Smethwick Canal

So I paid Smethwick Galton Bridge a visit and took some snaps down by the canal. From the train it looked like the area would have a fair chunk of industry surrounding so I was a little disappointed when I first arrived to find there wasn't any. However thankfully the weather was good so I managed to grab a few pretty shots instead.

This image is my favourite by far, I love the depth of field and resulted contrast. 

Curtains

Recently I have had a lot going on, multiple shoots for all different people in all different places and I'm only just catching up with myself.

When getting ready for one of my shoots last week I accidentally hit the shutter as I was packing my camera equipment and came out with ... well this.

Very warm feeling from this photo, with a fair amount of contrast.

This might be the artsy fartsy side of me coming out now, but there is something about this photo that I really like. It's grabbed me somehow.

Overpowering The Sunshine

You might have noticed recently how lovely the weather has been with the sun out, blue skies and even some warmth radiating down. I set out in the sunshine armed with my camera and a flash gun in the hope to capture some portraits. I did just that only I made them look like night time images... oooh!

I have put this image in to show you just how beautiful the weather was when I was shooting.

My final outcome. Admittedly this isn't a great photo however I was only testing out what I could achieve. 

I am pleased with the results I got from one small Metz flashead and with minimal experimentation with shutter speed and apertures too. I think this is an effect I might try and use more if I am able to.

Interiors

Not my usual style however our house has just been put on the market and my Mum was keen to make sure in the Estate Agents photos our house looked tip top. This meant following her round with my camera yesterday and taking lots of photos to tell her where some items needed to be hidden or just moved slightly.

Basically, what all this means is you get to see the inside of my house. It's lovely.

Our living room, complete with sleeping cat.

The kitchen which everybody always comments on being "different". Complete with lens bag.

The living room again... with two cats this time.

My flowery bedroom... complete with sock monster.

Brothers bedroom... filled with lots of tractors. Dressing gown should have been moved.

Does it make sense to you, having seen these few images why I don't want to move house? I love it here. But ah well, new beginnings I suppose. 

My Day With Menna

Yesterday I spent my day looking after my nearly three year old cousin. We had a very busy day together, spending time drawing, singing and doing role plays...

Menna	You be rapunzel and I’ll be Prince Charming.. Who is your Prince Charming?
Victoria	I don’t know, he hasn’t arrived yet.
Menna	I’ll be your Prince Charming
Victoria	Oh thank you, are you rescuing me?
Menna	Yeah.
Menna	*10 minutes later* I’m not your Prince Charming anymore, I’ve retired.

We also played with dogs, visited the chickens, fed the rabbit, watched some cbeebies, made crayon coffees, read a story, played with dollies - feeding them and putting them to bed. But we also did my coursework, where Menna found out how much fun a ruler can be and loved drawing lines on her piece of paper. The rubber also provided some fun, rubbing out my pencil lines. And we did some gluing. She was ever so helpful.

But the most fun came when I took some pictures of Menna. I have borrowed a Hassleblad for Easter and wanted to try and get some shots of Menna playing. This worked for a while. But then Menna wanted to take some shots of me. So we struck up a deal that Menna could take 5 pictures of me and this is what we got.

At the top is an image I took of Menna while I checked the light meter reading. Below is one of Mennas photographs of me.

I had a wonderful day, and I cannot wait to see what images I got using the Hasselblad. That will be a few weeks wait though while I finish shooting.

Street Portrait

How often do you see the men stood outside shops whilst their partners are shopping?

Very often. Yes.

I hit Birmingham City Centre with my camera and decided to photograph these people and grab a cheeky portrait from them. This is what I got.

This gentleman was waiting for his wife, he didn't want to be snapped with his glasses on but I caught him as he took them off. I just love this shot, I think a lot of his character comes through.

Street portraits are something I will be shooting more and more in the coming weeks as I intend on getting a project out that is just photographing the interesting people I come across whilst out and about.

Also, I have three weeks with no set shooting or work timetable, if anybody wants a photo session, please get in touch and we can arrange something.

Preview!

It's been a ridiculously busy week for me so I haven't managed to get much done and I'm trying to get this article on dairy farming written. However, I have done a teeny bit of reviewing of images. These have no been edited in any way.

All of these photos were shot at John Platts dairy farm in Wimboldsely, Cheshire. They milk just over 800 cows at two different sites and I was given full access to everywhere. Amazing to see

The first calving shed, all calves here are between 4 and 14 days old.

One group of cows on the way out of the miking parlour whilst another is milked.

Looking down the milking stands. They cows were held in by what reminded me of a roller coaster barrier.

This is Gem, a very well loved Australian cattle dog. 

I was very lucky to get this shoot and a big thank you to John Platt for allowing to me go around. I am now officially over my phobia of cows as well having spent time in the calving pens and the cow sheds. Not to mention having one stood right next to me while I photographed the milking parlour.

Deco-Reco

Deco-reco was always going to be a challenge but it was one I fully embraced and ending up doing a lot of work on. Now when you see the two images and compare them please remember that Photoshop is not my strong point.

  

<- A self portrait from Ways of Looking by Douglas Gordon

My version.

Whilst I realise the angle of the portrait in the original photo of my version doesn't quite line up with portrait used in Gordon's version I'm pleased with my result. The only piece I feel didn't work as strongly as I would have like is the hints of burning paper that can be seen. 

Another Portrait...

So this weekend I had a Hasselblad out of the Uni stores and started to shoot a few portraits with it. The portraits I have shot.. or hopefully shot have not been in the style that my final ones will be as this shoot this weekend was just to get used to using a camera I haven't used before. However, the shots I have got I am very pleased with.

