Peter Bargh

words pictures sounds
January 14th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 14 – New Desk

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!

desk and glasses

January 13th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 13 – chickpeas

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.

chickpeas

January 12th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 12 – out of focus pattern

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.

pattern

January 11th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 -Day 11 – Rim Light

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.

Glass and bottle

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.

January 10th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 -Day 10 – Neglect

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.

January 9th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 9 – Grade II Listed Buildings

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.

January 8th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 8

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!

January 7th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 7

Today I have been playing around with an Olympus EP2. It’s the new rangefinder style comapct with interchangeable lenses, much smaller than an SLR. I don’t know about you but the first day is spent fiddling around with the features, and i was eager to try the ART modes. They need suitable subjects and a I though the black guitar and keyboard suited the Grainy Black & white film effect of ART 5. So that’s what I took. The items where in my music room no arrangement made. I placed the camera on a stack of DVD cases to raise it off the ground and set the 2 second delay. I normally shoot in RAW, and the ART mode switches this to RAW with JPG (Jpeg being the shot the ART effect is applied to) The image on the LCD looked fine with good moody tones.

When I downloaded to the PC I saw that the ART shot was a bit too rough, grainy and contrast was a bit ugly, but the normal shot converted to black & white in Lightroom is really good.

guitar

I’m liking the camera already!

January 6th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 6

Today I have photographed asparagus. I’ve never been keen on it as a food, but I was in the supermarket last night looking at clinically perfect peppers and saw bunches of asparagus and thought – kill two new year resolutions with one stone – more photography and more cooking. The peppers didn’t have the shape to fulfil my desire to replicate the Edward Weston Classic and I’d seen asparagus photographed before in bunches. As I want to eat healthier this year and these shoots have essential nutrients it all made sense.

asparagusThe trouble is today I had one hour after work to shoot the pic before cooking tea. So a tight squeeze but I got my shot.

I pulled out some string from the garden and tied the bunch…it actually took about 10 mins to get them in a good arrangement. It’s surprising how hard it is to get 6 to 8 stalks looking “arranged”

I placed them upright in some soil, stuck some Hessian as a backdrop and lit them with the studio flash from behind left. A small reflector added fill in front right.

It was taken with the Pentax K20D and a 100mm Macro. Converted to black & white using Lightroom.

And then I went on to cook Thai Stir Fry Asparagus. All in all a pleasing evening

January 5th, 2011 by Peter Bargh

Photo365 – Day 5

Today I took a trip down memory lane and photographed objects against a Venetian blind. The last time I did this seriously was back in the 80s in a terraced house I lived in. I shot them on Hassleblad and they were some of may favourite shots. So today I recreated that experience using a modern digital SLR and a 100mm macro lens.

If you draw the blinds closed and just allow a small amount of light through you get a great set of patterns reflected on the glass. Also the backlighting gives a rim effect so all sorts of shapes start to appear. It works well with wine bottles too.

glass bottle
I wish the right hand bottle had a similar base to the left. I could clone it, but this project is about the photographic experience not the post processing.

It’s a good test of the lens too. You can check for evenness of exposure into the corners (good), fringing (this one had a small amount of blue towards the edges) and distortion (this one is bang on).