Landscape and a red tree

Giving it my best shot
One advantage of achieving a hazy landscape, even if you don't intend it, is that it can look good as a backdrop to something interesting in the foreground! (Er, like using shallow depth of field, you want to say, but I wasn't trying to do this - oops, I ought to be able to tell you what F-stop I used for all these pics - something to improve on next time.)
From the blog image you can just about make out that there are cows in the photo below. They were so beautiful in real life, with richly coloured coats. And in front, two rows of fairly old-looking hay bales (nicely reflecting the light?). I cropped off the left-hand side of my picture so that the tree wasn't in the centre - lost some of the cows and hay bales unfortunately! But I'm happy with the blurry trees and hills in the background - it wouldn't have worked to have everything in sharp focus for this picture, I don't think. Maybe the lesson is that a landscape is more interesting with something substantial in the foreground. The previous photo with a few hay bales on the left doesn't work so well, in my opinion.

Re the next photo - you'd have to see the photo on flickr to appreciate the vibrancy of the colours. I don't know how a liquid amber turned up amongst the silver birches - I was gob-smacked. I have a silver birch that I planted in my front garden and I know that its leaves don't turn gold until almost Christmas - probably by then the liquid amber has dropped its leaves, but how amazing it would be to find this burgundy-coloured tree amid a sea of golden birch leaves! Dream on.

Learning to Capture Landscapes

Not my best shot
I'm really looking forward to learning about photographing landscapes. I want to know if I can get better images with the camera and lens I have or whether I need to invest in a different lens - one with a greater zoom presumably.

Yesterday I was in Sussex; it was a beautiful day and the trees looked glorious with their golden , scarlet, tangerine leaves. I was north of the South Downs and the challenge was to take a photograph with the hills in the background but having the sun shining very brightly in front of me. My main frustration with all the landscape photos I've taken is that I can't get the clarity I want - everything in crisp focus. The other frustration, and I think there may be little solution to this, is having to decide whether to have a completely washed out sky, or render the foreground much darker than it really was, like so:

Here's one with a washed-out sky:

Photos don't come out too well on the blog and I've used up all my free uploads on flickr so you can't really judge the quality of these. There are animals in the middle of the picture below - cows, I think, but you can't even recognize them because they're fuzzy, so I'm very dissatisfied with my results.

Now I want to put on two photos I am satisfied with. As I didn't plan it out in advance I'll have to start a new blog...

Candid portraits

Richmond Dervish
Paul tells me that an unposed portrait is a candid portrait. Here's a candid portrait from the summer, taken at a music festival in Richmond-on-Thames. I don't know who this young woman is and I hope she won't mind that I'm posting a photo of her on my blog. Lots of people took photos of her because she was dancing like a wild woman, and she had interesting hair. I think I captured her mood!



Woman with a Pearl Ear-ring
I'm very fond of the next picture, which to some extent was posed - so a half-posed, half-candid portrait. I was at Golders Hill Park and an old couple, both with motorised wheelchairs, had bought icecreams. I asked permission to take a photo of them. What I love about this woman is her attention to jewellery - as well as pearl ear-rings she sported a bejewelled pin on her hat, and was wearing two beautiful necklaces. I have the idea that she still makes a big effort to look pretty for her husband, probably after over 60 years of marriage. Or perhaps she makes the effort for the world, for us. I also like to think that you can tell by her smile that she's a contented person. Did I capture something about this woman?

Girl with Red Headscarf

I need to give the source of the photo I used in the blog before last. It's by Manuel Librodo and here's what he says about it:

Bangkok, Thailand
March 2005
A window-light, a red veil, and a beautiful lady.
these are the main ingredients for this memorable picture.
Throw in a slice of emotion to spice up the image.
Katrina is my goddaughter and it is hard to believe that
the baby I once held in my arms during her baptism
is now posing for me as a full-grown woman.
Coincidentally, this picture is also my baptism
in the world of publication when it was used as a banner
to announce a Creative Portrait competition
in the Digital Photo magazine, UK.
Second Place: Photo of the Month
www.digitalimagecafe.com

Unexceptional non-portrait

I didn't really take this as a portrait - I used the man to add to the composition of the magenta bench and the yellow window frames. I've cropped the photo to make it look more like a portrait, which is cheating really! Anyway, the poor man looks self-conscious and this photo doesn't tell you much more about him other than that he reads books and doesn't wear laces in his sneakers! I took it when using my DSLR for the first time with it set on Auto - hence no depth of field. Why am I posting it on my blog - well, I guess it's an example of a snapshot which doesn't constitute being a portrait!

