i-Shot

i-shot has MOVED!!!

2006-09-06T18:37:00.000+01:00

Hi folks - just in case the big red letters above this post aren't clear enough ;) I am NO LONGER POSTING HERE! But pretty much every single navigational link on this page will take you to my new site... (hint: it's called myglasseye.net)

Cheers!

Troll Free Zone

2006-08-23T08:43:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/50 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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My recent absence is down to a few things, one of which is I've finally got myself a new domain sorted out, and my photoblog as it currently exists will shortly come to an end. I've got the new site up and running, but I need to do some customisation of the code before I let anyone in to see it, and I want to move all my existing shots over. As there's currently over 250 of them and I need to do it all by hand it could take quite some time, but I'm determined to do it as the presentation is so much better. Won't be long now! :)

Transport For London?

2006-08-18T08:26:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ various focal lengths & shutter speeds, f/4.5, ISO 200
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The traffic heading home in the evening can be chaos, although thankfully the bus lanes remain pretty empty. One reason why I don't drive around London! I've considered getting a bike, many times, but I invariably have my camera in my bag and I'm worried about falling off and it getting smashed to bits. So public transport it is...

Both shots processed with my fairly extreme 'fake Lomo/Holga' action, with a bit of cross-processing style colouring thrown in for good measure.

Baton Down The Hatches

2006-08-17T08:46:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 38 mm, 1/80 sec, f/20, ISO 200
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While walking home yesterday I saw in my path not one but two of those pesky charity people with clipboards ahead of me, and I started looking around me trying not to catch their eye, looked up and spotted a single open window in this office block. It was quite late in the day and I couldn't avoid the shadow creeping up the building, unfortunately, but I managed to evade their oh-so-cheerful investigation into exactly how much I could afford to give their charity every month so it's not all bad news...

Apologies to the more charitable amongst you, but I don't like being pressganged in public when I'm on my way home from work!

Processed with a Green channel layer set to Soft Light, Gaussian Blurred and about 50% opacity, and a duplicate of the background set to Overlay and about 50% opacity.

In Case Of Emergency, Grab

2006-08-16T08:25:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 70 mm, 1/40 sec, f/4.5, ISO 640
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I enjoy the occasional abstract, hard-to-identify close up. It's fairly obvious what we have here, but I like the lines and the colour of the green. I suppose in many ways it's a companion to this shot from a few months ago...

I tried something I've not done for a while to get the tones and the subtle soft-focus - a 'Red' channel layer set to Soft Light blending with a Gaussian Blur of 6 and reduced opacity. Also, a Curves layer for contrast and minor colour toning, and the ubiquitous vignette.

Stand Behind the Yellow Line

2006-08-15T08:26:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 4/5 sec, f/22, ISO 640
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Another shot from Gloucester Road tube station featuring the Chiho Aoshima artwork in the background, and a reminder why we're constantly told to stay behind the yellow line when trains are approaching!

I'm now seriously looking into re-launching this photoblog with it's own domain using PixelPost to design it, but it will probably have to be under a new name. Current contenders are My Life In Pixels (.co.uk or .net, as .com has gone) or Pixellate This! Any ideas on those?

Chiho Aoshima

2006-08-14T19:24:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, various shutter speeds, f/4.5, ISO 640
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While travelling on the tube the other day we passed through Gloucester Road where the Japanese artist Chiho Aoshima has an installation at the moment called City Glow, Mountain Whisper as part of the 'Platform For Art' project. It's in the form of 17 panels cut to fit the archways, painted in her distinctive style, and it's there till January next year so if you're in London and on the tube you should go and have a look.

This chop together of a panorama isn't particularly neat and tidy, and there's perspective errors all over the place, but I kind of like them. It's also not shrunk down for the web too well, but the original is much bigger - have a look at it here...

I've got some detail shots as well that I'll probably post in the next few days. It was amazing to look at. I'd love a room in my house painted in that style! :)

Next Stop?

2006-08-13T16:49:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 40 mm, 1/30 sec, f/5, ISO 400
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Taken on the tube north on Saturday - I stopped off at Gloucester Road and got loads of images of the Chiho Aoshima installation set in the platform arches, and I'm working on a rough 'panorama' of the whole thing at the moment in Photoshop so hopefully I'll be able to share that tomorrow... :)

This has the tiniest hint of a 'cross processing' curve, slight desaturation and a vignette.

Corona & Cricket

2006-08-12T14:42:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 24 mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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This is a shot from a few weeks ago just when the blazing hot summer was starting to kick in. You can tell, because the grass hasn't withered and dried...

Am thinking about changing the colour background to black or a darker colour. If I had the time and patience and skill I'd come up with a template for the page that allowed viewers to change the background at will, but at the moment I'm not sure that all my shots look best against white. We'll see...

Converted to B&W with two Hue/Saturation layers, then given a duotone and a vignette.

Shift It

2006-08-11T21:43:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/25 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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One of those moments where I had to grab my camera quick. I saw the sign on a bus stop promoting using bicycles to get around London, with a woman waiting for the bus. I thought, "That might make a good shot," and then I looked around for traffic that might get in the way. Lo and behold, a guy on a bike coming my way. Priceless timing! :)

Given some 'cross processing' and a vignette.

Mind the Gap

2006-08-10T08:17:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 24 mm, 1/8 sec, f/8, ISO 800
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I've taken a shot like this before, but it's so pleasing to capture that while on Westminster tube platform yesterday I got another one.

Alone

2006-08-09T20:15:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/30 sec, f/4.5, ISO 800
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Took a few shots on the underground today. I'm always a little concerned that I'm going to get 'busted' taking shots around tube stations what with security crackdowns all over the world these days.

I'm pretty sure this shot doesn't contravene any laws though :)

Cropped to 16:9 format, given a cross-processing curve layer and a vignette.

Cast member

2006-08-08T18:59:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 70 mm, 1/1600 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400
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One of the cast members from the short film I did stills for a few weeks ago, The Carriageway. Processed with a slightly desaturated look in accordance with the ideas the directors (the Shammasian Brothers) have for the grading of the final film.

