TEXTURE – 24

This week I’ve been thinking about Texture as an important element in my images. Of course, everything has ‘texture’ to some degree, but capturing that in an image is not straightforward. The answer, in the main, is in the lighting – and certainly side-lighting is a great way to bring out the texture in many subjects.

Using texture as a form of contrast in the image is always powerful, as in the feather and chain shot. I’ll leave it to you to decide if these work for you. That , after all, is the acid test!

Feather and Chain

Old Paint.

Rendered Brickwork

Chasms in the Sand

 

From Austria – 23

Just back from Zell am See in Austria – a little late with the post, but I’m trying to catch up. We’ve only been away for a week and there seems so many things to do!!

Anyway – up near the Großglockner mountain ( Austria’s highest ) in the Hohe Tauern National Park, the snow was still stacked pretty deep!

The Krimml Waterfall – absolutely stunning – too high to walk to the top – but you can get quite wet just by stopping to watch the water. Apologies for the water droplets on the lens. Perhaps i should have taken an underwater camera mount!!!

And a perfect reflection in a small tarn, as we would call it – or is it a reservoir? – just above Zell am See where we were based for the week. Some twenty seconds later the breeze came up and the reflection was gone!!

So, just three of my 700 plus images – and some bits of video. A fantastic week – and I travelled very light – my Olympus EM-1 MkII and a single lens – my 12 -100mm f/4 Pro lens. I did take a wide angle (8mm) and a macro lens but they never left the hotel room

Zell am See – 22

In Zell am See, Austria this week. So direct from my phone an evening shot across the lake.

Not been to the mountains of Austria? Stunning; absolutely breathtaking!!

Thro’ A Crystal Ball – 21

I’ve been photographing black and white geometric patterns through a crystal ball. In fact, two crystal balls in the second image – a small ball balanced precariously on top of the larger one.

The challenge proved to be getting the shot without reflections for the lights. I ended up using a long exposure and painting in the lights with different torches and video lights.

The Live Bulb exposure facility on the Olympus OM-D EM1 was very useful here as you can see the image build as well as being able to monitor the histogram develops

All taken on the Olympus EM-1 with a 12 – 100mm f4 Pro lens, imported into Lightroom Classic CC  and then tweaked  and cleaned up in Photoshop CC. The background pattern was also created in Photoshop and then printed out as an A3 image.

SMOKE & MIRRORS – 19

This week I’ve been making smoke! Joss stick smoke, in fact.

All of these images started off as a shot of smoke lit with a single flash unit, against a black ( very black ) background. Each was then post-processed ( ie manipulated ) in Photoshop CC,  which is where all of the colour and the reflections were added in.

Like inkblot images, you can see things in most of these shots! Well, I can!

Angels?

Kissing Ducks?

A burning joss stick – multi-layered, the exposure for the joss stick layer was flash plus 2 seconds to catch the red of the burn.

A Week In Kent – 18

Just back from a week away in Kent. We stayed south of Canterbury, on a farm in a small village called Stelling Minnis. Came back with too many images – can’t show you them all but here are a favourite four that might just interest you!

Maybe next week I’ll show you some more. On the other hand …..

The cloisters at Canterbury Cathedral. A superb building, but unfortunately covered in scaffold for a much need clean. 

The White Cliffs of Dover. We were lucky enough to see a ( two seater ) Spitfire ( maybe from Biggin Hill? ) that did a run past the cliffs then came back and barrel-rolled overhead the docks. Sadly, wrong lens on the camera – I was travelling light that day!

Coloured chairs outside the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery at Margate. Is this ‘Still Life’? Or just a picture of four chairs?

The evening sky the night before we left. Not quite my last shot of the week, but it certainly made me feel good.

More next week? Maybe. 🙂

BLUEBELLS -17

So it’s almost May and the bluebells are with us. Here are some images all taken in the woods around Harlow, Essex.

Enjoy!

Saturday Morning Walk – 09

Another quite photographic week, but yesterday morning we walked along the River Stort going north out of Sawbridgeworth towards Bishops Stortford.

I didn’t even take my Olympus along with me this time – but, as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you – and I had my iPhone. These were all taken using the Lightroom app on the iPhone enabling you to capture RAW images on the phone, and wirelessly transfer them to your computer!

This is one big animal – enjoying a box of old apples with a younger family member.

For those into vintage cars, this appears to be an old Ford. ( Shame about the No Parking sign – ironic, I suppose! )

Enjoy!!

MISTY RIVER WAK – 08

A walk along the River Stort in Essex on a misty spring morning.

Stroboscopic Flash – 06

A new experience this week – I’ve had a go at Stroboscopic Flash. Impressive name, difficult technique. With a bit of a learning curve to climb!

Stroboscopic Flash – a single, longish exposure ( perhaps 2 or 3 seconds ), where the subject is moving in the frame and the strobe/flash light goes off a number of times whilst the shutter remains open. Best executed in as dark a room as you can manage with a plain black background set up as far back from the subject as possible. ( You may want to keep a low-level light on to stop you tripping over tripods and light stands, etc – but if the light is too bright and the exposure very long, that light will show in the final image ).

You’ll need a strobe that will fire a set number of times at a set frequency ( numbers such as 4Hz are oft quoted, meaning 4 flashes in 1 second ).

So 8 flashes at 4 Hz will require an shutter speed of 2 seconds ( to accommodate all 8 flashes ).

I set the Olympus to Manual mode, 1/250 sec and an f stop determined by trial and error. I told you I was learning! And I used a wireless remote to trigger the strobe.

These images are not perfect, I know that, but they demonstrate the principle and give me a base from which to improve.

If you try it, have fun. And be prepared to take LOADS of images to catch the ones that work!

A single swinging nut!

A toy bird that shudders itself down its shiny pole!   

Just TWO coloured pig-pong balls dropped onto a table. Shame about the background at the top of the frame.