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Happy New Year!!
I hope all my readers had a great Christmas, and that you are all set for 2026. I’ve already done my first two club talks. I’m looking forward to the next one, which is next week. A few days ago we went to the Worcester Christmas Tree Festival in the cloisters at the Cathedral. It’s a fab display over over 100 trees that have different themes. Some are from schools, some from companies, and some from charities. I took my OM-1 and my 9-18mm lens. Here I’ve set the shutter speed to a few seconds and walked quickly down the cloister. I love the light streaks from the closest trees.…
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A midweek miscellany
Today’s post does not have a single theme. It’s a mixture of images, each of which has its own story to tell, each of which shows an area of my photographic interest. Here’s a shot from a town’s bonfire night celebrations last year. They had fire-eaters as a diversion before the main fireworks event. It was hard to get into a good place to have a clear view of the fire-eater, and also hard to choose the right moment to press the shutter. I was pleased with the flame on this one. A nice tight crop to the corner and editing out some background distractions made the composition work better.…
- Abstract, Architecture, Black & White, Bokeh, Composition, Creative Photography, Fine Art, ICM, Landscape, Macro, Mobile, Movement, Snapseed
Worcestershire Open Studios is nearly here!
The final preparation for this weekend’s opening of my exhibition as part of Worcestershire Open Studios (WoS) is pretty well done! Images are up, lights are installed and tested, mounted prints are in their display boxes, greetings cards are sorted, and signage is all done. Even the sun is getting in on the act and saying, “Here’s where you need to come to”! If you follow the directions that are found here, you should see a house like this one – only the right way up! There will be signs and green bunting to help you find it. This one of the key images in my exhibition. If you want…
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Welcome to 2025!
Firstly, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know we are nearly a week into the new year, but it needed to be said. One of the photographic highlights of the Christmas period was the Christmas Tree Festival at Worcester Cathedral. It’s a fabulous display of lots and lots of Christmas tree decorated by loads of different organisations. There are, of course, lots of tree lights to be played with. Here I’ve chosen a tree that had lots of lights on and used OM System’s “Live Composite” mode set on a 1/2 second base exposure. I rotated the camera in a circle during the exposure. There are some interesting colours and shapes, and…
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Worcester Balloon Festival in three styles
Last weekend was the Worcester Balloon Festival. I took a wander down to the site to see what was happening. I had my Huawei Mate phone camera and my Olympus E-M10 Mk3 with me. I decided to try and show different treatments of subjects at the Festival. There was a very large inflatable slide there. I went in the early evening and the sun was getting quite low on the horizon. It was picking out the structure of the slide with a golden colour, and that gave a lovely contrast against the blue sky. It has to look of a modern office building about it to my mind. Later on…
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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…
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Curses, foiled again!
Yesterday I fitted some foil insulation to the ceiling of our cellar. It’s a 200 year old house so yes, we have a cellar. The foil is to help stop the room above it being so cold. I popped the roll of foil down on the kitchen floor and it caught a ray of morning sunlight. I loved what the sunlight reflections from the foil did to the kitchen floor, so it was out with my phone to capture it. The rays look a bit like the rising sun. A touch of editing to taste in Snapseed and it was done. Whilst I had the phone out I tried a…
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It’s show and tell time soon.
In August I am taking part in Worcestershire Open Studios (WoS) for the first time. In WoS artists of many types open their studios for everyone to come and look at and to talk about their work. I’ll be open from 11 am to 5.30pm on the 19th/20th and the 26th-28th. It would be great to see you there! Take a look at the WoS website here. I’ll have examples of my Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) work, (like the image above), my Bokeh work (like the image below), and many more. ICM is a method of producing images that are abstract and impressionistic. I’ll be more than happy to talk…
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I’m back with a shiny new website!
This is my first new post for the new website. To ease you into the new site here’s a spinning bowl of chocolate. It’s taken with my famous Mate 10 Pro phone and edited in Snapseed. If you want to learn about mobile phone imaging and editing do get in touch.