Fill in the blanks

2006-08-07T10:54:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 mm lens, 1/10 sec, f/3.2, ISO 200
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My brother peering out of his window at... I was trying for an HDR experiment, but in the end it didn't amount to much, so this is the shot at the 'over exposed' end of the sequence.

Vantage point

2006-08-06T18:26:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 37mm, 1/400, 1/200, 1/100 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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This is Edinburgh Castle taken from the very bottom of Princes Street Gardens. It's one of those shots I'm still not quite settled with. It's another high dynamic range shot, but I was looking for a subtle effect that didn't shout HDR at the world. In the end I couldn't get the balance I wanted and decided to stray into 'overdone effect' territory and give it a dramatic B&W conversion as well. Sometimes you just have to... :)

Lost In Blue

2006-08-05T10:38:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-20mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/160 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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UPDATE: This was previously a different entry, but for personal reasons I've replaced it with this shot of a cloud formation over Fintry a few nights ago.

Processed with a 'lomo' style action and vignette, I love the break of sunlight through the small window in the cloud on the right, and the rolls of other cloud at the bottom of the frame.

Framed Up

2006-08-04T01:59:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 65 mm, 1/20 sec, f/18, ISO 200
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This is my 250th post on this blog! I carelessly zoomed past the first birthday and never even noticed...

This is a 'behind the scenes' shot from a short film I did stills for a few weeks ago - The Carriageway directed by the Shammasian Brothers. The monitor in the bottom of the frame is the steadicam viewfinder tilted up to face the operator, so I'm practically on the ground shooting up past it.

Processed with a heavy vignette and a duotone.

Skateboard

2006-08-03T13:08:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikom 50mm f/1.8 lens, 1/15 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200
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This is my brother's skateboard. It's been in some scrapes in its time. Not much more to say than that really, hence the simple title!

Processed with some contrast, saturation, vignette and blown highlights, and a low opacity curve layer that mimics crossprocessing.

The Last Dalek

2006-08-02T11:36:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens, 1/15 sec, f/3.5, ISO 800
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No matter how many time the Doctor eradicates Daleks from the universe/dimension, there's always one that manages to slip through the net. This one was spotted in the front room of a Glasgow flat a few days ago.

No Daleks, Timelords or meddlesome Companions were harmed in the making of this shot.

UPDATE: This image was originally just the left hand shot, which I'd not shrunk enough for the page; in shrinking it I decided to add the second shot our spies managed to grab, as a bit of a 'diptych'...

Jungle girl

2006-08-01T13:27:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 56 mm, 1/13 sec, f/8, ISO 640
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I've been having some problems uploading images to Flickr (where all the shots on this site are hosted) so although I have a few really cool ones to share, you'll have to wait until I iron out the kinks in the system.

In the meantime, here's Hollie scrambling around in the trees in Bishops Park, Putney...

Rip Curl Was Here

2006-07-30T20:47:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 35 mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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On the same bridge as yesterday's shot I saw this sticker, and liked the framing here. It doesn't tell a story - it's just something that pleases my eye (although I think the sticker could be sharper in this shrunk version).

Metal detection

2006-07-28T13:19:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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It's been a week since my last post but at the moment I'm in my brothers house in Scotland, so without such distractions as an Xbox 360 I had a bit of time last night to process some new shots. Should be a bit more regular now.

I took this on my way to the tube station on Wednesday morning. I looked over Putney Bridge and saw him slowly sweeping the bank of the Thames while the tide was down. He bent over a few times to examine things, but everything was discarded. I wonder what he's ever found - presumably he's looing for relics from forgotten times. There's an interesting display in the Tate Modern of a range of items that have been found in the Thames, ranging from litter from last year, to blades from butchers knives dating back several centuries, and human bones...

No fake soft-focus on this. At first I thought the bridge in foreground might be distracting, but in retrospect I like the 'tilt-shift' effect it creates. Processed with a touch of contrast and saturation, a layer to lift the highlights around the middle, and a vignette set to Overlay.

Deep in thought

2006-07-21T13:12:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 62 mm, 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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It's phenomenally hot down here in London, and going out and about with my camera just hasn't been something I've wanted to do as even in the flat with all the fans blasting we're sweating just sitting still...

Here's a shot from the film shoot I did a few weeks ago, The Carriageway (although in terms of my posts here I mentioned it only a couple back...). This is Ludwig Shammasian, one half of the Shammasian Brothers, deep in thought as the day drew to a close. The light was fading fast and we had fallen a little behind in the schedule (as is so often the way on film shoots). At this point Ludwig was going through his script, checking what shots they'd got in the can, what they had left, and working out how best to get them as quickly as possible before we lost all the sunlight which was threatening to dip below the thick canopy of trees, and eventually below the horizon...

Processed with a 'lomo effect' - increased contrast and saturation, the center blown out a touch, and a vignette of black set to Overlay blending.

Putney Apocalypse

2006-07-11T13:57:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, various speeds, f/4.5, ISO 200
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This was an experiment in taking a high dynamic range image with an infrared filter on. I took 3 images from a tripod over the Thames, then used Photomatix to combine them. There was very little 'Shopping done to it - just a vignette, the border, some Levels and a tiny bit of Curve. Although many people are quick to point out how unreal HDR makes clouds look, that's actually the effect of the infrared filter. All the HDR did in this image was put a bit of detail into the water, and the buildings on the left.

A few people I know have commented that they find it overprocessed and unnatural. Well, that was kind of the point! I've spent all week doing 'normal' photos for a film shoot and wanted to go a little crazy on something - in that respect, it was a huge success! ;)

UPDATE: This shot was voted as a 'Noteworthy' in the Photofriday.com 'Remarkable' contest. Thanks to everyone that nominated me!

Swan Lake

2006-07-04T10:17:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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Been a bit busy and not had time to process new shots, but I do have around 100 from the short film yesterday so that should keep me busy. The long, hot, sweltering, stifling, humid Summer nights will just fly by... ;)

This, in the meantime, is one from the archives from Christmas...

