a shortened view

I went out a few days ago with my camera but forgot to take of my fixed 50mm lens off from the last time I used the camera. Instead of not taking any photographs I decided to have a play - see what you think

PS let me know which of the views of the field you prefer, the first or second one. Just tried a couple of things and wondered if they were appealing to people

the crop is my saviour

No I am not talking about farming, I will leave that to the people of Country File and other such agricultural programs. I have found whilst working through all this photographic nonsense that sometimes a photo can be made better by cutting out a lot of it. It to give you a better view of what you are trying to portray in the photograh originally

Whilst I have every great intention that every piece of work I produce will be a master piece, straight out of the camera, it doesnt always work. A lot of the time I take a photo of a moment so lining up, assesing the view doesn't always occur. So for me a bit of cropping the photo creatively, with a cup of coffee and chocolate hob nob (if my girlfirend is reading this by chocolate hob nob I mean an apple and a green tea) does give you an opportunity to isolate a particular and probably better part of the photograph, sometimes giving you a view you never intended.It can liven up the most boring of photos. take this photo of a rusty bolt, orignally it was just a bolt BUT cropping it tightly so you only see parts of it gives it a different view.
Now i am not saying that it saves every photo but take a look back through your old photos and see what happens.

One trick i think seems to work in this is if when you take the photo just make sure that

1 - Get a focus on a particular point in the shot, make sure that is sharp e.g always make sure in a photograph someones eyes are always in focus

2 - When you start cropping make sure that focused point is in the shot (especially if you are doing macro work) other wise you will look like you cant take a photograph and its time to throw away all the kit.
sounds silly i know but there are lots of times i cropped out the bit i was focusing on and it gave me a photo that boots normally stick a big yellow sticker on.

You may start for example by getting one of your old photos and drawing a rectangle around a bit of it, allowing you to see what it would look like if you isolated that area. eg portraits, not all the face shows, landscapes, focus on the bit thats good, remove the confusion. the best photographs are simple to the eye from what I have seen. Landscapes are great but I have noticed on mine that they can be complicated by lots of colours or stuff going on. I had every intention of producing this lovely senic photograph but my eye goes 'Arrrrrrrgh - what am I supposed to be looking at. I have looked at some landscapes I have taken and they appear to be at times just lots of colours (beautiful colours obviously) but there isnt something in them to focus on and make my eye go 'ooh whats that and then wander over to another part of the photo.

Let me give you two big tips

BIG TIP ONE crop the photo before you start doing anything else, it saves time and frustrations when editing. maybe this could be a tip for life, cut out all the crap you dont need allowing you to focus on what really important

BIG TIP TWO learn to lie quite well  as cropping the photo may give you an image you weren't really intending and when people say 'Congratualtions on picking out that single purple in all that greenery' , you should say 'yes i spotted it' not i was actually aiming over the other side' You will look like the star photographer you are.

give it a go and let me know how you go on.

garden photos

open gardens

Wow what a day that was of taking photographs. In my mind I practiced what I would take, how I would take them, what sort of light I would hope for. I got my self into a bit of a flap. Once I did calm down though, things seemed to flow ok. I think the biggest pressure is hoping that the person who has spent years getting their garden to such a condition would be happy with what I have taken.

I decided through long debate with myself (if you can imagine someone actually discussing things with themself and a bemused looking labrador that was me-hmm) to photograph sections of the garden. As much as i would have loved to produce a photograph of the whole garden, time and the fact people would always be in shot it wouldn't have been good. Besides they get to see that view three hundred and sixty five days a year (including bank holidays) so the chance to show them something they may not always spot was quite interesting.

300 photographs later a tiring shoot was completed. Interestingly, well to me anyways i decided to nor start to edit/process them straight away. Why I here you ask. Well because I was tired and frustrated at the things that went wrong I felt that this would corrupt my view of the photos, I would be overly harsh with myself.

I came back to them a week later, took my time at first but soon developed a rhythm, that being I know what looked good on the previous photographs, lets try that first here. (I may in a soon to be revealed entry talk some more about this) I was also still quite brutal with the photos, if there wasn't anything that sparked me then it went.

The end results of all this work are what you see here. I haven't included all of them but these are the best of the best ones if you understand me. As always I am interested in your comments.

portraits

Whilst photographing everything is exciting, I am starting to wanna go down the portrait road of photography. I just think that portraying a persons physical features and their character in a photograph quite exciting.

I will let you know how I go on. In the meantime though, try these websites for some top quality portraits
http://stevegerrardphotography.com/
http://rankin.co.uk/

so simple even a child can do it

Just to show that photography isn't all that difficult, here is an absolute gem of a photo. It was taken by an 8 year old and shows that point in time when everyone has the chance to take their photo of the happy couple.

Stand up and take a bow Connor and just for taking this photo and showing all photographers up - its straight to bed without any tea.

dovedale wedding

People ask why didn't I take my camera with me to a wedding in the Peak District, well because there is already a photographer there who has a horrible job. Up at the crack of dawn packing up kit to cover every eventuality. Taking photographs of the brides dress, the groom, the bridesmaids the ceremony, endless group and lineup photographs and hope, just hope that 95% of them actually mean something to the happy couple otherwise they aren't getting paid. It's not for me.

Besides it gave me the chance to wander off pre ceremony and take some typical wedding shots.