• Architecture,  Composition,  Mobile,  Street

    Signs of the previous Leap Year.

    OK, so 2020 was the previous leap year, and we all know what started happening then.  Those days though are already starting to seem like another world; one with real restrictions and real fear. One thing that happened in the UK during the Covid epidemic and lockdown was the sudden proliferation of signs telling us how we should behave.  Lots of those have completely gone now, and I think it’s important that the traces of those remaining are recorded.  To that end I am making sure I photograph Covid signs whenever I come across them. This is on a bus shelter in Ledbury, Herefordshire.  It’s a plastic film telling us…

  • Abstract,  Bokeh,  Composition,  Landscape,  Macro

    Focus on your focus

    Cameras these days are like science fiction devices compared to when I first started taking pictures.  Back then everything was manual; setting the exposure, focusing, film winding.  Now we have all these wonderful automatic tools at our disposal, and auto focus has come on in leaps and bounds since the first, rather clunky, iterations.  That does not mean that it’s foolproof, nor does it mean that you should just let it do its work without any input from you. Here are three examples of different focus issues. Some auto focus systems need edge contrast to do their job, and when there’s not much edge contrast they can hunt around for…

  • Abstract,  ICM,  Mobile,  Movement

    Up & Down or Side to Side?

    In my “Movement in Photography” talk I mention the difference it makes to an ICM image if you move the camera in one direction, compared to moving it at right angles to that direction.  Information at right angles to the direction of camera movement tends to get spread out, whereas information in the direction of camera movement is accentuated.  Take these tree images as an example: In this first image I have moved the camera, (my mobile phone – 2 second exposure), in generally the same direction as the tree trunks.  Although there is a bit of horizontal information, most of the image is of near-vertical shapes and textures. In…

  • Composition,  Creative Photography,  Equipment,  Macro

    Through a glass darkly

    I have a “deceptive” glass in my small collection of interesting glasses.  A deceptive glass has very thick sidewalls, and thus holds much less liquid than it appears to when filled. In Georgian times coaching inns had them.  A coach would stop, passengers would rush in for a quick drink and be given it in a deceptive glass.  They paid for a full normal glassful of course!  I looked at the glass with its thick walls and thought, “That might act as a lens”! My camera was fitted with the Oly 60mm macro lens, so I just held the glass up against the UV filter on the front of that…

  • Abstract,  Architecture,  Black & White,  Snapseed,  Street,  Travel

    Reflections on a trip to Birmingham

    Living in Worcester means I am not too far from Birmingham.  It’s just half an hour on the train from Worcestershire Parkway to Birmingham New Street.  That station has a lot of glass panels all over it, and they make for a useful source of reflection images. I was lucky enough to be there on a cloudless day with lots of sunshine.  The colours of the surrounding buildings against the blue of the sky were fabulous.  Isolating just a small section of the reflection made the image into an almost painterly abstract. Above one of the entrances there’s another lot of glass panels, and the sunshine gave strong shadows.  The…

  • Abstract,  Bokeh,  Composition,  Macro,  Mobile,  Movement

    Autumn Acer Abstracts

    Recently I went to the fabulous Autumn Garden at Queenswood Country Park near Hereford.  One feature of that part of the wood is the Japanese Maples.  They were in full colour and looked fantastic.  It was a sunshine and showers day, so there were lots of water droplets around. I had my Olympus macro lens on, so set my camera to manual focus and defocussed the image.  I concentrated on a small part of a maple that had dissected leaves.  The shapes and colours  of the leaves, and the water droplet highlights, made for a very pleasing abstract composition. I had my trusty Huawei mobile with me and couldn’t resist…

  • Black & White,  Composition,  Landscape

    Landscapes are better in bad weather

    Living, as I now do, in Worcester, the Malverns Hills are now a local place to visit.  Although they are called hills, some of the peaks are high enough to be classified as mountains.  Once such is Herefordshire Beacon at 1109 feet above sea level.  It’s the site of British Camp, a huge Iron Age earthwork complex.  The earthworks give a curious silhouette to the hill, and it looks very man-made. The views from the Malvern Hills are wonderful.  Elizabethan diarist John Evelyn called it “one of the godliest vistas in England”.  There are three cathedrals visible on a good day, but it doesn’t always have be a good day.…

  • Macro,  Wildlife

    Up close and personal (Warning – Spiders!)

    A while back we had the builders in, so I needed to be around the house all day to answer questions and advise.  This meant my photographic radius was somewhat reduced.  It was like lockdown but much more expensive and noisier! I could still have a wander round the house and garden with my macro lens.  It’s surprising what turns up if you look closely enough. This charming creature is a Box Tree Moth caterpillar.  It looks rather like a Large White butterfly caterpillar, but instead of ravaging brassicas it ravages box hedges; it’s an invasive pest.  This one was, for some reason, climbing up one of our lounge windows. …

  • Composition,  Creative Photography,  Macro,  Mobile

    Just look around you.

    As we move into the darker and colder days of winter it’s easy to fall into bad habits and stop looking for images, or say, “It’s all a bit grey, so I’ll leave my camera at home”!  Remember though, even if you don’t go out much, there are still loads of photographic subjects, some even right at your feet. One birthday gift I had was a fabulous cheese selection with vintage port and an olive wood cheese board.  The wood looks to have been “spalted”.  That’s where it’s been attacked by fungi and developed fascinating patterns in the grain.  I looked closely at the wood and found areas that resembled…

  • Black & White,  Composition,  Creative Photography,  Mobile,  Movement

    It’s getting closer…

    Blimey, it’s getting awfully close to Christmas again! One thing I did a couple of Christmases ago was to go to the Worcester Cathedral Christmas Tree Festival.  There were loads of decorated trees in the Cathedral cloister.  Some were from schools, some from charities and some from commercial organisations.  Most were fab! Here I’ve used my mobile’s Silky Water mode, (yes, again!), and walked as fast as I could down the cloister.  I had to wait till there weren’t too many people.  I like the combination of warm orangey lights and cooler blue lights. This is rather closer to home;  well, it’s actually at home.  We had some Xmas lights…