Tension

2006-07-03T08:27:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 50 mm lens, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 800
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I'm out doing stills for another short film today so I thought I'd post a recent re-processing of one of my favourite shots from the last film I did stills for. I was putting together a huge collage of my lomo-style shots and to fill it up I was processing some new ones, including this one. It's a similar shot to an earlier post but I think it's a much better angle and also far more pleasing to my colour-hungry eye. However, the earlier post was processed to fit with the films grading whereas I really pushed this one.

It's Wimbledon season

2006-07-02T20:52:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Nikon 80-300 mm lens @ 300 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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I borrowed the bargain-price Nikon 80-300 mm lens for the afternoon while I was sitting out in the sun on Putney Common, and took a few shots. It would have been more handy to have around the day before when there was a cricket match on, for some 'action' shots.

I don't often feel the need for a long zoom, which is why I've never bought one. It allows me to take more candid photos from a safer distance (I'm worried about offending people by sticking a lens in their face uninvited, and don't particularly like the posed photos you get when you ask first) but other than that I'm not especially upset about giving it back to its owner!

Iconic

2006-06-29T23:36:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/800 sec, f/14, ISO 1600
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When taking this shot of one of the most iconic sights in Barcelona I fell foul of the old ISO1600 trap - must have forgotten to reset it after some dark shots the previous night. Still, after applying my old favourite - the fake 'Lomo' look - the previously unwelcome grain doesn't really matter!

There's those that don't understand why I would want to take a shot on my extremely expensive digital SLR and then use Photoshop to make it look like I took it on a plastic toy camera, but for me the fun and satisfaction in my photography can come from some creative and expressive processing as much as from taking a technically and aesthetically pleasing shot.

Eye Popping East Putney

2006-06-28T08:33:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 19 mm, 1/1600 sec, 1/320 sec, 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 320
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This is a 'high dynamic range' image composed of 3 different exposures, handheld, and is the very first HDR image I've made in this way. All previous efforts have been from single RAW files, which never really works that well. I'm quite pleased with this, especially as one of the originals wasn't quite perfectly in alignment, but Photomatix seems to have corrected that.

No prizes for guessing where it was taken...

Ready for blastoff

2006-06-27T08:32:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/320 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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Following on the theme of everyday objects or locations with a slightly futuristic look, this obviously isn't really a rocketship... Actually this is the processing towers at the back of Young's Brewery in Wandsworth, as seen from the Kings Arms beer garden. It also doesn't usually look golden either: that's me messing with the Black Point on a curve adjustment layer.

Space age air ducts

2006-06-26T20:48:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 24 mm, 1/40 sec, f/9, ISO 400
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Took a week off from posting but just spent an hour or so playing with some images that have been gathering in the archive from the past month of shooting when I'm out and about.

No prize available for guessing what this is... Which isn't to say it's too obvious, but I expect most people will be able to work it out!

De-saturated the colours by layering the B&W version (copied from converting the mode to Lab Mode) over the original RGB and reducing the opacity to about 25%, with Saturation Blending, and then a vignette dropped on top...

Amazing Grace #2

2006-06-16T09:58:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 56 mm, 1/30 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200
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Grace says her sunglasses are the focal point of many photos like this... Ideally I'd have had a reflection of a blazing sun setting into a tropical, crystal clear sea, or the skyline of New York lit up at dusk, but I had to make do with the trees in the Kings Arms beer garden...

In other news, I'm planning to move this blog off onto it's very own site. Unfortunately most of the decent variations of the "i-shot" domain are all taken so it looks like it's the right time for a total rebranding!

So, I'm looking for a new name (ideally unhyphenated, and in some way related to photography or the digital medium). If I use your suggestion or a close variation of it, I'll send you a free print of your choice...

Made up

2006-06-15T09:42:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 46 mm, 1/50 sec, f/5, ISO 400
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After viewing some really superb shots on various other blogs yesterday morning I spent my lunchtime prowling round the studios trying to find something to take shots of, and wandered into the make-up department...

No words, just pictures

2006-06-14T08:58:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 46 mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1000
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A recent post at chromasia discussed the realisation that many of his early posts were very pretty, striking images, but that didn't say anything or tell a story. I'm particularly guilty of that too.

Especially with this one. I guess you could make up a story about loneliness or strength in solitude or something, but basically it's a picture of a lone, oval window in a big curvy shadowy wall :)

Big Blue

2006-06-13T09:12:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/25 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600
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At the Barcelona Aquarium there's a long tunnel underneath their main, huge tank. You stand on the conveyor belt (which is made of curved panels of wood - very retro) and it takes you on a journey past sharks, rays, hammerheads and all sorts of other fish that I've never seen before. Strangely, none of them attack each other.

It took me ages to get this shot just right. There wasn't really any shortage of sharks going past, but getting one in just the right part of the frame was tricky, as was getting a sharp shot; as you can tell from the settings, it was pretty dark down there.

Under the bridge

2006-06-12T12:19:00.001+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 20 mm, 1/25 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320
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It's ridiculously hot down here in London - still, mustn't grumble! Day off today so I shall probably either go sit in the sun and read Attack of the Bacon Robots, or pull my curtains shut and spend the day playing videogames.

Or I could take some photos, I suppose...? ;)

A little Lomo action on this one to push the rusty saturation, and darken the edges with some slight vignetting...

Through the Square Window

2006-06-08T10:19:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 25 mm, 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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Apologies for the lack of update yesterday... Unfortunately by the time I got home I was just too hot and knackered to process anything, and Blogger was down anyway so I couldn't update with anything from the ol' archive either. It's almost as if I wasn't meant to update...

Here's a third and final one from the 'square windows' set.

Sliced Up

2006-06-06T20:37:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 62 mm, 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320
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Did the world end where you were today? You know, 06/06/06 and all that? 666? Mark of the beast? No? Oh well, never mind. Guess we'll all have to go to work tomorrow after all.

