Photographer
I’ve been neglecting this blog somewhat so it’s about time I got things started again.
I’ve decided to start posting new pics here as well as uploading to Flickr, just to keep things ticking over. These will consist mainly of just pictures with little or no text to accompany them. So lets kick things off with a few pics taken during our new years holiday to Somerset. Apologies to those who may have already seen these posted to Flickr.
Thanks for stopping by.
‘iso200 50mm 4sec at f16’
So it’s 5.30am Sunday morning and my alarm had just gone off. With one thing and another it has been quite a while since I’ve had the chance to get up early to do some photography, but today I’m making a concerted effort to get out there. The weather this past week has been absolutely superb and is due to continue for a few days more, so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to make the most of it. With camera bag all packed and ready to go I threw on some clothes, grabbed my hiking shoes and set off out.
‘iso200 50mm 4sec at f22’
Winchelsea beach is only about a 15-20 min drive from my house but even so, by the time I reached the car park it was already beginning to get light, though sunrise still was still some time to go. I grabbed my bag and tripod and quickly headed for the beach. Great, the tide was in and the waves were still gently lapping around the now rather worn wooden posts. This is one of those locations where you want the tide to be in if you want to get nice shots of water around the posts. It’s a great location when the tide is out too if long stretches of sandy beach is what you’re after.
I was a little worried about how the sky would look as there wasn’t a cloud to be seen, but there was just enough transition in colour to keep it interesting as long as I composed to have the horizon around a third down from the top. In fact this is what I wanted as my aim was to get some long exposures to try to turn the water misty and add more atmosphere to the already gorgeous colours. The exposures for the most part were around 4-6 seconds at either f16 orf22, so certainly long enough for the water to blur but the sea was just a little too calm for my liking and I didn’t get as much mist as I would’ve liked, larger waves would’ve done the job.
‘iso200 50mm 4sec at f22’
As you can see I did move around a bit trying slightly different compositions, and after about half an hour or so and being quite pleased with some of the results I packed up my gear and headed back towards Pett Level and the old WW2 pill box…
Hi all, just a short post from me today.
This past week has been quite hectic, being both mine and my wife’s mother’s 60th birthday. A few things including blogging has had to take a bit of a back seat, hence my reason for choosing to post this shot of an old chair in a derelict corridor.
That’s it from me for now, I hope to get the next post up within the next few days. Until then, happy shooting.
Just a quick post today. This is something of a grab shot that I did with the Holga HL-N attached last weekend. For a fleeting moment there was a slice of Hastings seafront that looked as if it were showing some sort of past echo, with no real sign of present technology.
Always be ready to capture the moment.
Have a great weekend.
‘Bleak Wednesday’
Recently I’ve been trying to come up with different ways to keep my photographic mind working.
Whether you have a day job or if photography is your primary source of income, it can sometimes be difficult to find the time to focus on your own photography projects and interests, or you may just find yourself in a creative rut. I think we all experience this from time to time and I’m no exception, so I have come up with a couple of ideas to help me focus on producing something on a regular basis. This is my first idea and is one that was inspired by my recent purchase of the Holga HL-N lens. I’m quickly falling in love with this lens, finding the low quality being something of a refreshing change from using my sharp 18-50mm f2.8 Sigma.
So here’s the idea; When out in a particular location I will throw on the ol’ Holga and take a bunch of shots with the idea of putting nine of my favourites together as a panel. I took these shots last Wednesday when the weather was far from being ideal, but I had an feeling that the inclement weather combined with the crappy quality lens may produce something interesting. When I got home I was quite pleased with a number of the shots but felt that they would work better presented together rather than as stand alone images. The whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts, so to speak. And so Nine through plastic was born. 🙂
I’m sure these images won’t appeal to everyone but I’m seeing it as more of an experiment, at least at this stage. Thoughts and comments are always welcome and if nothing else I hope it stirs you enough to come up with projects of your own.
On a side note I produced this image while listening to ‘Soundtrack to a vacant life’ by The Flashbulb. A stunning album with a mood that seems to fit the subject matter of this image perfectly.
Happy shooting.
So some of you may remember me mentioning in a previous post that Holga had finally brought out both Nikon and Canon mount versions of their lens. I ordered mine from HolgaDirect as soon as I heard the news, and 10 days later it arrived in the post.
Made of cheap plastic, it looks like it has been fashioned from an old detergent bottle top, but then that’s the charm of the Holga line up and similar Toy camera systems. Once attached to the camera body (rather loosely), operating this lens is quite simple. Depending on your camera you will either have to switch to manual ( as I have to) or if you’re lucky Aperture Priority, which will allow you to use the cameras light meter. Usually the light meter will only work if you’re using either a Canon model or pro spec Nikon bodies. On my camera however the light meter will not work, meaning that I have to sort everything out by taking a couple of test shots and checking the histogram. You could also use a hand held light-meter. Doing a little research on various Holga sites I found that the shutter speed on their film cameras is set to about 1/100th sec with a number of folks using iso 400 film, so I thought that this would be a good place to start, and indeed it was. This is based on taking shots during a normal bright day. At this point it is also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Sunny 16 rule. Focus is achieved by rotating the lens, which has a range of roughly 3ft to infinity with four symbols depicting various distances in-between.
One thing that differs using a Holga lens on an SLR is that you are actually looking through the lens (an obvious point I know), but this isn’t the case on a traditional Holga as it has a viewfinder separate to the lens, like your old point and shoot. The lens is supposedly a fixed F8 meaning that it is very dark when you’re looking through the viewfinder and can be a bit of a challenge, especially in lower light. I just see this as even more a part of the fun of using this lens.
As of yet I have not had a proper chance to get out and about with it, but I did manage to grab a few minutes during my lunch break to take some test shots to give you a flavour of what this lens produces. As you can see, the traditional Holga trademark look is still there, the only thing you wont get is the light leaks produced by the cheap construction of their film cameras.
All in all this lens is a great compromise for those not wanting to go down the film route, and if soft and heavily vignetted photographs is something that appeals to you then there really is no reason not to get one. It costs around $30US with P&P making this about £18.50ish in my money. Bargain!
Happy Shooting.
Dave Wares 