Tuesday, 31 December 2013

It’s a bit early but what the heck!

I was having a tidy up when on the side I saw this broken wine glass from Christmas. In a way it’s kind of sad as we sat down for lunch I noticed a large crack in the glass and that was it time for the bin.

Well this project has made me start looking at this sort of thing as an opportunity for a snap! The red wine needed to stand out so a High Key effect is best using one flash from the rear and one set as a slave at 1/8 power from the side I could blast the shadows to where I wanted them and flood the glass with light. You can pick out the broken piece of glass resting in the bottom of the glass.

20131231-NewYear2014-17-Edit

I hope you like the effect.

Take the plunge!

After much thinking and the usual amount of hard thinking I took the plunge and joined a 365 Project web site.

365project.org is a free to join site that provides a gallery to put your photos on and by the look of it a fairly active community. I had a good look around and thought why not I also managed to post something onto the message boards. I know I doesn't sound much but I think over the last 15 years of joining these things I've probably posted about 5 times. I always get a bit scared that what I say isn't important or worth while but I guess it's the same for lots of people.

So far this has been a bit of a ride for me and I can't wait to start this project I'm sure it's going to be tough at times but if I can keep the thoughts in check and realise my ambition that there is no reason not to be able to do this then it will work out fine.

Of course my other big question that I've been asking myself is why am I writing this blog? Part of it is to remind myself that I need to do this and by writing this down I can think things through and read them back and hopefully see the difference over a year. I also hope that maybe someone else who is in a similar position reads this and thinks " What the hell if he can do this then so can I" And finally it's about committing time to writing for a blog everyday with no excuses!

Have a great new year and make resolutions you can achieve!

Monday, 30 December 2013

An interesting project.

One of my Christmas presents this year was a build it your self 35mm camera! I'm beginning to think there's been plotting going on here!

Well today I finally managed to make the time to build the camera. It's a KONSTRUKTOR SLR camera. You build most of the camera yourself only the shutter and mirror come pre-built. It was a bit of a fiddle in places but great fun to build. I of course managed to get one bit wrong and the film when loaded didn't wind forward but after a review it was just a case of a cog alignment.

Here's a photo of the completed camera.

It's got a fixed aperture of F10 and only two shutter speed 1/80 or Bulb and a 50mm lens, I've put in a 400 that I also got as part of my present, I'm thinking that as part of my photo a day challenge I might well use that camera for some of them as the added fun of working out exposure and timing the shutter and having to wait for the picture to come back could be fun! I will of course scan and upload the photos.

Of course the joy of a film camera is that you are limited to 36 shots per film not the 1000s you can fit on to an SD card. So you have to think through the shot a lot more. I think that's almost a problem with digital is the amount of photos you can take and the fix it in Photoshop later attitude. I will look forward to using both formats and might even try and think of my digital as an analogue and limit myself 36 frames!






 

Sunday, 29 December 2013

More preperation

Not so simple is it!


So the here Dad i think you should take a photo a day and then post it onto a blog challenge seems simple. Well I suppose it is when you come down to it but there appears to be more to that than meets the eye.


Blogging is the act of writing to a web site I'm using Blogger which is part of the Google dynasty. The only reason for this is I have a gmail account and it seemed logical to do it all in one. There appears to be loads more blog sites out there Wordpress do a free service that looks pretty cool loads of templates and gb of data storage. For the time being though I think I'll stick with what I know! ( although I think I'll sign up and run the 52 week Project in that!)


I never like online editing I always wonder if the thing is going to crash or I loose my internet connection so I've had a look at some of the blogging software that's out and about.


Back in days Windows Live Writer was a good way of doing this but it seems like it's last update was 2009 so I'm not sure if this is worth sticking with or not.


So after a quick Google I installed Zoundry Raven and BlogJet, Zoundry Raven installed ok but I found it a bit fiddly to set up with my Blogger account then when writing this first post it got caught in a loop with a null reference! It might have been my fault but error trapping is important in software don't make me resort to the Task Manager to get out!


So I'm trying out BlogJet for writing my Blog on my PC 30 day trial and it will cost $39.95 if i like it. So far it's good though. Simple to set up just put in URL of my Blog user name and password and there you go Imported previous posts and off I go!!