I'm not too sure about my processing on this. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with it, but then when I was finished it wasn't quite where I'd imagined it. I think it may be a little bit too blue. What do you think?

Cameo Appearance

2006-06-05T19:53:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 60 mm, 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO 320
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Spot the photographer in this one!

Underground Overground

2006-06-01T08:23:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 40 mm, 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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Very similar subject matter to yesterday's post - in fact it was taken just around the corner. Went for a Lomo-style look to this, and one that's a little more restrained than my usual square-crop, guns-blazing Lomo effect (although I did try processing this shot with that style but I preferred the less dramatic, full frame version).

This Is London

2006-05-31T01:30:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 22 mm, 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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It's been an archive raid for the last few days, but there's so much in there with great potential that it seems a shame not to. This one was a single RAW file (original settings above) converted into 3 different exposures for an HDR, which I then converted to B&W. The colouring is a combination of a toning action I've got, and playing with the seperate channels in a Curve adjustment layer.

Here endeth todays lesson!

Glass skin

2006-05-30T11:38:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/800 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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After yesterday's somewhat cold offering, this is a tiny bit warmer! Same subject, different angle. I'm afraid I'm not at work today either, so sorry to those of you who are - but for the next month I'll be up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays...

In other news, I'm thinking about altering the comments button so that it's more obvious that you can leave comments. I have around 500 new visitors daily, but nobody stops to say hello!

Blue Monday

2006-05-29T17:45:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 31 mm, 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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Woops... been a few days since the last update, and it's possible this one will fall on deaf ears as in the UK it's Bank Holiday Monday so most work-surfers will be watching dreadful movies on TV or in the pub ;)

The blue colour in this is from changing the white balance in Adobe Camera Raw. Then I ran it through my home-made 'fake lomo effect' action. I love the cold sci-fi feel of it.

Metrohead

2006-05-25T22:34:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/80 sec, f/8, ISO 400
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This is one from several weeks ago, when I headed into Central London on a weekday off work to try and get some inner-city shots. This is a poster on the side of the National Film Theatre by the South Bank of the Thames. No prizes for guessing the film it's from.

More choice inside

2006-05-24T00:02:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 48 mm, 1/10 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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Someone close to me mentioned that he'd like to see a few less Barcelona shots on here... I guess I have been getting a bit carried away with them. It's hard not to, though. The whole city is so gorgeous! They are all a bit touristy and 'fantasy' though, and I miss making everyday things look more interesting (which someone else told me he likes to see me doing), so here's a scene from my walk home a couple of weeks ago.

I used a touch of a cross-processing curve and some different overlay effects to accentuate the white-balance colour difference between the day-lit sign and the artificially lit interior...

Soft wood

2006-05-23T08:09:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20mm lens @ 17mm, 1/30 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400
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I woke up this morning and blearily checked the 2006 Photobloggies Results and I've won Best New Photoblog for 2005! Considering the competition I'm extrememly chuffed, not to mention surprised. So thank you to everyone who voted, and hello to all those new people coming to visit - I better keep the updates coming. I really welcome constructive criticism on shots so please don't be shy.

With that, I thought I better post a new one. This is one of the details in the Casa Batllo in Barcelona (again). Apparently there isn't a single proper straight line in the whole building...

Push Me Pull Me

2006-05-12T23:25:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 35 mm, 1/4 sec, f/13, ISO 1600
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On the way home tonight I grabbed a few shots that seemed very pleasing to me at the time, but which weren't quite so incredible to look back at. Sometimes the act of framing and snapping is the most satisfying. The thrill of the chase and all that...

The best photo, the one I was most excited about, was really simple but it was too blurry when I looked back at it so it got binned. The light was fading, and I didn't want to ramp up the ISO for that particular image. I will most definitely be going back to get it tomorrow or later in the week when there's more light.

This one is the highest ISO I can get on the D70 and as such is noisy as hell, but I like the relative crispness on the foreground PULL sign and the noise seems to work in its favour.

Second Time Lucky

2006-05-10T22:25:00.001+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/5, ISO 1000
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I went back a couple of times to this room, trying to get a shot of the window without anyone on the other side leaning against it (the perfectionist in me). I realised later that in actual fact having someone on the other side really made the shot. Pretty noisy, but there wasn't much chance to line up a longer shutter speed and still keep it sharp or have someone walk through the frame.

Oh, it's Casa Batllo again. Sorry. If anyone wants to hire me to go back to spend a day there without any tourists getting in the way, PLEASE DO! ;)

Three Windows

2006-05-08T22:19:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 52 mm, 1/50 sec, f/9, ISO 640
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Okay okay... a break from the Casa Batllo shots ;)

I was sitting at home the other night, stood up and saw this sunlit scene out the windows and it made me want to take a picture. It may not be the most stunning shot, but the fact that I was compelled to take it in the first place makes it special to me.

Dimples

2006-05-04T22:13:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/50 sec, f/5, ISO 1000
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This is the ceiling detail from the back room at, yes, you guessed it, the Casa Batllo in Barcelona. Did I mention I could have spent hours there?

There's a lot of noise in the shot, which I wish I could have got rid of better. Of course the best way would have been to shoot with a lower ISO, but there were a lot of people milling around, and I was handheld crouching on the ground looking straight up, so I just ramped up to the lowest possible ISO to get a decent shutter speed...

Parabolic

2006-05-01T23:06:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/8 sec, f/18, ISO 800
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I had a colour version of this but in the process of doing a bit of sharpening on the Luminosity channel I saw the shot in B&W and decided it looked better that way.

It's of a room in the Casa Batllo (again!), that depicts just some of the hundreds of parabolic arches in the building that make up most of Gaudi's architectural support systems.

Nemo's Windows

2006-04-27T20:59:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 20 mm, 1/5 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400
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This is inside the Casa Batllo, a house that Gaudi was commissioned to redesign for the Batllo family. After the Sagrada Familia it's the single most stunning creation I saw in Barcelona, and was worth every penny I spent to get in. I could have spent hours and hours there (as it was I think I was there 3 hours), just wandering around taking it all in.