In colour:

This isn't the original, I have edited the tonal range slightly, increasing the magenta present.

In Black and White:

Not only did I push the colour out of this shot, I removed the bags under the eyes present in the above photo.

This image was produced with a reflector on the right hand side of the face, If I were to change it again slightly it would be to add a bit more definition to the left hand side of the face where the light coming from the window is bleached ever so slightly. 

Woodlands, Visit One.

I don't know if I've mentioned this project before of not, however today myself and four others visited Woodlands Farm, Chedworth to start shooting for our group project based around Dairy Farming. I had an excellent time and learnt a lot whilst I was there, Nigel Finch is a very interesting man to listen to. We spent a good couple of hours at the farm and received an excellent tour of the facilities, giving us chance to start snapping.

Here are a selection of my images:

Lets start with this animal portrait, whilst I am a little gutted that I cut of the edge of the right ear I am pleased with the shot.

A crowd of University students crowding in to the shed was clearly of interest to the cows as they swarmed to the gate. I'm pleased with this shot and the numbers of cows that squashed in for me.

Then of course we need a cute shot of the calves, this shot I think is good for showing hints of the environment behind them without being the focus of the shot.

Whilst this shot came out darker than I would have liked when taking it I am pleased that it has as it just highlights the one cow who is standing with his peeping over the rest of the crowd.

And to finish...

A portrait of Nigel Finch himself, lit with natural light coming through a small window as he talked to us about his job.

Portraits

We've got a new module on at Uni now, it's all about portraits. Unfortunately for me, portraits aren't my strong point. I get scared of not being able to manage the light properly and then looking silly in front of the person I am photographing.
So today, in order to start getting over my fear of photographing people I have taken some shots using natural light and with somebody I know.

We started off like this, just stood normally in front of a large window.

I then started to limit the amount of light so there was much less and got this result.

Personally I found this very beneficial and I'm going to try it again soon with the use of reflectors and absorbers of light to see how much difference they make as well. 

Off The Hip

Do you ever accidentally press the shutter when you are getting yourself together to go and shoot? I always always always do it. But sometimes I like the shot that I accidentally took. 

This is one of those accidental shots that I really like. I really like the hints of colour in a very black and white shot, filled with contrast.

More Snow Pictures

...Only these ones were taken at night, oooh!

Yeah, I headed out at night to photograph the snow, hoping this way I could make my shots more exciting. It's so hard to make snow look different and interesting. It's just a white blanket on everything.

We headed out and first came across some bike racks with only a couple of bikes locked to. I'm really pleased with how all of these photos turned out, especially the third one featured below. 

Then I found some pretty interesting patches of trees and plants to photograph snowy close ups of. I love these because they don't feature just a blanket of snow on something.

We then bumped in to some people playing and messing about in the snow, I love the guy hiding out in the tree. 

And we ended the night building our own snowman...

But only managed the head, so meet Boris. Boris the snowman's head. I love the portrait below.

But none of the photos above do I love as much as this one:

I absolutely adore this photo, the contrast between the red and the white. Never mind the way the light only highlights the small patch to being pure white. I love it, definite favourite.

White balance was definitely an issue shooting snow at night, especially with all the floodlights and street lamps that were on but I'm happy with how all the photos shown have come out. 

Have You Ever Heard of Ragnar Axelsson?

No? Well he’s a photojournalist who works in Iceland and somebody whose work I adore. In fact, I’d love to be able to buy his book one day, sadly I’m just really poor until then.

Anyway, with all this snow that’s been lying around the past few days, I’ve been looking again at his work, it is wonderful.

 It’s the composition of his images that gets me the most. A lot of his work he features the subject in a corner, or on it’s own in the middle of the frame, meanwhile the rest of the shot is bare, pure white or so fresh and overexposed that no detail is visible. But it is never boring. The contrast is always high, so the topic does clearly stand out.

 My favourite photo of his is this one, the Husky barking. The shot makes the animal look quite vicious yet this is unlikely as husky dogs are supposed to have very friendly and protective personalities (I think).

However, if I were you, I’d check out his website. Well worth a proper look.

First Protest of 2013

I've been putting off posting this blog until Politically Me posted their article because it ties in very nicely to my photos of a protest I accidentally found when in Birmingham on Saturday, 5th. I'm not going to say anymore about it, I'll let you read it from the link above.

However, one thing I will point out is that I was not protesting at this event, I followed it for a period of time in order to document it.

Outside Burtons.. just about.

Staff inside, manager with the radio calling for more security.

After the protest moved on from HSBC staff were still reluctant to open the doors while a customer tried to get in.

Two of the protesters.

A young child present at the protest.

Protesters made their way in to Armani Exchange before being forced back out again.

The Bullring shut all entrances/exits in order to keep shoppers safe.

Here security battled with a protester in order to be able to shut the door.

At the rally, balloons were released in which some of those gathered chose to jump on.

Large congregation of protesters.

Group shot.

Close up of a second group shot.

More young protesters present at the event.

These two men were debating whether or not the protest was good or bad.

The final shout out of the rally.

Unfortunately, post rally, shops such as Starbucks had to clean up bits of graffiti from their shop fronts. 

When I hit the city that day I only expected to test a few new filters I'd been given but it certainly turned out to be more eventful than I imagined. Many of those attending were armed with cameras - both for stills and video and I'm not sure whether that was to protect themselves as they recorded the event or to document it because they were proud of themselves being there. Who knows? I'm just glad I had mine on me.