Up Close And Personal

365 (or how to stave off photographic boredom)

6th Sep 2019 awendesLeave a comment

Well I’ve finally reached the end of my 365 project. What is it? You take a photo every day and upload it to your site of preference. Being motivated to take a “good” photo every day is difficult. There are days when you don’t know what to photograph and days where you don’t want to photograph anything.

As a photographer, I get bored very easily. Not of photography itself, but of lenses, cameras, subjects, format etc. I’ll shoot with Lensbabies for a few days, then switch to my Tamron macro lense, then something else. I might change to a film camera for a bit, or shoot exclusively macro. It all depends.

So anyway, here are some things I’ve found helpful for doing a 365 project, which may help stave off the boredom:

Go for walks with your camera, even if it’s just round the block (or wherever). Keep your eyes open and get in the zone.
When you go out, pick up crap. Really. It’s amazing what you can find to photograph, especially if you’re in to macro photography. Get closer and explore objects!
Scour your home for everyday objects and try to find new ways of looking at them. Admittedly, this can get old… fast.
Enter competitions and do themed photo challenges. Find something to get your creative juices flowing.
Look at other people’s work. It doesn’t even have to be in a style you like. Just looking through flickr tags can give you some inspiration.
On those days when you don’t even want to look through a viewfinder, all I can say is to push yourself. You never know, you might surprise yourself!

Captures of the Week (so far) : (28/08/19)

28th Aug 2019 awendesLeave a comment

Not much to say in this blog post. I went through a spell of not being in the mood to make pictures, which meant that now I’m photographing again, I had to catch up with my – nearly finished – 365 project. This involved going round the flat, trying to make interesting macro photos with my ring-flash! Here follows a selection of the good ones, along with a couple of others.

Thingambob. Taken with a Lensbaby Composer and Edge 35 Optic

A spider eating it’s dinner. Tamron 90mm + Raynox 250.

Captures of the Day (7/8/19)

7th Aug 2019 awendesLeave a comment

I had some time to kill this afternoon, so walked around, getting the occasional confused look as I photographed some dead ivy on a wall, or the like.

Shooting exclusively with my Lensbaby Composer and the Edge 35 Optic @ f/3.5.

Love of Lith

5th Aug 2019 awendesLeave a comment

So, after a long period of not getting in the darkroom, I managed to get a session of lith printing a few days ago. It took longer than I thought for to get my eye back in, but I’m happy with a few of the prints.

I tried something a little different during this session, by using a higher concentration of developer, 40+40+1000 : A + B + Water, as compared to my usual 20+20+1000. I also used 200ml of old brown too (old, exhausted and oxidised developer) as compared to 20-40ml I’ve used in the past. I’ve found the addition of that much old brown gives colourful prints, earlier in the development cycle.

I’ve also enjoyed the shorted development times associated with this higher concentration developer, 6-8 minutes, as compared to 8-12+.

It’s a strange thing, waiting for a lith print to develop. I put on some music and sort of zone out, the process of waiting being almost trance like. Then as soon as the print is in the stop bath, and then the fixer, I become incredibly impatient. Minutes feel like hours. Eventually the time passes and I move the print to the water bath and turn on the lights.

Something I truly love about lith printing is the unpredictability of the process, something I’ve most likely mentioned before. Each time I make a print, I have a rough idea of what I’m after, but am quite often surprised!

Anyway, here are a few of the prints from this session.

Shot with a Nikon f100, Lensbaby Composer and the Edge 35 Optic on Ilford Delta 400 @ 400. Developed in Ilford DD-X 1+4 for 6 minutes @ 23 C. Border added in GIMP. Please excuse scan quality.

Captures Of The Week (Or There Abouts!)

7th Jul 20197th Jul 2019 awendesLeave a comment

So, I’m still playing about with my Raynox 250 on my Tamron 90mm Macro Lense. While I’ve been doing a fair bit of macro work, I’ve also been swapping in the lensbaby as the mood takes me. Still love the edge 35 optic 🙂

A dead fly. This was very small and quite difficult to shoot hand-held.