It's a monument to his imagination and passion for all things nature-inspired. It's like walking around something from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I was blown away by it. The original shot is considerably less technicolour, but that's simply not how I remember it.

White Light

2006-04-26T21:20:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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Another Gaudi-designed shot... Expect quite a few of these over the next few days/weeks... The man was a genius. What more can I say?

This is inside the Sagrada Familia, looking up at a recently completed wall. I added a tiny bit of Gaussian Blur onto a layer copy that was set to Soft Light, with the opacity taken right down to something like 20%. There was already a lot of light spill, but I wanted to make a feature of it.

Whirlpool

2006-04-23T19:07:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 14 mm, 1/10 sec, f/8, ISO 400
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This is... well, I think it's much more enigmatic and intriguing a shot if I don't tell you what it is. But it's another from Barcelona, I'll give you that much.

Thirty Three

2006-04-22T18:31:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/40 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400
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A couple of days ago I returned from a last minute holiday to Barcelona, which was absolutely amazing. I completely fell in love with the work of Antoni Gaudi and spent nearly all my time (and money) visiting the various houses and museums devoted to him.

This shot is not actually one of his works, but is a feature on a door on the west-facing 'Passion' facade of his Sagrada Familia. The doors are designed by Joseps Subirachs, and feature many words and phrases from the bible in a variety of languages. He also makes use of the square of numbers, featured in the centre of the shot, from which the title of the shot comes...

Update: You can't really see the detail on the square in this shot, so take a look here to see a close up.

Bruvaaa

2006-04-15T16:56:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 40 mm, 1/6 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400
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A dodgy photo of my brother (too long an exposure, a bit soft, washed out by the light pouring through the window) turned into something a little more pleasing to my eye with a bit of cross-processing and cropping. People say they don't see the resemblance between us, but there are moments that I do.

Walk this way

2006-04-13T12:11:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20 mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/250 sec, f/5, ISO 200
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I didn't take the Penistone Boundary Walk, but in case I did want to it's handy to know the way...

Two windows

2006-04-12T12:07:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens, various settings
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Thought I'd try one of those dyptich things (spelling?)...

Each shot seperately processed with a cross-processing curve.

Crumbled

2006-04-11T11:59:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 25 mm, 1/5 sec, f/3.8, ISO 200
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Taken from the same spot as yesterdays, but looking the other direction, and also using the R72 infrared filter.

Five turbines

2006-04-10T22:24:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 25 mm, 1/5 sec, f/3.8, ISO 200
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This was taken up in Yorkshire on a bit of a weekend break. Out the back of the cottage were a row of wind turbines, which surprisingly make very little noise whatsoever, even when a dozen of them are all running. They're mesmerising to watch if you've never seen them before. You might not be able to sense the scale from the shot, but they are huge. A human would look be a couple of millimetres high if he were standing next to one in this scene. I took another with a sixth turbine in shot, which you can see here.

Taken with the Hoya R72 infrared filter.

Why Were You Born

2006-04-09T22:19:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 25 mm, 1/40 sec, f/5, ISO 200
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This was written in a notebook passed around at a birthday party today... I'm not quite sure Shakespeare was the original author though. What I like most about this is that there is practically no heavy processing to create the richness of the colour.

One gate closes...

2006-04-03T22:41:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20mm lens @ 10 mm, 1/4 sec, f/4, ISO 1600
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I was walking home last night and saw this alley and gate. The first few shots I took were in the portrait orientation but it just worked better this way for me.

Over the Rails

2006-04-02T22:35:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, Sigma 10-20mm lens @ 11 mm, 1/400 sec, f/18, ISO 800
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I have a 'permanent loan' of a Sigma 10-20mm lens at the moment so I've been experimenting with it here and there. I think I will leave it on my camera for a while and see what I find.

I've also started getting confused and annoyed with the quality of my shots once I shrink them to 72dpi, downsize them and save them at a low enough quality to load reasonably quickly online. It's a combination of the sharpening and the compression that's frustrating me. I've just bought Fred Miranda's Web Presenter Pro but frankly it's not sorting the problem for me... Most people probably don't notice, but I do!

Tunnel Vision

2006-03-29T10:00:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 3/5 sec, f/20, ISO 800
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Same girl, different location... I like the slight barrel distortion here...

Eyes Down

2006-03-28T10:19:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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And here's one from the same shoot, looking down...

Eyes Up

2006-03-27T22:15:00.000+01:00

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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I took some portraits of a friend yesterday down by the river in Putney. It wasn't the best weather for it - wet, overcast, windy - but we had both cleared our afternoons to do it so we took some anyway. I took a few non-portrait shots of her as well, and although I was a little bereft of inspiration in the miserable weather, I got a few great detail shots, like this one when the sun came out for 10 seconds.

Push

2006-03-12T13:41:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 27 mm, 1/80 sec, f/8, ISO 400
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I wanted to enter this picture in the latest Photofriday contest ("Red") and when going through my i-Shot archive to see where I'd posted it, I was surprised to find I hadn't yet, as I really like it.

It was taken a few weeks ago when I forced myself out for a walk to start taking pictures again after a couple of months of not doing so.

Sugar Cubes

2006-03-11T15:02:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400
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Here are those sugar cubes I mentioned in a previous post. I shot them specifically intending to try this tiltshift effect again, and I'm not sure it works as well as with buildings. You might disagree?

The Wheel

2006-03-08T20:39:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm
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High Dynamic Range shots seem to be all the rage, so like everyone else I decided to get Photomatix to see what it could do for some of my shots. This one was taken handheld on Monday, and I didn't have a tripod with me so didn't take multiple exposures using different shutter speeds - I just created 3 different exposures from the 1 RAW file in Photoshop, then put them through Photomatix. Can't say I'm altogether taken with the application's front end - I'd prefer to be able to zoom into the photo at the tone mapping stage so I can see if any horrible errors are being created. Perhaps you can and I'm not looking hard enough? Anyway, this works quite well but I suspect will work better using multiple real exposures as opposed to faked ones.

