Virginia Water Waterfall After Heavy Rain

I hoped that the amount of rain we had this weekend would mean that the Waterfall on the outflow of Virginia Water in Windsor Great park would be in spate.... I wasn't disappointed. It was very late on Saturday evening before I had chance to get down there. Infact it was nearly dusk. I didn't have my cable release with me so I had to resort to upping the ISO and the aperture to reduce the exposure to 30 seconds. Processed in lightroom with an X=equals "super punch" preset and then a bit of fine tuning.
The second shot of the upper level, looking down has the road in the background which is where the orange glow comes from as cars were driving along plus the street lights.

Obviously both of these shots were taken with a tripod.

Little Man

Whilst doing the Photoshoot of the staff at school yesterday my wife came to pick me up, so whilst I had the lighting set up I couldn't resist getting a shot of "The Babsa", "The Little Man", "The Maestro" aka "My Boy"

First Follower.

I have my first follower.

Hello Angelique whoever and where ever you are.

You have the honour of being first..... but hopefully not the last person to visit these humble pages :-)

I'll have to try very hard to let my new found fame and notoriety not go to my head.

Another Photo Shoot Tomorrow...

I've just been preparing all my gear, formatting memory cards, charging batteries etc ready for the second half of the school photoshoot tomorrow.

I'm looking forwards to it. Apparently the (part time) staff who couldn't make it last time are really excited as they saw the photos from the first session and loved them.

I'll post some shots afterwards. Things I'm going to do differently tomorrow based on what I leanred first time around...

• Turn the ambient (flourescent) lighting off.
• Seperate subject from the background with more distance and get the background light in a better position to blow the background white.
• Get them to lick their lips before taking the shot. (can't remember where I read this)
• Interact more and direct the posing . Get poeple to smile more naturally via interaction jokes.threats of photoshopping in warts and spots :-)
• May be set the short lighting up from the opposite and swap poses 180degrees so not all facing left.

And one thing I must remember is to ask people if it's OK to put their photos on my blog and add them to my long neglected 100 strangers project. http://www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/sets/72157611320280959/

...and finally I must get some business cards printed out. I've been looking at some from "moo" via Flickr. Having some cards to give out to people at these shoots wouldn't do my word of mouth advertising any harm at all !!

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">

Splashing Around

Splashing Around
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

Splashing Around
I was running out of time to come up with a shot for the Autumn themed monthly photo competition at work . The recent storms and rain have brought most of the foliage down off the trees. There is one nice bit left in Windsor great Park but when I went up there on Saturday it was raining so the camera stayed firmly in the bag... I've learned my lesson about getting it wet (see my star trails photo).

I thought I would take advantage of the rain and the puddles by having some fun with my kids. Dress them up in bright clothes and welies and try to get some frozen water and refelction action going on as they jump up and down in puddles. Half an hour and lots of fun later this was the best shot of the bunch and I have my entry to the autumn competition.

Canon EOS 40D, EFS 17-55mm IS USM, 580EXII strobe.

20mm. 1/250 sec, f/8 +1EV flash. Manual exposire mode to ensure the low lighting di not lead to a slow shutter speed and blur. Using manual means that camera uses the flash to expose the subject vs using ambient to expose for the background with the subject "filled" with flash. Slightly cropped plus boosted exposure, blacks, clarity, saturation and sharpening in lightroom.

Flickr 50,000 Hits Since I Joined

Flickr 50,000 Hits Since I Joined
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

I joined Flickr back in June 2008 and was fairly slow uploading images. It was only when my Canon 40D DSLR arrived in September that I got more serious. I've experimented with a lot of things over the last 18 months, portraits, still life, macro, strobist lighting, freezing motion etc etc and I've certainly learned a heck of a lot. I've been really pleased to have been asked and be able to photograph a friends wedding, 2 christenings, a holy communion and recenlty a set of head shots for a local school.

When I look at my "most interesting shots" see link below I am really pleased with the quality of what I can produce, not just out of camera but with some post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop to take things to the next level. Looking at some of the other shots on Flickr that I admire I've still got a long way to go... but I will find that magic explore place sometime soon !!

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/marklandon/popular-interesting/