looking for spring: wind

looking for spring: wind
Originally uploaded by hanabi.

This is by Hanabi another of my favourite flickr photographers. Quite how she manages to capture such delicate images of plants and flowers I don't know, but I'd urge you to look at her work.

Hope

Hope
Originally uploaded by peel apart

This is a shot from a guy who goes by the name of 'peel apart' on flickr.
Have a look at some of his work, great compositions, some sensitive portraits and sense of humour.

He also seems able to get great results using a couple of old TLRs. Respect. I've got a Yashicamat 124G but I'm afraid my coordination seems to fall apart when I try to compose a picture with it!

Expensive cameras, why bother?

I like to watch how many 'views' my pictures get on Flickr and try to understand what it is that makes them popular, or not! My most viewed picture I've previously posted here, but this one is rapidly catching up. Why?

Is there anything in the fact that both of these pictures were taken with small sensor cameras? Surely not.

Ok, so it's a pot plant on a window sill. It's (more or less) how the camera coped with the exposure at the time having spot metered on the pot. Consequently the scene outside the window is, of course, very over exposed. Is this a case for using an HDR technique? I decided not, because I felt too much background detail would detract from the plant which is the subject of the photo.

By the way, this was taken at Lacock Abbey, arguably the home of photography.

Nikon 5100 and monochrome

Today I went out with my Nikon 5100, a much under rated camera in my opinion, which I tend to use these days as a dedicated B & W camera. I shoot straight into monochrome, then do minimal post processing in Picasa3 and/or The Gimp, just as I do when I shoot in colour.

I like shooting in Black and White. Maybe because I'm red/green colour blind.













Colour is OK provided the palette doesn't get too complicated, as in this rose shot. Otherwise it gets too distracting I find.

A photo post.

I imagine I'll be putting a few photos on my blog, so let's start with one which is also on my Flickr page.

This picture puzzles me. It's from June '07, and was taken using a Canon S50 compact. I find it a pleasing enough snap shot (ah! that's where the blog name came from!), but nothing too special, and from the few comments I've received (I wish more visitors would comment) it would seem others like it as well. Yet it is by far the most viewed of my Flickr photos, why? Wish I knew.

Why write a blog?

Good question, and one which I don't have a very good answer to.

I visit many blogs by other people, and follow a few of them. I enjoy them and admire the authors for their efforts even when the content leaves me uninspired. Some, like Ned Bunnell's, leave me feeling I've had a conversation with the blogger. Some have had a positive effect on me, but not a negative one as I just stop reading if that's likely to occur.

Also, I've enjoyed posting some of my photographs on Flickr and making and receiving the odd comment. Somehow blogging seems the next step.

I doubt I'll be too eloquent in my writing, at least to begin with, but let's give it a go.