1 Man, 3 Moments

2006-03-06T20:31:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/6 sec, f/7.1, ISO 800
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A trip into London city centre today to see what shots I could take to feed my Lomo/Holga addiction yielded bugger all. It was so overcast, miserable, and frankly just too full of tourists that all I really achieved was a reminder of why I don't go into the city centre unless it's absolutely essential. I popped in to the Tate Modern to see the 'sugar cubes' (hmmm... lots and lots of white plastic cubes, stacked up really high... did nothing for me other than make me wonder why over and over and over...) and bumped into someone from work totally out of the blue just outside a pub - a pleasant coincidence!

But I did get a few shots that I liked. Here's one (well, three).

Lomo St Pauls

2006-03-03T13:48:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 70 mm, 1/320 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. I just like them so much!

I dug this shot out from sometime last summer, before I discovered the joys of shooting RAW (yeah, that long ago!) and it's got me thinking I should go to Central London tomorrow and find some more landmarks to shoot. They work pretty well like this.

All I have to do is summon the willpower to leave the flat on my day off...

Miniature Wandsworth

2006-03-02T17:56:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/80 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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A little break from the Lomo-style shots today. A forum I frequent has been talking about so-called 'tilt-shift' style shots recently, and I wanted to try one myself. I'm really not sure about the accuracy of the term 'tilt-shift' to describe this, though.

Basically, it's taking a picture of a scene and then processing it to make it look a model-railway sized miniature shot really close-up with a ridiculously wide aperture to get a narrow depth of field. I love the effect, when it's done right, but I thought that 'tilt-shift' photography was the use of a particularly clever, adjustable lens, that allowed for architectural photography without elements like barrel distortion creeping in. I might be wrong...?

Either way, this is a great optical illusion!

EDIT: Did a little rooting about and discovered that the source of the craze may have been this article, so it looks as though 'tilt-shift' is the correct terminology for this kind of post-processing effect after all.

Lomo Exit

2006-03-01T18:42:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 200
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Help me. I'm addicted. I can't stop making these. It's got to the point where when I take my camera out it's almost entirely with the express intention of getting a shot that will work well with this effect.

I've been applying it to all sorts of things that were lying around in my 'archive' (including a lot of shots from nights out that wouldn't normally get processed) and have discovered that it works best on:

- simple subjects with focal depth to them
- images at an angle
- slightly overlit shots, ideally with elements of daytime sky in them.

Having looked around a bit more for actual Lomo shots I think my version somewhat overeggs the cake a little, but I really love that saturated, imperfect look.

Lomo Jimmy

2006-02-28T00:51:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/8 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600
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This shot is okayish in the 3x2 format it was originally shot in, but it was a drunken work party in the local pub so pretty much all the shots from that night are blurry and really badly white balanced - and hence perfect subjects for this Lomo/Holga treatment I'm addicted to this week.

Here we see Jimmy in a quite becoming hat, complete with cigarette. Again, the cropping in half of what would be considered the main feature is what really appeals to me.

Just don't say 'Jamiroquai'...

Lomo Trolley Park

2006-02-27T00:46:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 62 mm, 1/80 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200
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Another Lomo-style shot. I have no idea if a real Lomo/Holga camera would produce an image as satisfying to me as this effect is, although maybe one day I will get one and find out for myself.

This is a shot I would have been happy with as it was, actually, in its 3x2 aspect ratio, but once I cropped it down to the square and applied the effect I was surprised how much more I preferred it, mainly because of the cropping of the trolley for some reason...

Lomo Gardner Street

2006-02-26T23:15:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 56 mm, 1/60 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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I spent a vast amount of time today faffing about with Photoshop. In fact, I don't think I did much else (other than play Shadow of the Colossus) but it turned out to be very worthwhile. I started stringing together some actions and processes I already have to create a look that sort of, kind of, mimics the look of Lomo/Holga toy cameras. Either way, I like it a lot, and spent several hours trying it out on all sorts of shots from my 'archive' - many of which I should have deleted ages ago as I considered them unuseable.

Here's a shot that I always liked, but elements of it were technically messy and didn't satisfy me. Now, however, those elements complement the effect, I think. Many more of these to come in the absence of new shots!

Daisy

2006-02-19T17:03:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/40 sec, f/4,5, ISO 400
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A budding TV presenter friend asked me to take some portrait shots of her to give to her agent. It was an interesting and fun day, as I've only done a couple of other properly posed portrait sessions, and working with the person involved is a definite skill that shouldn't be taken lightly. Discovering what image of herself she wanted to present, then finding a way of capturing that image in a still, then having the subject be satisfied with it, is not a simple thing to do.

The trickiest thing was the lighting really. I didn't want to put the ISO up too far, and I don't have any lighting equipment beyond an old Jessops flash that doesn't sync with the camera's exposure modes. I tried it a couple of times, bouncing off the ceiling and adjusting a manual exposure to accomodate, but it was proving too fiddly and time consuming.

In the end I brought her close to her bay windows, facing towards them with my back to them, and the wall behind out of focus, and shot without the flash. There was just enough light for it to work well, but as I was handholding it meant keeping very steady to get something sharp at around 1/40th of a second (on average).

Lessons: to stop worrying about sharpness either get a tripod or get more light; read up much more about exposures and how individual settings on the camera specifically interact; get more used to the flash that I have (until I have a windfall and can afford an SB-600/800!).

All Sorts of Allsorts

2006-02-18T16:59:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/640 sec, f4.5, ISO 200
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Last one in this series! I think if I was to do more of these I might get a tripod for them, so I could take more care in the framing and lighting and so on. For handheld shots lit almost entirely from one flash unit they're not so scruffy, though.

And I sold my second ever print with this one! Which is nice.

Magic Beans

2006-02-17T16:53:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/1600 sec, f/5 ISO 200
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Another from my food close-ups session. These are now lurking in my cupboard in the bag. I don't have a specific coffee grinder, but I do have a pestle & mortar... Maybe I should grind them down in that and cook me up a steaming cup of super-fresh coffee sometime. Either that or buy a spice grinder just for them. Would that work, do you think?

