This is just a small selection of images I took of Jodie, she had a wedding dress and she wanted to create some artistic images, something a little bit different and I was up for the challenge.
I was using my canon 27-70mm lens and fairly long zoom and was managing the lighting with off camera flash in a soft box, and I was in the most amazing set location in Weymouth – there was a set with a stream punk feel, as well as another area that reminded me of a church doorway…
With Love
For me the shoot was about experimenting with light to create different moods and then trying to communicate that idea to the model – Jodie was great at grasping my ideas and running with them. Continue reading →
I have photographed smoke a couple of times before… but took the opportunity to capture it again and to see if I could pick up some new tips. Smoke is a great material to photograph, it has a mind of its own and you never quite know where it is going to go, but they make great textures and brushes that you can use to enhance other pictures and images.
This time I took the opportunity to experiment with shutter speeds and to learn from other photographers.. I had the dark background much further away that made it easier .. and I used my 100mm macro leans and a snood on the flash to direct the light. These are some of the different results I achieved:
Taking photos is fun, deciding on ways to use and share those photos is even better – and the recent shoot that I undertook made me think it was time to add some more images to my greeting card collection – and the frogs jumped to my attention.
Off to the Old Bakery last night and the theme was dancing – we had two dancers turn up, but I focused on only one of them – Lauren. I picked her up before the shoot, and discovered she had never had her photo taken as a dancer / model and she was a little nervous… I told her that the group of photographers were equally nervous… and they she was in charge…
Photography and Dance is fun – the perfect facebook splat!
This week a challenge was posted on the Old Bakery photo group forum to find an advert online and then recreate in the studio with the help of free stock images, a little imagination and lots of enthusiasm. There was lots of discussion online but three of the images that were chosen for the evening were there:
Images found online that we hope to inspire us.The first idea that I tackled was the Ice Truck – Continue reading →
I wanted to create a poster for the Old Bakery Studio group which showcased photography and perhaps inspired people to come along to the group… I wanted to use photographs to do it, and had the idea to include a variety of images from the members of the group and the subjects that we covered to showcase the diversity of the program.
I wanted to capture a modern frame to showcase the images, so I photographed this empty block frame in a variety of positions.
White photo Frame
The groups is known for its biscuits and cake … so taking inspiration from a camera biscuit tin I wanted to capture the images coming out of the tin… so first I had to take the image of the tin and of course include some photographers. Continue reading →
If I want to get more creative I really need some backgrounds and textures … so one of those things that I have been putting off doing is photographing smoke … so that is today’s challenge. Continue reading →
A quick play in the garden with pumpkins lit by candle light, manual mode on my wide angle lens, a splash of smoke and some coloured gels, a sparkler…. to wish you a Happy Halloween!
Straight out of camera
I started shooting with a wide aperture – F7.1, and a 3.2sec exposure on ISO100, to capture the ambient light of the pumpkins. I was surprised to see how much detail was reflected in the slate tiles that the pumpkins were sat on, so I choose to make the aperture narrower so I could record more of the texture, which meant as a consequence I had to increase the shutter duration.
Added smoke and green gel flash
I added smoke, and the flash behind on a 1/16 exposure. Flash outside is hard to control… it blows everywhere, but it adds a great texture to the image.
More Smoke and green gel
More smoke and the background looks very spooky.
Blue Gel flash
Changing the colour gel on the flash creates a totally different feel – I have used gels before – in this set up with the pumpkin when I used an orange gel and here when I experimented with a variety of colours – they do work really well with smoke!
Blue gel and unsaturated the orange!
Here I kept the blue but removed the orange colour from the image in lightroom, just to see how it changed the mood of the photo.
No smoke … but added a sparker
A sparkler adds a lot more light to the image and flicks up sparks like the wire wool – my first attempt the sparkler was behind the pumpkins and they don’t really interact.
Sparkler, Blue Gel Flash and smoke
Waving the sparkler round in a spiral though adds depth with smoke behind and a blue flash… it is interesting what effects you can achieve, my final image below I added a couple of textures and experimented with different blending modes in Photoshop to create an image with a different feel. Happy Halloween!
You can create panoramas in a range of software, and it is a great way to capture a different angle or view point of a location, the best way to create a panorma is:
Test the exposure, choose aperture priority – then find the mid point of the area and take a reading with the camera to find out the ISO and the shutter speed. Focus the camera
Switch to manual, dial in the settings you discovered and don’t touch the focusing and then capture a series of images … 180degrees, or just experiment,
Make sure you overlap each picture, and taking them in portrait gives you more image height to work with.
Process all the raw files the same in Lightroom and then use the merge to panorama function in either lightroom, photoshop or elements.
This image was taken with 15 images – it was a bit of a murky day – but it is a 180degree panorama of the local park which I regularly walk past with the dogs.
Panorama Image at the park- 15 images. F11, 1/200 sec, ISO800
As I was in the park – it is always work having a look at the area from a different view point…. I lowered the ISO, increased the aperture so it was narrower and decreased the shutter speed, I wanted to capture movement. This is my view of the swing!
ISO100, F22, 1/6 sec – On the swing
Fourteen photos this time merged together – a 180 degree view of the village square, not to far from my home. it is a very bleak day – but it is an angle of the village that is impossible to view with the naked eye. it is interesting to see how some of the angles are twisted and stretched as the angle from which I view them changes.
Village square panorama
This time I tried something different I took 24 images, with the camera in landscape view – I took eight along the bottom, then another eight middle room and then eight including the sky. There is no way even with a wide angle lens that I would have capture the whole scene from where I stood. I am amazed how much of a sense of scale you can capture with this style of photography … it will be interesting to try it out at different locations.
Helen's Photo Challenge 
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