This week I have been trying to experiment with Macro a bit more. Still only using my iphone with a clip on lens I wanted to explore ideas for my next project, Transformations.
Textures
Bubbles/Liquid
Feathers
Stationary
Light Bulb
12th-18th Macro
5th-11th June Wild Flowers
Just across the road from where I live is a patch of wild flowers, Poppies, Daisies and Cornflowers. Always so pretty and full of Bees. Taking these photographs below, I had in mind the overlaying in Photoshop and Cyanotpye.
20th May Brighton
I managed to keep my kids still long enough to take a couple of shots before they got board.
Brighton’s old pier, The West Pier is so beautiful. I had to get a couple of pictures of it’s fragile frame standing in the water. I would have loved to get some sunset shots of this pier, however I didn’t stay late. Another time.
As still in the Covid-19 Pandemic, Brighton Pier was still closed to the public, hense the photo with the bars. However, had to get a couple of shots of the this iconic Pier.
Below I have applied on my photographs a Tilt and Shift filter. Again, I don’t think this has worked well, as I don’t have enough elevation at my point of taking the photographs.
Below, the Tilt and Shift aspect works better on the left photograph. The effect makes some of the people on the beach look like toy figures.
8th-14th May
I don’t usually take action shots, however I quite like these two of my eldest daughter in a split leap! I need a bit more practice I think, trying to capture her perfectly in the centre of the frame.
On a walk this week I stopped in the Terrace Gardens to try and capture some of the beautiful purple Alliums bordering these gardens.
All the natural spaces outside are full of Cow Parsley at the moment. Walking out of the Terrace Gardens you come to an area that has been left to be over grown with Cow Parsley. I need to go back before it all dies to get some more shots.
8th April Super Moon 2020 P1, P3, P4
On April 8th ther was a Super pink moon. A Super moon looks bigger than a usual full moon. We see it larger because it is at its closest point to Earth.
I have always wanted to try and capture a really good photograph of the moon, however I had never really had the time or patience to try and achieve it. At this time, with the whole country on lockdown due to the coronavirus I thought I would try and push myself seeing I had the time.
As we are in lockdown I was restricted to setting up my camera in my back garden. It would’ve been nice to perhaps find a place to photograph the moon with a house or some chimneys within the frame. This would’ve given perspective to the photograph and given a greater sense of the size of the moon.
I decided to change my camera lens to a 55-200mm lens and mounted it on a tripod to keep the camera steady. Also, as the subject was very slow moving, I could set the frame and not worry about that.
At first, I had set my camera to ISO-100, F/11, SS-1sec. As the moon was so far away I was having trouble focusing. Automatic focusing wasn’t really working because of the distance, so I tried my best at Manual focusing.
I had never tried to photograph the moon. My initial thoughts were that I would be using longer shutter speeds. It took me a while to work out, that that was not correct.
However using the longer shutter speeds and upping the ISO I managed to capture some quite nice shots of the passing clouds. The moon, which is my focus point, is still over exposed.
Below are a couple of my better cloud and moon shots.
ISO- 200, F-Stop 11, SS- 2secs
ISO- 800, F-Stop 11, SS- 1.6secs
This night, the moon was shining so bright. Through the clouds you could see a ring around the moon. I was really trying to capture that in this image below.
ISO- 1600, F-Stop 8, SS- 1/5sec
This image below, I was getting there. You immediately go for a slower Shutter Speed for night time shots. However I realised that I needed to speed up my Shutter Speed, as I was always over exposing the moon.
ISO- 800, F-Stop 8, SS- 0.77sec
Finally I got closer to capturing exactly what I was seeing in the sky! With the naked eye, I could see all the craters on the moon in this clear night sky. It took a while but I got there! Yay! I would have loved the moon to be bigger within my frame but this was the closest I could zoom into with my lens.
ISO- 6400, F/Stop 25, SS- 1/2000sec
After I packed up and went inside, it was gone 12:30 am. I was lying in bed thinking I want to try and get that same picture on a lower ISO, so it wouldn’t be so grainy when I enlarge the image. So I decided to go back outside and set up again, but I had missed my opportunity as the clouds were thick and passing over the moon. Something to think about next time I try and photograph the moon!
6th March Petersham Nurseries P1, P3, P4
Petersham Nurseries is always one of my favourite places to visit. Everything is just so beautiful, the plants, shop, cafe/restaurant and surroundings.
Candle sticks ready to be cut off the rack.
I’m quite liking to keep a very low Aperture and just switch my focus point.
Below are some close ups of an old mirrored table. I like that I have focused on the decaying mirror and therefore captured some small points of Bokeh in the reflection.
17th-23rd Feb Kew Gardens P1, P3, P4
Prime lens
This week I purchased a second hand Prime Lens for my Nikon camera. F stop 1.8
This lens is a manual focus lens and therefore I have to be really careful and work hard to get the correct focus.
Visiting the Orchids Festival at Kew Gardens this week, I took my prime lens to see if I could get some close up shots of the flowers.
I was so excited by the low aperture range in this lens, that I didn’t change from F stop 1.8 the whole afternoon. Not a problem for some of the pictures I had taken, however looking through them I can see that I should have played around with the aperture a little bit more.
Keeping my Aperture on F stop 1.8 meant I had a very shallow depth of field. On some of the photographs I took the focus area wasn’t wide enough.
As you can see from the some of the photographs below, most of one flower is in focus and gets blurred towards the edge of the flower.
If I had upped the aperture to perhaps 2.8, I may have been able to get in the whole flowerhead.
6th December Christmas at Kew
P2, P4
ICM-Intentional Camera Movement
1 
2 
3
Bokeh
21st November
P2, P4
Fireworks at Richmond Green
I decided to take the opportunity to try and capture some long exposure shots of fireworks. Richmond Christmas lights were being turned on and a firework display was on Richmond Green. I thought this was probably the last time this year I would be able to try and capture some photographs of fireworks.
3rd November Bonfire night weekend
As I was waiting to take some long exposure shots of fireworks along the river I took these shots below. From Ham riverside, the view of The White Swan looked so pretty. The only problem was that as it was dark I couldn’t quite make out if I had the picture in focus. Using auto focus I managed to get the foreground in focus but not so much the pub its self.
Although I was quite far away from the firework display, I think I have captured a couple of interesting shots.
My Photography Journey 