Pick a Pot of Pepper

2006-02-16T21:13:00.001Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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There were two shots of the peppercorns that I really liked and processed. The other one is here. I just preferred the striking colour of the glass rim on this one more than the bleaching out of the glass in the other.

On the Vine

2006-02-15T22:20:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/1250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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Got bitten by an urge to take some high-key shots of food yesterday, so I went shopping... Didn't get round to it until this afternoon though, and this was my favourite of the batch that I'll post over the next few days.

I have a very basic flash unit that I have a 'permanent loan' of. It doesn't synch with the camera's exposure modes as such (unless I'm doing something wrong) so I have to switch into Manual mode, take the shutter speed to around 1/1000th of a second (for the wider apertures that these shots were mostly taken with) and experiment with flash bounces and shutter speeds until I get the exposure I want...

Molten glass

2006-02-09T21:10:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 62 mm, 1/125 sec, f/5, ISO 640
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A third image from the Elys window dressings. These were a couple of dozen of wine glasses slathered in molten coloured plastic that had set hard in the dripping effect, suspended from the ceiling by wires in amongst similarly slung mirrors...

EDIT: It's been claimed by someone posting a comment on this shot that I've "carbon-copied" it from someone posting on DPReview. If that's the case, then it's pure coincidence. It's possible that someone else there has taken photos of the exact same window display but I haven't seen that photo. It's also possible that someone has actually seen my posting of this image in DPreview and not bothered to spot that I am the same person. Either way, I don't blatantly rip off people's shots. What's the point in that?

Paper Cuts

2006-02-08T21:10:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 38 mm, 1/40 sec, f/5, ISO 800
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This is another from the Elys window displays. This one is dozens of sheets of paper, all glued to walls that lead inwards towards the TV which is showing frames from a CCTV style camera of a woman writing a letter, screwing it up and trying again...

The processing has brought out the grain, which I smoothed out a little, but I like it. The scene is in reality very white and I wanted to bring out more of the tungsten glow from the lighting and clash it with the blue glow from the TV, creating more shadows and giving it a slightly unnerving feel. To add to the shot I waited a few minutes for this specific frame to roll around again, where she looks over her shoulder.

Your Art Is My Art?

2006-02-07T11:28:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 29 mm, 1/50 sec, f/8, ISO 400
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On my way home from work I pass Elys department store in Wimbledon and four of their windows are dedicated to some commissioned artworks on the vague theme of love/Valentines Day (at least I think that's the connection).

My feelings about shooting other people's artwork and then claiming it as your own art are generally that it's a very grey area. For me it all depends upon what you focussed/framed up on, how you processed the image, and so on. Here, I freely admit that I plainly shot the installation, but as it is brightly lit white in reality I processed it with a hint of a cross-processing curve layer and cropped it to 16:9 for dramatic effect. But basically this is my photo of someone else's embracing mannequins...

I'll try to remember to get the original artists name and post it here.

In other news, it's nice to see my viewing figures creeping slowly back up again! I need to let more people know the blog is back. Feel free to use the Mail icon below to post your favourite images to people! :)

Lines and lines and lines

2006-02-06T09:42:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 50 mm, 1/60 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200
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While on my wander around Wimbledon yesterday I kept trying to find a theme for my shoot, to give me something to drive me on. At one point I considered 'manmade lines' and this seemed to fit in to that quite well.

I didn't really follow through on the whole 'theme' thing in the end, but this shot is still my favourite for it's clean lines and interesting yellow/rust colours.

The Return

2006-02-05T22:13:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 31 mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200
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A lot of changes in my life over the last month or so - one of the two biggest being that I have to move house soon... Anyway, I've also got a pretty demanding new schedule at work and I've had the inspiration sucked out of me when it comes to photography.

However, I'm back! I went out today for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and although I was really trying to find a subject matter to focus on I ended up snapping this and that until I felt I was getting back into it all. This particular shot was one of the first I took and isn't particularly special in itself, but I wanted to try a new Photoshop action I'd downloaded. I've seen it being used around the web but I tried to add a little bit extra to it by pasting in a B&W version of the shot in the background.

I liked the effect, but obviously it will work a lot better with a much more colourful image - so that's a project for the future!

Thanks for dropping by - I hope to get back to more regular posts now!

PS: Roger, I know you're visiting. Your domain name is pretty obvious. I'm sure you have my phone number, address and email by now...

Rippling

2005-12-27T23:43:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 38 mm, 1/50 sec, f/9, ISO 200
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This is a reflection on the pond in the grounds of Culcreuch Castle, Fintry. I came out for a walk the day before but left it way too late and it got pretty dark almost as soon as I left the house. In the end I had to call home to get a lift back to the house (10 minutes walk away) because I was stranded in the pitch black in the grounds of the castle. I considered walking through the trees back to the main road using just a flash burst to light my way once every 20 seconds, but it was too much like Blair Witch Project so I called for a lift...

So today I came out a bit earlier, but I wasn't feeling that inspired really. This turned out to be my favourite shot.

Character

2005-12-25T23:17:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 70 mm, 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200
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Meet my gran, on my mums side. She's my only surviving grandparent, and I only really see her at Christmas. This year I took a few photos of her with my D70 and she seemed to enjoy pulling a variety of stupid faces. However, as I wasn't really set up for portraits and was really only experimenting with a very basic flashgun, only this shot came out well, where she is posing with a not-so-stupid face.

I was considering buying a Speedlight SB-800 for the D70 but having toyed with this flashgun I don't think I'd make the greatest use of the SB-800, no matter how much more controllable it is than what I have currently. No, I'm now eyeing up the tripod catalogues...

Alexs Tree

2005-12-24T23:10:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/50 sec, f/18, ISO 200
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While not quite up to the standards of Mr John Waller, I still like this shot of a tree for what it represents - sweat and exercise!

