A Daily Photograph - Have you been affected by the weather?

Wow, the weather seems to be so crazy at the moment, here in the UK it is all about floods. Due to heavy and continued rainfall coupled with high winds. The wettest start to a year for over 250 years. One thing that is being seen is that public spirited people seem to be pitching in everywhere - as well as the army and the rescue sevices. Even our young royals are doing their bit it seems.

My daily photograph shows the wet canal towpath only yards from our front door - BUT - and it is a big but, the canal flows through a cutting with 30 - 60 foot high sides as it flows under the bridge on our road.

Also, the roads around us all slope away because we are on a high point. So thankfully it is unlikely that we shall be affected by the flooding. Except of course by the inevitable cost of increased home insurance and the sure and certain rise in the sost of food as farmers experience difficulties.

See more photographs on the BBC News web site, which do show how bad the flooding is nationaly.

And for an explanation of why it is so bad see this explanation of the ground water issue.

But back to my photo, although the canal can look cold and uninviting, I have written an article on Squidoo of the many ways in which the canal and the towpath can be enjoyed; although I must admit many of the activities do rely on the weather behaving itself.

More photographs in the next post.

A Daily Photograph - The walk to work

Sounds exciting :)

A pathway between the town hospital and a school on a wet morning.

But I do walk to my place of gainful employment two days a week. This last week I had taken my reserve camera (a cheap and nasty Samsung compact), which I used before the one I have now. Not that it doesn't work too well or that is is really nasty, but I have graduated to a camera with a lot more options and a real optical zoom. OK, not really professional class but it works for me and I get on with it.

But I digress, this idea of a picture-a-day is not going to be as easy as I thought. When going on a day out, or taking shots of a memorable occasion, it is easy to take lots of shots and choose a selection of the best for posterity. In fact that is the way that most great art, whichever genre, is created. The poet or songwriter, the painter or photographer will all create far more than they keep for their portfolio. The not-so-good is thrown away, or at least put away at the back of a proverbiaal shelf.

This is not because they are not good enough, but the creation of every great piece of art is helped by lots of middle-of-the-road pieces. Even the most prolific artist makes a few "rasberries".

On one of the trees, I saw this pidgeon. The branches make a lovely abstract design

So, what do you do for this project. On an ordinary day, with nothing particular in mind how do you select a quick shot for your "one" for today. After all you can't (or at least I can't) find stunning subjects every time.

A recently erected incinerator chimney-stack, looking in the opposite direction

For the first few, which I posted elsewhere, I wrote about something that the photograph reminded me about. For example:-

1. A shot of the road outside my front door reminded me of traffic accidents which happened over the years we had lived here, including a fatal aaccident right outside our house.
2. A photo of the pub at the end of the road gave me a story about how pubs were changing into restaurants or grills to survive in todays world
3. A shot of a crocus with two flowering stems, which I had never seen before, gave me an excuse to write about this beautiful plant and its family.

But after only a short while I seem to be running dry. I can't believe that I can't find something to say about any photo, so I will be carrying on with the project for a while longer. In actual fact I seem to have found quite a lot to say on the subject of creativity if I think about it, set off by this batch of ordinary photos - so maybe there is hope yet.

By the way, have you read the article I wrote entitled, "Is all photography art?". In which I posed the question, "what makes a photograph a work of art?". What are your thoughts on this subject?

Daily photo - sunrise over my back garden

I woke up this morning and as I got out of bed, caught a glimse of a fantastic sunrise . Knowing how quick and fleeting these can be, I rushed downstairs for my camera, straight back up and then opened the window (I can still feel the blast of cold air rushing into the centrally heated bedroom, and me in my jammmies) leaned out and took a set of photos. Did not stop to compose or set anything - just trusted to the auto settings and clicked again and again.

Later, at my PC, I downloaded the results and was pleasantly surprised. So todays photo is a sunrise over my back garden.

Later on in the day, the weather was brilliant. The sky turned into a wonderful clear blue ceiling with the sun, yes the sun heating up the air and a very slight breeze just about shook the tops of the tallest and spindly branches of the eucalyptus tree.

Amazing after all the rain and storms we have been experiencing lately. It is definitely a "lull before the storm". The forecast is for more of the wet and windy stuff for tomorrow and the rest of the week. But for today, I intend to make the most of the weather and will be going out with my camera this afternoon, so my fingers are crossed that the light stays with us and allows me to get a few decent shots of my excursion.

A TIP: I know many people will know this but I hope that I can pass on a few of the obvious tips which beginners often need to learn.

When taking a photo of this sort, decide what you are  after in the shot and make sure the settings are relevant to this. Here for instance, the sky is the obvious focus. I said above that I used the automatic settings, but my camera will focus and adjust itself with a half click on the shutter button. Making this focusing action on the sky allows the camera to set for that area. I.e. it is the lightest part of the image and the exposure/contrast of the sky will be allowed for when the shutter is fully actioned.

If you wanted to bring out more detail in the dark area at the horizon, then you would need to make that first half-click with the cross-hairs on that area. So even though it is in automatic mode, I make sure the camera is doing what I want it to do. Of course if you prefer and have the camera for it you can make all the settings yourself. But I know that I and many others rely for many of their photographs on their camera. This is fine, as long as you realise that you still hold the key to a good photo.

And of course that then opens up the idea of composing the shot - maybe some future post ...

Why Do I Take Photographs?

