Three from Four ?

Three
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

I've not been taking many photos over the last 3 months or so due to a severe outbreak of decorating in the house !! But what I have shot has been very purposeful and specific. This last week I shot based on the theme of the number 3 ( a competition at work) and these 4 shots are the results.

2 out of the 4 are water drops on a DVD. one is treated with a quadtone conversion (a speciality of mine) to give a really rich B&W. The colours on the other one were just spectacular so I left them be and enhanced them some.

The third shot is a digital recreation of a film effect called the "Harris Shutter". Read here for more details. http://www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/5464828842/in/set-72157626028668207/

The final shot is the word three from the Oxford English Dictionary with a heavily processed texturisation in photoshop.



I've also finally got around to creating my 2011 signature.... and it's already nearly march !!

“The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are socommon. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be themost startling event in the world.”

“The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world.”
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

Despite Dandelions being the bane of any lawn they are pretty to photograph... and I took pleasure in plucking out the seeds to leave only one using tweezers. (does hurting flowers/plants make me a masochist ??)

There are several quotes I liked about Dandelions that didn't make the title. “Oh, hardy flower, disdained as weed,
Despised for head of feathery seed,
Your unsung virtues rate a ballad,
Choice roots for wine, crisp leaves for salad.”

Red or Blue ?

Red or Blue ?
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

If you are ever in need of inspiration for a theme or a shot just use flickr to get some ideas.

The February theme for our work Photo competition was Red. I use Flickriver (http://flickriver.com/photos/tags/red/interesting/) to search for tags and inteesting photos of "red" and heh presto loads of ideas. I finally went with this shot becasue it was so simple.

The depth of field and bokeh was easy to produce with a 100mm macro lens fully open @ f/2.8 and the shooting on a tripod made composition easy to set up with the rule of thirds in mind.

I found out yesterday that I placed third in the competition.

As always the procesing was done from RAW in Lightroom 2 with some simple exposure adjustemnts and increase in clarity and blacks to give a snap to the red colour.

Full Spectrum

Full Spectrum
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

Another attempt at water drops on a DVD and I'm much happier with the results this time. This was done in day light with a much more definitive light source... the window is fairly obvious in the reflection.

Processed in Lightroom with a large amount of clarity and increse ont he blacks slider to make the colours really pop and the dark grey DVD surface go black.

This reminds me of my favourite Pink Floyd Album " Dark Side of the Moon"

I love how the streak of colour coming in from the left goes from red/orange through to yellow/green.

Taken with a 100mm macro lens with a 250D screw in filter attached for extra magnification. Each water drop was probablt < clear="all">

What Am I ? #2/10

What Am I ? #2/10
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

The game is simple, I take a macro shot of an object I find in the house. To make things more difficult to identify the shot is from a strange angle and has a narrow DOF. All you have to do is guess what it is by putting your idea in the comments section. I'll then tell you if you're right. No prizes, just for fun :-)

...and the best thing about this shot... not a dust spot in sight which means the "dry" sensor clean using my new "rocket blower" worked.

Here is the first "what am I shot". This series was inspired by the arrival of my 100mm macro lens..... which I'm still loving !!

www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/3981876530/in/set-721576...

Noisy, Dusty, Badly lit, But I like it

Noisy, Dusty, Badly lit, But I like it
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

I'm not over happy with this image as I was just experimenting and was therfore lazy with the set up. I did learn alot though about how to do these shots and will revisiti them sometime soon to improve on my technique.

I've started fequenting "Digital Photography Shcool" website, I've been subscribed to the newsletters for a while but have now dipped into the forums too. Whilst I'm impressed with the tutorials and such the critiques are all very much "nice shot " "love it" even when the shots are less than mediocre. A few noteably examples are offering honest critiques so I'll stick around and see what happens.

Sparkler Macro

Sparkler Macro
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

My attempt to try and recreate this shot by Pixel Addict....
www.flickr.com/photos/pixel_addict/2301302732/

Rather than increase the ISO (as he did) to get a fast shutter speed I opted for strobist off camera flash to freeze the sparks and provide some fill light to the sparkler shaft.

Strobist info : 580EXII with stofen diffuser camera left @ 1/4 power fired with Cactus V4 wireless triggers.

Pretty much SOOC apart from a tight crop and minor adjustments, including sharpening in lightroom as part of the raw conversion.

Exported to flickr using Jeffrey Friedl's excellent plug in and also the "mogrify" plug in to add a graphical watermark (signature) which lightroom can't do on it's own.

This was taken with the recent addition to my lens armoury, the Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro. I'm really liking hte stuff it can do !! Lots of fun.

Dragonfly Heart in a sea of Bokeh

Dragonfly Heart in a sea of Bokeh
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

This was taken in my garden a few weeks ago. I'm using a Nikon 105mm micronikkor f2.8 lens, strapped to my canon 40D with a cheapo adaptor from Ebay. It mean you can still do auto metering once the aperture is set (set aperture manually) but all the focussing in manual. It's a bit of a pain doing macro work on a manual lens as the depth of field is so small. I would love to get a canon 100mm macro lens but htere are other things ahead of that in my must have purchases.