It's up in Fintry, near Stirling in Scotland, where I was for Christmas with my family. I'd gone for a bit of a hike up the hills out the back of the house, and got myself a good lungful of proper Scottish air and given my legs a good workout. On the way back I saw this tree up another hill, and despite being utterly exhausted, forced my legs to carry me up to it. When I got there I couldn't find anywhere to get a really good shot of it on its own, but took a few nonetheless.

When I got back home, Alex (mum's partner) instantly recognised it. He's taken a few shots of it himself over the last couple of years! Seems photographers and lone trees are a match made in heaven...

The Man

2005-12-23T21:24:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 25 mm, 1/8 sec, f/3.8, ISO 800
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Father Christmas/Santa Claus and all the Christmas tradition that goes with it is all based on really nasty pagan and Roman rituals and festivities. It's horrible stuff, some of it. Read it for yourself!

Still, good ol' Coca Cola made it all bright and cheery for us! :)

The Crew

2005-12-15T21:05:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 35 mm, 1/30 sec, f/4.2, ISO 400
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Dave, the cameraman standing camera-left of Jeni Barnett (the vision in lime in the centre) has gone back to Australia with his wife, so we took a crew photo and presented it to him with one of the Saturday Kitchen crew too.

The Harding Look

2005-12-14T21:50:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/400 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400
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This is Joe, a colleague from work.

I was trying to get as many shots as I could today with the 50mm f/1.8 lens. Although it's reknowned as a sharp lens that works great for 'available light' shots, I've clearly not been using it right. I've got not as many great shots with it as I'd like.

The ones I really do like (such as this one) for their sharpness and non-reliance on a high ISO have always been outdoors, just as most good sharp photography often is. Indoors I've had to really open the iris or up the ISO as usual with any lens and the ridiculously narrow depth of field can create focussing problems - in my opinion you really have to want only one element in focus to use it below, say, f/3.5. In this shot, which I love, wrinkles around Joe's eyes are a little bit soft, even though his eyes themselves are sharp. Also, even though this is only ISO 400, there seems to be noise in the depth of field.

So it's a lens that works well for portraits if you've got at least 2-3 feet between you and your subject and a really good light source.

EDIT: I looked at the original, uncompressed-for-web version and the exaggeration of noise in the soft background isn't nearly as prominent...

Cubist experiment

2005-12-12T23:26:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, various settings
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This looks a lot better much bigger of course, but I don't usually go wider than 800 pixels for this site. In this case I've printed the 1024 size. Sorry if you have to scroll, but I suspect that most people these days work at that resolution anyway. If you like, there's an even larger version here.

When I had the idea in my head, it was going to come out much neater, with all the lines, edges and angles matching much better, and not quite as much messy overlapping, but it didn't work out that way, obviously. For one thing, getting the perspective to match all the way round on a 360 degree panorama at close quarters just requires far too much work in post as well as in preparation, and at the end of the day, I don't really want that.

I realised in putting it together that I vastly preferred this really choppy messy look, so tried to encourage it while still keeping as many shots as I could in as much of their entirety as possible. I'm now planning a few more at different locations, and have a plan on how to display them too. It's good to have a new project to think about! I've been getting a bit slack lately. :)

Escher Woz 'ere

2005-12-11T23:07:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 29 mm, 1/13 sec, f/4, ISO 400
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They're building flats on the site of my old Beavers/Cub Scouts hall!

I like this framing as it looks vaguely Escher-esque. Perhaps an Escher in construction?

Memories

2005-12-10T18:57:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 48 mm, 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200
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Again, this shot might not immediately match the title...

I went back to Glasgow for the weekend for my mate Duncans 30th birthday party, and he has just bought a place in the general neighbourhood I grew up in. I took an hour to go for a walk to the actual house I lived in until I was about 15, and also to my primary school. I used to walk down Gardner Street to get to my school, and then back up again to get home. If you aren't aware, Gardner Street is one of the most-filmed-on streets in Glasgow as it's a very steep hill that looks out over the Clyde and onto the South Side of Glasgow.

Mads in KA

2005-12-04T18:48:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/15 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600
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Here's another shot of one of my favourite people to take pictures of.

This shot has no story to tell the casual observer as such, is a little bit noisy, might be too sharp for some people and too soft for others. You might also hate the title. If so, never mind. I don't really try to please anyone in particular here except myself, but if you like it, thanks! It's an added and pleasing bonus.

If you're interested, the pleasure I get from this shot is thus: it's my friend, Madeline, in the Kings Arms. She's enjoying both a pint and the attention she's getting from my camera. She leaves the show I work on soon, so this will remind me of her.

It's Behind You

2005-12-03T12:16:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/4, ISO 400
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I'm afraid this is rather similar to those from the underground that I've posted before, but I had to raid the archive to put something up. It's a different tunnel to the other ones, though! What was most interesting about it was trying to remember how I'd processed the others, so that I could make this look the same. I don't tend to save PSD files unless it's a huge or really important project.

I'm working on a film poster/DVD cover for one of the short films I did stills for a while ago so I'll post that when it's done...

Maddy Takes a Call

2005-12-02T12:11:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 50 mm lens, 1/30 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400
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Madeline is a researcher on Great Food Live, seen here working away, totally aware that I'm taking a photo of her and trying her best not to look like she's noticed... ;)

Pathways into Darkness

2005-11-30T22:01:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 18 mm, 1/2 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200
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I processed this today, but obviously it's from my visit to Wimbledon Cemetary on Saturday afternoon... It was a slow day for new photos.

Tower Hill

2005-11-29T21:54:00.000Z

Nikon D70, 18-70 mm lens @ 70 mm, 1/4 sec, f/5, ISO 1000
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A load of us went ice-skating tonight at Tower Hill in London and I was hoping it would be a good place to take photos, but either my eye for a good shot departed for the evening, or it isn't as good a place as I'd hoped for the kind of shots I'd wanted to get (I didn't want mugshots of my mates ice skating - something a bit more artistically pleasing than that was required!).

Instead, I got a couple of shots of the surrounding buildings and bizarrely the modern Tower Hill office complex was more photogenic than the luminous green Tower of London that overlooked the ice rink!