this shot (with a different meaning)
I have one egg left in the carton. It got left and is well past the sell by date. I was about to throw it when I saw this photo. It reminds me of a man in one of those sporty car seats, so the title kind of has two meanings.
Another iPhone shot.
Today I also used a resampling to increase the size of an iPhone photo to 40in square and the result was very good. Compact cameras need to brace up for a rough ride ahead.