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I’m not much of a fan of wildlife pictures, but I was in the park in Cardiff on Sunday with my new (to me) 70-200 F4 lens on, and this was one of the more interesting things to take pictures of. There were lots of seagulls and terns flying around, which were a good trial for the speed of the autofocus, and I took some good shots of them in flight. Somehow this shot just works for me. I think its the blue tones of the water that I like, and maybe the reflection. Its not like its a perfect shot, and its certainly been taken a million times before, but I took it, and that’s enough sometimes.

Of course I rushed straight over to pick her up; I’m not that cruel.  Well I checked the picture on the back of the camera first, and then I ran over.  She was fine of course.  She just didn’t realise that snow is cold and slippy.  HCB eat your heart out…

Taken with the little Canon A430, because I wasn’t in a big camera sort of mood on Saturday.  Sometimes 4 megapixels is more than enough.

I took a few (400 or so) shots at the rehearsal of the school play where I have been doing my practise.  The lighting was a real problem as the metering on the 20D just couldn’t cope.  There were bright lights above the stage, with a bright white background, and black curtains either side.  I ended up shooting in manual mode at f2 and 1/125th or more with the 85mm and f2.8 and 1/200th with the 135mm.  Obviously the exposure wasn’t perfect (although the majority of the shots were within 1/2 stop), but with some adjustment with the RAW convertor they looked pretty good, considering the high ISO they were shot at.  The school were happy with them and had them on display on a slideshow in the reception of the school during the shows.  They managed to sell quite a few copies of the photo-cd to raise money for the school, which was nice.

This photo: Canon 20D 85mm, f2, 1/160th, ISO800.

 I used my strobist kit for the first time in anger at the wedding on Saturday, and was over the moon with the results.  Totally reliable, plenty powerful and very portable.  I’d used them lots before so I knew they might come in handy, but given the dark conditions I can’t see how we would have managed without.  Certainly better than the studio lights I had originally planned on bringing, given that we ended up working right next to the kitchen where the staff was coming and going - I don’t think power leads all over the place would have worked.  In the words of DPReview - Highly Recommended.

All I was trying to do was get 2 decent shots of the kids. Not difficult is it? I mean I can get hundreds of nice pictures every time I do a wedding. Even with the wedding I did this weekend, when it was cold, dark and wet outside, I managed it. I took a series of couple shots using the strobes inside. I couldn’t get the couples to stand in exactly the right place everytime, and I didn’t take a background with me, and still the shots were great.

So taking shots at home, with a background set up and complete control of the lighting should be easy shouldn’t it? Well no, it wasn’t. Amelia was more interested in playing behind the background than posing in front of it. And my usually reliable model, Ethan, was either complaining or pulling silly faces. The normally reliable camera was on a go slow with the focusing, and I just could not get the light right on the background.

We all have our off days, but even Amelia is mocking me here. Still, I got the shots I was after. Eventually.

I’ve been working on something that has become known amongst the Strobist crew as the “Dave Hill Look”. If you would like to have a go at it yourself, please click here. It works (and my Photoshop skills aren’t the best, so make allowances) by making the highlights of the photograph stand out more by sharpening them up. There’s obviously some desaturation of colour as well. I’ve attempted the look multiple times so far, but this is my favourite at the moment. Mainly because it features my favourite model.

The techy details :

Canon Eos 20D, Canon 135mm F2.8SF, f8, 1/250th, 2 Nikon speedlights fired with Elinchrom Skyports.

I’m two weeks into the PGCE Primary course now, and I’m really enjoying it. But it is a hell of a lot of work, especially when you have over 900 photos to get processed as well. The wedding was on Saturday 15th, and it went really well. One of the best this year in fact. I think the weather had just a little to do with this. Although the others went well, and the couples were pleased with the photos, this was the first wedding since March where the weather has been warm and sunny through the entire day. There is nothing like some natural backlighting to give a little zip to a picture. The reception venue had nice big windows as well, which meant lots of natural light, and thankfully less flash.

Its not that there is anything wrong with using a flash. On a sunny day you need it for fill (and thank you Canon for HSS); in a dark room, you just need it. It is just much easier to get a candid shot of someone when they are not aware that you are taking pictures because they haven’t seen your flash firing. I think its better for the shots during the speeches as well. The people at the front are nervous enough with a powerful flash firing off right in their eyeline. Still, sometimes you have to get the shot and worry about things like that later.

We ended up with 500 shots for the website, which is 200 more than usual. Claire had specifically asked for lots of shots of the flowers, so we included around 50 of those in the final cut (in their own section). I also did a bit of photoshop work, including the shot seen here. I’m not a huge fan of this sort of work; I think it already looks dated, and its a way of hiding bad photography. However, in this case, I’m really pleased with the effect. So much so that I did the same thing to 4 other shots, although none worked as well as this. And just for the record, it was bad photography. The flash hadn’t recycled when I took the shot, leaving them in darkness and the background blown. I didn’t need to include the photo, as I had 3 similar shots which worked well, but somehow the highlight on the flowers spoke to me so I thought I’d have a play. A happy accident.

We’ve just dropped Ethan off for his first day at school. He looks very smart, and couldn’t wait to get there. I wonder how long that will last? There was lots of tears at the school, but that was just from the parents.

If I was wearing my glasses, of course.

OK, so more of a push than a jump. And the danger was limited to it landing on my head. This was the annual teddy bear parachute jump at the Abbey in Pershore, part of the Plum Festival. This was more fun than than it may sound. Ethan’s teddy Mikey took part, but this is the better photo.

Photo taken at 1600 ISO, 1/400s, F2.8, 75mm.