Well there was a turn up BlogJet wouldn't even post to my blog so back to the free Zoundry Raven!


On my iPad I'm using Blogsy and to be honest it's awesome. It links to loads of places to grab my photo's from and is so simple to use it's a real pleasure.


This need to find the software and Blog location is of course a way of deflecting from the real issue of the challenge! I was walking the dogs this morning a task that gives me time to think and it struck me that I find this sort of thing very difficult, so I decided to think why. I think I'm getting there it's a lot to do with comparing what I'm doing with others and thinking I can't achieve that I'm not good enough, I don't have the time and what's the point no one is going to see it let alone comment! Well none of these is a good enough reason when it comes down to it, Every one of those great pictures has been worked at and through practice we all can achieve a good level. I can always make time!! Don't watch Pointless at 17:15 Pick up the camera go for a 45 minute walk! and finally The very process of doing this is what is important not what other people think about it!

More inspiration required?

What we need here is a few links to sites that will help in this project.

11 Tips to Succeed with a Photo365 Project - Digital Photography School the digital Photography School is a really good site for all things Photograpy and I happen to find this article. It's worth a look.


January CY365 Photo Challenge List | 2014 | CaptureYour365 this is a blog by Katrina Kennedy that is designed to help you through your challenge proving projects for each days of the month. I guess it'll come in handy should I get stuck for an idea!

I will add to this list as the days go by I'm sure.

A bit on how it's going in my head.

More importantly I'm becoming more excited the closer the start day of my project is. I keep remembering all those places I've driven past on my way to work and said oh that's a nice place for a picture. Well now I'm going to have to at least make the effort to stop and take that shot! Ok I might have to leave 30 minutes early but what they heck.

I'm also considering doing one photo a week from a spot on my dog walk exactly the same place to get a record of the changing seasons. I'm not sure yet if this is going to part of my 365 project or a supplement to it but whatever it could be an interesting little aside.

I've not been spending too much time talking myself out of this project so far. Which of course is a good thing but I have had the odd panicky moment thinking as I was walking down to Carrow Road this afternoon that a crowd shot would be good followed by but what would everyone think? I guess the answer to that is nothing most don't know me most wouldn't care and if they did it would be oh someone's taking a picture can't come very often! So I guess what I'm thinking is don't miss an opportunity for a good shot!

 

Saturday, 28 December 2013

How to do a 365

So after declaring that I'm going to do a 365 photo project I started to do what I always do. Google it. There are a few web sites and such like that are there to aid and give advice.

365project.org looks like a fairly nice site that has weekly projects and monthly word lists that you can use for insperation and competitions judged by other 365 members.

I know these are supposed to be inspire and help motivate but I sometimes think they can also make you feel a bit scared to put stuff on these sites as they only ever seem to showcase fantastic photos making me wonder if I'll ever get to that standard.

I'm not sure if I will go down that route that's something to think about over the next three days.

I started to think about this project and because of the way I think I started to think well I'm going to need a new....... Well nothing is the actual answer it's just my way of trying to stop myself from doing this so by recognising that I can start the conversation with myself. No you don't what you need to take a photo everyday for a year is? A camera and I have one of those on me all the time in my iPhone or my Nikon D90 that I've carried around in my bag forever! So no excuses!!

 

Friday, 27 December 2013

It starts here my new years Project!!

Ben owner of The Paper Yak came up with an idea to get me to improve my photography and that's to do a photograph a day and attempt to post the picture and why I took the picture and what I think about it, kind of a self critique of my work.

I guess I'm up for the challenge as I want to improve my photography and this is one hell of a way to do that!

Well the challenge is going to start on the new years day 2014 and run for the entire year ( that's the point of 365 days I guess and by the end of the year I will end up with some kind of Blog!.

This is going to be tough for me as I'm the kind of person that loves to learn something then puts it down, not really finishing any thing off or showing off to any degree so feel free to pester and encourage remind or even down right bully me into doing this as I know in the back of my mind I will start to come up with excuses for not doing it.

It's kind of weird really as I picked up a self help book the other week about confidence and how to build it up and why I do seem to leave things unfinished there are many exercises and thought processes which help to identify the moments I start to make the excuses to my self. So I guess now I will spend the next 3 days thinking about them but I will dismiss them all and start this on the 1st Jan..

Wish me luck!!