Spring and summer #photography
Through spring and summer there will be a lot more opportunities for me to take photos. I want to do more events this year and I did one on Saturday night. In this picture, you can see the church that dominates the skyline. There was a fund raising show on Saturday, to raise funds to repair the ‘Woden’ window. (more…)
Editing for a better picture #photography
In the old days of film photography, any post shoot editing was done by a technician in the processing lab. Now we can do our own editing on the computer. Editing has become as much a skill as the photography with every laughter line getting edited out of portrait photography! (more…)
Photography: creating a picture
A well known photographer once said you don’t take a picture; you create a picture. Some photographers think of it as art, not just a working skill. (more…)
Christmas Eve: Dickensian thoughts
It’s Christmas Eve and during Christmas, I tend to think of the year that has just gone by and the one that is about to start. I write articles here on WordPress and on a Zillion ideas and some of those get featured on the Express and Star website (my local newspaper) and these get syndicated on The YamYam. (more…)
The Sunday Ramble: the last day of Autumn
The Winter Solstice
It’s the winter solstice today when it will get dark quite early, it’s the shortest day. The actual time of the solstice is around 10pm this evening and so I think that means this is the last day of autumn and winter starts tomorrow. According to the BBC the nights will start getting lighter, but not the mornings, not until in the new year. (more…)
Photography: Christmas edits
This is the time of year when you can dig out the snow pictures and edit them for Christmas messages and effects. These edited pictures can make your Facebook Timeline look cool or if you have a blog, you can change to a Christmas header. (more…)
Photography: Around the Black Country
The settings on modern cameras are great, just set it on landscape for landscape photos and the camera does the rest. You can get technical and set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO yourself for better photos. The important thing is to point the camera at something interesting and try to keep it still.
Photography: Choosing a Camera
There is a bewildering array of cameras available and there are also smart phones and tablet computers that take photos too. How do you choose one? (more…)
Photography: A grey weekend
Sandwell Valley
When it’s not raining we still seem to have grey skies. It’s the summer solstice on Friday and so maybe things will improve with the coming of summer. This picture shows clearly how the grey sky reflects on water and makes that grey too. (more…)
Photography: Black Country landscapes
The weather hasn’t been too good for landscape photography, but I took a few pictures this week. I was going to Tipton Carnival at the weekend, but I wasn’t well and so stayed at home. I would have got soaked anyway! You can find a lot of nice landscapes around the Black Country, you just have to pay attention. (more…)
Neodigital Art: More artistic edits
This image is quite artistic, but not very complicated to create. I have bought a new speedlight (flash) and so I tried it out to see if it would provide some fill in light on these leaves. It wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped for, but I made the image lighter and added a frame and it looks okay now. (more…)
Neodigital Art: editing in sepia
I went to a Boer War battle re-enactment on Sunday which gave me some ideal pictures for artistic edits using sepia. (more…)
Photography: More spring photos
This is probably my best shot this month. I think I’ll call them Maverick and Goose. You have to be a Top Gun fan to understand that joke! I like the colours, they are the colours of early spring. I also got the action by using the sports setting on my camera and shooting lots of shots to get this one. The focus should be set on continuous too. (more…)
Photography: Changing weather, seasons and light.
When I first started photography, I took some shots here on a sunny day. Yesterday it was cloudy and a little misty, but I quite like the result. Many of the trees are still developing their leaves and the water rather than blue is reflecting the grey sky. I also shot towards the sun for an unusual effect. (more…)
Photography: Black Country canals
There’s a narrow-boat gathering and a beer festival next weekend so I was on the canal on Sunday, getting in some practice. Here you can see the narrow-boat has just come out of the lock near the weighing station. (more…)
Photography: Different directions
The sun came out a little last week and I took advantage of that to take this photo of the river. I’m shooting in a westerly direction, the sun is southerly and to my left. You can see it shining through the trees and giving an interesting effect. (more…)
Photography: Images to treasure
Imagine medieval knights trying to find their way through the English countryside. They might follow the river. This photo might not look too much like the river, I think it been made deeper here and canalised. I can now reveal that beyond those trees, ‘treasure’ was found once! (more…)
The Review: Spring – day 3
Spring is finally here and we have got the budget out of the way. What a damp squid that was. It seems our national debt as a percentage of GDP is higher than ever and still climbing. (more…)
Black Country photography
It makes it a little more interesting to add words to the pictures. This is the Midland Metro coming into the station. They have a new tram that I want to photograph soon, I’m told it’s longer. I hope it’s a lighter colour too… (more…)
The Review: The end of winter
It’s the Spring Equinox on Thursday; winter is finally ending. Some weather forecasters are saying we will have a heat wave again like last summer. The ones on the BBC have said Spring starts on the 1st of March; so we’ll ignore them… (more…)
Photography: Black Country landscapes
It’s still winter for another 9 days in, but the sun is coming out a little now. The light for this shot was quite good, but the sun was low in the sky and so lots of shadow. It’s the canal and shows two 18th century bridges. (more…)
Photography: Getting a message across
Today I’ve tried to get a message across with an image and with words. This is a picture of the bridleway where it goes under a road bridge in Sandwell Valley Country Park. (more…)
The review: Too Black Country?
I’ve had an interesting week. I walked around the local market on Tuesday and took a few photographs. It wasn’t a good week on the stock market, the banks let the market down. Of course many other businesses depend upon banking and so confidence in the whole economy falls. Maybe, they should pay bankers a bonus when the bank actually makes a profit, rather than double pay on a loss? (more…)
Photography: Cropping pictures
I took this photo on Sunday. I’ve added a little contrast. I was disappointed, the light wasn’t as good as I expected. I also took my tripod and couldn’t find anywhere level to use it! My Nikon doesn’t zoom in very much compared to some of the bridge cameras. My Fuji is a few years old and even that has a 10X zoom. (more…)
