Water of Life

a tiny drop of water on our Plum tree. It hadnt been raining, it was just condensation after the fog we'd had earlier in the day.

Sluggin it out

A young snail in the garden at night, species probably Helix aspersa.
Anyone know what young snails are called?

Joseph's Coat

A close up of a flower head on my Spiraea bush in the garden last night.

30D + 100mm macro lens, 270EX flashgun on c-bracket

Light and shadow abstract

Shadows and light playing on a cupboard door.
Canon 30D + Vivitar 19-35 zoom

3 from the Sea

My daughter brought a collection of shells from her visit to Scarborough-here's 3 of them.

Jupiter fly-by

We're in the middle of decorating and we have this step ladder covered in old paint and dirt. It spoke to me, it told me to get my camera out!

Canon 30D + 100mm macro lens

Never Too Old

I spotted this in the town while waiting for the bus home, shot from the hip on the Panasonic compact.

If you look closely you can see my reflection!

Matthew's new wheels ;)

Matt recently acquired this sexy little number, a palm sized Jaguar XK Coupe, and I photographed it outside with the 50mm lens on my Canon.

Incredible colour photos from the early 1900s!

I just came across this site from a poster on Facebook. Truly amazing, clear colour photos from 1910 and earlier, using a process of taking three exposures one after another, each with a coloured filter (red green and blue), later combining them to form a full colour image.

A small example:

Click Here to see more

A guitar for David!

My 12 year step-son likes to strum on the kids' guitar, but its a bit small for him. I asked him if we got a guitar for him he would want me to teach him and he said yes, so we decided to look for a full sized classical. Yesterday we found this Taygus in a second-hand shop. It needed a restring and I got some cool looking silver/black strings for it. Its just settling in now-will take a while before it stays in tune but it sounds great! Only cost us £20 too (about $40?) Brand new it costs about £60 ($120) so was a bit of a bargain! Just hope he still wants to learn.... Taken with the Canon 30D and 19-35mm zoom out in the garden   

 

A Spider's Skin

Testing out the new flash bracket, (a C bracket made by Boling that we found on Ebay for £13) I stumbled upon this old spider skin in the shed.

Just walking the dogs....

I spotted this little scene the other day-and after some cropping to concentrate just on the legs I realised it reminded me of the work of Elliot Irwitt, who liked to capture just the legs of people and dogs.

London Pride!

A close up of a popular plant growing in many gardens, known as London Pride, showing a single flower. The plant is a kind of cultivated Saxifrage with small flowers which from afar have a whispy look. Its only up close we see the details! I used the new flashgun through a piece of polystyrene with a black tshirt as background, camera on manual so no light reached the shirt.

Chasing a Weevil

This tiny chap was spotted climbing amongst some low nettles, and I had to get on my knees with my macro lens. Took a few attempts to get one decent shot but it was worth it in the end!

...and then there was light....

New flashgun arrives, a Canon 270 EX, with, surprisingly for such a small unit, bounce and zoom!

Once again I am without a flashgun!

Strangely the Jessops unit stopped working for some reason so I took it back for a full refund. Luckily I got all the money back so now I'm going to put some more money together and get the Canon 270EX unit that is in Argos.

Backlit Leaf macro

This is a 1:1 shot of a leaf from the garden (Greater celandine) I used off camera flash to backlight it, balancing it with the ambient light so as to keep some detail on the front surface. Theres also a spider web behind the leaf too, which I did'nt notice before!

Dandelion a la Blossfeldt

This is an unopened Dandelion flower, photographed against a plain background (kitchen door) and using available light. I was emulating the style of legendary nature photographer Karl Blossfeldt,(1856-1932) an early pioneer in the world of close-up photography. Full size image here

Finally got a flashgun!

Bought this unit from Jessops yesterday for £79. It has a GN of 38, a bounce head that also swivels thru 180 degrees, as well as auto or manual zoom. It has 4 power setings down to 1/16 power, and a LCD screen with backlight if needed.
All I need now is a bracket so I can use it off the camera and a good diffuser.
For now I have something that works ;)

Street 'togs

A photographer and his mate spotted in the town and snapped with my phone. Cropped and adjusted slightly in PSE.

Locked Out

Playing around with using in-camera mono settings-so far it seems useable, especially when you can adjust contrast and sharpness for a different look depending on the scene! Man I love this camera ;)

First shot with 30D

The underside of a Peppermill at roughly lifesize.

Camera upgrade!

Having saved all the pennies that fell down the back of the sofa all year I finally had enough to get a 'new' camera. Well I say new but its secondhand-the 30D is no longer made but its very recent, and it came from ebay in excellent condition!
It also came with 3 batteries, 3 memory cards, Canon strap, unopened, charger and all the paperwork and CD ROMs! all for 250 quid!

Its a little bit lighter than the 10D, and tiny bit smaller, but has a bigger rear screen, the pop up flash raises up higher (should help for impromptu macro work), 2 more Mega pixies and better noise control at high ISOs!

I think I'm in love ;)

A bobby on his bike

This was a lucky shot from the hip, in bright sunshine. I couldnt see what I'd captured other than someone on a bike. It was only when I viewed the pics on the laptop that I saw it was a police officer! I decided to convert to b/w but I left word 'Police' on his jacket blue. Panasonic FZ7

Cells

This is a pocket in my lowepro camera case, lit with the pop up flash and impromptu diffuser.




Canon 10D + 100mm macro lens at about 1:1

I Cast a Tall Shadow

An extreme close up of the side of a matchbox. Canon 10D, 100mm macro with 50mm lens reversed for about 2X lifesize.

Inside an icon of Spring!

My partner Helen brought some daffs home for young Katie and I thought, ooh, photo ops! And so..... I thought I'd get a close look at those inner parts, and so I reverse mounted a 50mm lens onto the macro lens to get me to 2X (ish). In this shot the petals were touching the rear lens mount of the 50, so that set my close limit! Canon 10D Vivitar/Cosina 100mm macro lens Pentax SMC 50mm f1.7 reversed