Today is the result of my first attempts with a new light modifier I made earlier in the evening for a portable hot shoe flash. It’s a ringlight adaptor which cost about £1 to make and converts a normal flash to give a ringlight effect in the eyes. I’ll write a small piece about how I made it in a future blog but for now I’m uploading picture 17 of my Photo365 project.
The weather was rubbish today – raining and grey, but I needed to get out of the house so took a stroll around Padley Gorge. Kids enjoyed scrambling around. I took a few photos.
This one was from the path looking up into the woodland. Shot with wide angle to get the towering trees leaning in. Your eye sees so much more in places like this.
After about 10 years of use I decided it was time to buy a new computer desk. The one I’d been using was an old second hand one of high quality, black inset leather, five draws, real wood type thing. At the weekend I spotted a walnut model with a sliding keyboard draw and a tinted glass inlaid top. Very attractive in looks and price.
So I bought it and five nights later finally got around to assembling it and replacing the old one. While the glass is new (it looks all lovely and reflective, but at the same time reminds me of the windscreen of some chav with his ice filled, twin exhausted, alloy wheeled 206) I decided to take some photos.
The first attempts included the opened out keyboard tray and tight crops of keyboard and mouse with reflected screen in the background. Then I spotted some old mirror glasses that had come out of the back of one of the draws from the old desk. I have a pile of stuff to redistribute as my new desk doesn’t have draws so you might see photos of other bits and bobs soon.
I positioned the glasses at a decent angle so the camera was in one corner and took a few shots. I then thought it would be good to include myself in shot so I went to my ePHOTOzine profile and had that as background, and positioned myself so i was large in the glasses reflection.
And here’s the result. All good fun!
I love chickpeas…and as I’ve started to cook more this is one ingredient I’ll be slipping into meals from time to time.
So today I’m cooking Moroccan Chicken which includes a cup (American recipe) of chickpeas
And my photo365 for today started out to be a head shot over a plate of chickpeas as a pattern shot. But I then started to play around with the angle and then introduced a colander and ended up with this shot.
I used a softbox as illumination and then increased contrast to darken the shadow areas and emphasise the chickpeas more.
I was in Poundland and saw a gadget that I thought might come in handy for photographers. I decided to buy one, try it and write a short review. The item was a Camping LED light and the review is here Camping LED Light
I got a few decent straight pictures from it but nothing suitable for my Photo of the Day for this Photo365 project but I did stumble across an accidental pattern.
I set the light up on my desk to photograph the item for the article and pointed the macro lens at it. The lens was set to infinity and when I looked through the viewfinder I saw big blobs of out of focus lights. So I decided to frame up and adjust focus to get an interesting set of circles. I then flipped the circles, merged the two and adjusted contrast and exposure to get this abstract art.
I had good intentions tonight, but tv and cooking got in the way…so I did a rush job on this. My idea was to create a wonderful still life of a red wine bottle and glass with wine. I used a softbox with mask as a back light to create the rim light. And manual exposure shooting a few tests to get to the point that just the outline shows and not the bottle or label.
This is the best, but I need a more expensive glass to do the shot justice and I need to work on the balance of rim light and dark areas. I also need a better mask. I intended to get some black card today but the Worksop didn’t have any. Craft shop visit is on my to do list.
So a few excuses, but I’m still reasonably happy with it. Although it’s nowhere near what I’d intended to stick up, and I’m now too tired to continue and time’s running out…day 11 and my Photo365 has caught me out.
The ePHOTOzine weekly black & white challenge has a theme neglect. As a kid I always remember the garden shed as being a place that had areas of neglect. While my mum used most of it for potting plants there were darker areas that housed spiders and masses of thick webs.
I decided to try and recreate the feeling I had as a child of around five in who saw the world from a lower perspective presented with a mass of new information and fantasy mindset.
This is the result. It’s not a competition winner. It’s not even something that would get viewers to click on and say they like, but it’s a shot that captures a fragment of what I remember seeing in the corners of those neglected windows all those years ago.
Having caught the bug to photograph old buildings I headed off to my old haunt of Sheffield today to take a look at one of the areas that still has it’s roots back in the days of cutlery of the mid to late 1800s. The area around Milton Street / Egerton Road is steeped in history and the grade II listed buildings that still stand appear to be in their original state – now housing workshops and offices.
Some of the sections of the Beehive Works have been vandalised with graffiti and broken glass is scattered along the narrow Egerton Road. While tragic the scars bring a sense of beauty to the eye of the photographer.
I spent a good hour or so wandering around the small but amply photograph-able area.
In this shot I included a patch of the eroded tarmac that gives us a glimpse of the original cobbled stones below.
Inspired by ePHOTOzine member Ade McFade‘s passion for photographing the architecture of Leeds and surround areas I decided to do the same in my local region starting in my home town of Worksop. This shot is down a street near the town centre that I only discovered the other day and I’ve been here for nearly ten years!
It shows you it’s worth looking around. The building on the right is an old gas building which is what I went back to photograph, but as the light was low and bright I thought I’d take this into the light shot which features the bright rays. I like the fact the word home is the prominent feature…it’s one of the last places I’d want to call home!