Some flowers, shot on paper, using the light from a window and tweaked quite a bit in Exposure X4.5

Captures Of The Week (30/6/19)

30th Jun 2019 awendesLeave a comment

A bedleja macro, taken with Tamron 90mm and Raynox 250

A hydrangea, taken with Tamron 90mm and Raynox 250

A path at the park. Taken with Lensbaby Composer and Edge 35 Optic.

Knotted Wound. Taken with Lensbaby Composer and Edge 35 Optic.

A mixed bag

26th Jun 2019 awendesLeave a comment

So, I’ve been in a bit of a Lensbaby mood these past few days. I’ve also done some macro photography, but I’ve definitely been leaning towards the happy distortion a Lensbaby brings…

I’m a bit contrary like that, focusing on one or two lenses then getting bored of them and needing something different to do. This is also due to the 365 project I’m doing, as having to take a “good” photo every day gets a bit tiresome at times. Anyway, some more photos 🙂

I opened an unripe poppy seed head to find little nascent seeds. Taken with my Tamron 90mm Macro Lense and the Raynox 250.

A Blue/Purple Petunia, Taken with my Tamron 90mm Macro Lense

Sitting by the beach. Taken with Lensbaby Composer, Edge 35 Optic

Fishing by the sea. Taken with Lensbaby Composer, Edge 35 Optic

Fuchsia Sticking Out Of A Bush. Taken with Lensbaby Composer, Edge 35 Optic .

Getting Even Closer!

21st Jun 2019 awendesLeave a comment

So, I’ve been experimenting with a Raynox 250, as I said in my previous post. This is essentially a lense that clips on to the front of a lense to get you even closer. When combined with a macro lense, you get even closer. This does have it’s problems though, in that even with steady hands there’s still some shake, requiring high shutter speeds and a bit of luck. A tripod would make life easier when it comes to shake, but also makes life more difficult if you want to freely explore an object.

If I was feeling brave, I could even throw in some extension tubes and get closer still, but there’s only so much you can do whilst retaining your sanity!

I will be keeping the Raynox close to hand as it’s useful, but will need more practice using. Here are a few images I’ve made using it, mostly clipped onto my Tamron 90mm.

A close up of the centre of the daisy like flower.

A close up of the entrance to a Trailing Petunia

This image was and experiment. It’s actually a curve of bubbles around a glass of coke. I lit it with an LED lamp, with a black background. The focus isn’t perfect, but I think that actually adds to the sparkle.

This little fella is only 1-2mm in size. Had to crop it quite aggressively. It’s quite amazing the detail you can get.

Captures Of The Week (5/6/19)

5th Jun 20195th Jun 2019 awendesLeave a comment

After a bit of a hiatus from my blog, I’ve decided to upload my favourite photos from the past week. I’ve also been experimenting by using a raynox 250 on my 70-300mm lense, with mixed results. It works well when it wants to!

I realised after posting this that I included photos from my previous captures of the day (doh!). I still think they’re captures of the week too, so they’ll remain.

Someone asked me for some photos of our dog… I didn’t skimp on them!

A shot from Gunwharf Quays. The water in the pool was a very strange colour, which wasn’t fully captured in this image.

Looking out to sea. Taken at Gunwharf Quays.

A very close up shot of a single lupin flower.

Another from Gunwharf Quays. I was really interested by the curves of the structures, which I think was accentuated by the 11-16mm lense.

A false colour shot of some lupin flowers.

And finally, a macro of a poppy, just bursting out.

Captures of the Day (30/5/19)

31st May 2019 awendesLeave a comment

We had a trip to Gunwharf Quays yesterday. The light was beautiful and I was able to get several good photos out of it. All shot with a Tokina 11-16mm lense.