It has been a few weeks since my last post, christmas was the main culprit which kept me otherwise occupied; not to mention the weather, which has been cold and wet. You may have read about the flooding in some parts of the UK this January. But by and large I have not been out and about with my camera. I have taken this opportunity to think about what I want to do with my photographs, am I an artist or a photographer; or maybe both?

Certainly until recently and the aquistion of a digital camera, my photographs were limited to family snaps and holiday snaps. However, over the past couple of years I have been thinking of myself as a phtographer, what does that mean?

I started a challenge on another (writing) site to post a photograph-a-day, and write about it. The photograph was incidental and only served to act as a focus for the short article. Otherwise, the photos which I post on this blog are of days out or my garden or sunsets, is this what being a photographer means. I have used photographs as references for my paintings, I have played around with them and edited them in photoshop, etc but rarely have I used them for their own sake. Except in the few instances where I have used them on Zazzle products, mostly greeting cards and postcards. I even asked the question at one stage, "Is All Photography Art?" I was never sure that I received an answer from any of the readers of from myself.

I am now wondering what this blog should be about. Where do I want to take it? Should I let it lead me? I am simply not sure. One thing is certain, I have far too much to do with the projects I have set myself on the internet and personally. I want this blog to mean something, not just a record of whatever I have happened to click the shutter on. I did not know the answer whwen I started writing and still don't. So I have a lot of searching and thinking to do before I can make a decision.

In the meantime, here are three photos which I posted at the start of that photo-a-day project (which is now defunct as I have left the site - Bubblews - in disgust at the behaviour of the site towards its contributors).

A local pub, quite a large andbusy one, this photo was taken early one morning

A shot in the rain, of the road in which I live

A gift which flowered in our kitchen window

Three very different photographs, nothing spectacular but each one gave me a subject for short article. I cannot yet say, but I may well try to restart this project on this blog. So that rather than the photograph being the game, it is used merely as a thought starter. And that reminds me of a TV program which aired when I was a young boy called, PinPoint. Each program started with a view of Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment in London. The whole program was built around how thoughts could jump from one item to another and it ended up following these various thoughts from one object to another. 

Perhaps explaining the way it worked properly could be the next post, we'll see ...

I Love Sunsets

One of my favourite subjects for photography or painting is the Sunset. Sunrise too is good but I don't often see the dawn breaking, after all I am retired now so no real need to fet up early, LOL

But this post is about sharing a few more sunsets from my backgarden, so without further ado lets see what I am talking about:-

The first two were taken from a first floor window to get above the hedge and trees which surround my garden; however the last was from outside on my lawn and includes the newly leaf-free lilac tree. This will be my next painting project.

A similar sky was included in a recent post on my painting blog

The colours are a little more vivid but that is generally what my painting is all about. Read about this painting.

See a recent post which was very similar to this one, a few photos and a painting

New Landscapes By Creating A PhotoMontage

There is no rocket science in this technique, but it was bought home to me by an artist who gave a demo at my local art group. He created a landscape as a basis for a painting by combining two or more photos in a montage. It seemed to have possiblities that went beyond his demonstration.

Here I simply give an an example of what can be done and leave the rest to your imagination.

First of all, let us look at three of my recent holiday photos; none of them are very startling but are simply snaps taken while the camera was in my hands.

 A ferry leaving harbour

 A view of distant volcanoes (dormant)

A fort on a hillside (originally for protecting the populace from pirates)

Now to proceed ... I was going to use the centre image as my background so it can stay as it is  - for now. The ferry I wanted without any sky, so I selected the sky area and deleted it creating a transparent space above the sea/ferry line.

I also wanted to use the fort as my foreground and so did a similar thing to that photo.

 

I now have the wherewithal to start to build my imaginary landscape. I open the background in photoshop, and paste the other two photos as layers. The order of these layers will be as already suggested. The volcanoes are the background (and I later copied this layer to be able to adjust it), the ferry is central, ie visible above the background. And the fort is on top.

And there we have a new, imaginary landscape. A boat floating past on a non-existent lake in the middle of a desert landscape in Lanzarote. But does it look right? The boat is very large compared to the fort, especially as it is in the distance. Also the foreground might be expected to have more contrasts in the bright sunlight.

In the last image, I have taken back the contrast in the background and bought the foreground up by darkening and adding contrast.

I have flipped the ferry horizontally and reduced its size. This gave me a small problem in that it did not fit across the edges, so I had to cut and paste a strip of the sea in place, however my last edit actually removed the need for this. I enlarged the fort to make the perspective a little more realistic. Could do better you might say, but it is thte first example I have tried and took the first couple of images I came across. But I hope you can see the technique.

I will be experimenting with this and may come back with more examples and examine the possibillities in more depth.

Autumn in the UK, foliage and sunsets

Now here's a question! What is it that represents autumn to you. There are obviously many, many choices and there can be no wrong answers of course. I have to say that foliage on our deciduous trees is my first thought. And I would not hesitate to say that that probably would be suggested by many, many people. I just thought of  Police academy and thte principal, and edited this to add a few more many's. Simple things give pleasure to simple people.

Here are a couple of shots from my back door. A lilac tree with yellowing leaves and a massive cherry tree two gardens away.  White blossom in the spring, masses of red fruit for the birds and leaves like this in the morning sunshine on a November day.

However, there is one other thing which suggests autumn to me. Maybe a little strange because it could be said to happen right through the year but somehow autumn is different. The autumn sunsets seem to be the most spectacular in the UK. OK, you can argue; but remember there are no wrong answers and this is my personal choice. These were all taken over the last two or three weeks in late October / early November.

I have written a little more about these photographs on another site before putting them here so I am nnot going to repeat myself