Exceptional portraits

I'm exploring the kind of portraits that I like.

Below is a photo I like by Irving Penn - not sure it counts as a portrait - better check the definition of 'portrait' - here's Wikipedia's:

A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.

By this definition Penn's photo counts in my opinion because the emphasis is on the child's face and it's composed.

Here's another one I really like:

Not sure why I like it but the red headscarf and the hands are important factors. It looks posed but the girl seems very relaxed, fairly natural.

I love portraits that consist of a bit more than just someone's head and shoulders, for example, the photo below of John Lennon by Jane Bown on the Guardian site Paul emailed us about. It doesn't look posed, though might have been.

If it wasn't posed, perhaps it wouldn't count as a portrait!

I took a photo recently of a man reading a newspaper - I'd asked his permission to take it so in a way it was posed - but I can't say he looks very comfortable! I'll post it on the next blog because I'm darned if I can work out how to move uploaded photos to the bottom of the blog.

Edward Steichen

Here's another of my favourite photograhers:

Edward Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973), born in Bivange, Luxembourg, was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator.

When all the leaves have fallen from the trees I look forward to taking my camera and tripod on an outing and trying to emulate some his masterpieces.

I forgot - those poor Romans didn't get to see the precious bankers' architectural carbuncles:

Canary Wharf Group plc is the owner and developer of nearly 100 acres (0.40 km2) of property at Canary Wharf in London. It is notable because over the last 10 years it has constructed more office space in London than any other developer. The group owns 7.9 million square feet of property which is worth £4.9 billion, of which 99% is let (in 2008). (Wikipedia)

2nd post re tripod's 2nd outing - the text

The borrowed tripod took me for a walk to the hill behind my house. We had a human friend and a dog friend in tow, for safety. There used to be a Roman fort on the hill, now there are council flats. Those poor Romans (road construction workers?) missed out on the view of St Paul's, Lambeth Palace, London Eye and PO tower or whatever it's called these days. They were lucky to miss out on the view of the skyscraper rising up out of the ashes of Elephant & Castle. They were probably able to see the Tamesis, a view now obliterated.

As I don't have a special lens for these distance shots the above landmarks aren't too clear - on this blog you can hardly see them at all! Anyway, I was able to practise using the tripod again and sort out leg lengths to take into account rough ground. We nearly froze, apart from Missie who was kept busy chasing a stick so she wouldn't get bored. Sorry Bernadette, I didn't take a photo of the dog. I have one of my cat to show you.

tripod's second outing

I enjoyed exploring ways of cropping my night photos. I love triangles and quite like the way I captured the triangles of this ramp plus the large triangle formed by the suspension posts and wires - bit hard to see the black wires in small version of photo.

Last night I used a tripod for the first time. Very exciting. And it didn't fall over nor did I trip on the legs - phew! The photos looked amazing on the little camera screen. Not so amazing when uploaded but I suppose not bad for a first try. My favourite picture is the one I took on the way, without the tripod! I plan to take it again, with tripod. I perfer these night photos in black and white.

a favourite photographer

As I don't know how to position the photo properly I'm starting a new blog. I want to share a photo taken by Imogen Cunningham. Maybe you've seen it before. I hope you like it.

trying to photograph flowers

I've just looked at Tubbycat's blog and it's inspiring. She - I think it's a she-cat - writes very freely and shares lots of images. I find it hard to write to some vague general audience. And I don't think I'll ever be able to blog about Health & Safety factors in photography because it sounds like the most boring read imaginable.

I did something new at the weekend which was to take some photos of single flowers. Time for an upload.

(I managed to move the picture down but couldn't cut and paste the text, so I've had to completely re-write the first bit of my blog above the picture!) Anyway, I was trying to focus on the flower in the top right hand corner but ended up focusing on the bud! I hadn't noticed the bud at the time but actually it's rather nice.

I need a tripod!

Such a missed opportunity to get a really beautiful photo as I was walking along the Queen's Walk on Sunday evening.

This is one of Ansel Adams' photographs of Yosemite.: Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1960

The previous photo I put on my blog is this one:

Frozen Lake and Cliffs, The Sierra Nevada, Sequoia National Park, California, 1932

One of my favourite photographers is Ansel Adams. His photos of Yosemite in California inspired me to go there.

focus on the teacher

I think this was taken at F stop 5.6. I deleted my photos before I recorded aperture and shutter speed! All part of the learning process!