week 33: Moon and clouds

Usually when I fly these days its to South Africa, an 11 hour flight and I like to sit on the isle so I can get up. But this holiday I also flew a 2 hour domestic flight and I got the window seat. While I have several badly composed photos which include large parts of the aeroplane window, by the time we flew back, I got the hang of it. And I was fortunate enough to fly on a day when the moon was visible during the day and there was actually some clouds.

I adjusted the contrast and colours of the photo and dodged the moon until it was bright enough and then performed the all important crop to get the proportions right.

Speaking of moons - I was also fortunate enough to see and photograph a red moon while I was there (this one was at night)


A red moon like this is likely to be caused by large amounts of dust in the air which scatters the shorter wavelengths- for more information have a look at http://www.universetoday.com/19969/red-moon/ - their photo is much better - probably taken through a telescope or at least a much better telescopic lens. My photo has not been colour adjusted or contrast changed at all. It means its a bit dimmer than I remember, but it is 100% authentic.

Week 32: Panorama

So, I'm back from my holiday and though I have many many photos to work through, I wanted to get my panorama done first. Last time I spoke about taking photos that's different from what they human eye would see and though a panorama is probably closer to what you would see if you were up at the viewing point where this was taken from, I still think it qualifies. Unfortunately I can't make this image much larger in the blog because it won't fit, but I'm sure you get the idea :-)

Chapman's peak is a mountain on the southern coast of South Africa. Its got a pass all around it on the sea side, which means its got some of the most incredible views of that part of the country, especially as the sun sets over the sea. The main viewing point a little way off the road itself is great for taking photos, but also just to sit and enjoy the beautiful light show. Off to the side is the town and bay of Houtbaai of which these photos was taken.

I used a program called Hugin for the stitching. It worked quite nicely once I figured out how to turn its auto exposure compensation off. The leftmost part is exposure fused to ensure some detail of the sea, mountains as well as the sky shows, but that means the exif data on exposure is incorrect.

I'll try and put another post on sometime this week, before the nice relaxed feeling of having had a holiday completely wears off.

Week 31: Otter

I have had a sudden realisation about my photography earlier today. I realised, considering most of the images I find inspiring, and the fact that a lot of my "reasonably good" photos don't appeal all that much to me. I don't actually like images that look exactly like what I would have seen if I was there. And the more I think about it the more I realise that is true not just for photography, but for the way of all visual art I enjoy. That is why, most of the time I would prefer a slightly surreal art piece over a say a perfect visual copy of a landscape. The kind of photography that appeals to me has enough of reality in that it seems real, but isn't quite.

Right now for my photos that means making use of things like shallow depth of field, long exposures and post processing. Take for example this week's photo, by all right's its not a great photo of the otter - the animal is not fully in the frame and there's lots of "irrelevant" bits, yet it is one of my favourites of my zoo trip and I think the reason is exactly because of the background, the otter is obviously the main subject, but there is now way while I was standing there looking at him that I would have seen the background going slightly blurry and the bokeh. That doesn't mean I'm going to disregard all the "rules of photography" or not learn as much as I can about it, but keeping this in mind will allow me to add my vision to the image, to create art rather than a recording.

I'm hoping this new way of looking at my photography will lead to more growth in my photos going forward. But for the two weeks I'm away so I'll post again when I get back

week 30: European wolf

We had another bank holiday this Monday past (which I'm really grateful for). I spent it going to the zoo to take photos. I always said that I didn't want to go take photos at the zoo until I had a DSLR, but then after I got mine I still didn't go because I discovered to my disgust that the London Zoo didn't have the animals I wanted to photograph. Ok, so maybe I was expecting too much - it is a zoo in the middle of the biggest city in the UK. And I've probably been spoiled being brought up in South Africa where there are lots of large zoo's and safari parks etc. Anyway, point is one of the animals I really wanted a photo of was a grey wolf. So I had to wait until I could spend 3 hours travelling to the right zoo and another 3 back.

The photo is not hugely exciting as these things go. I accept that. I have come to learn that animal photography even in a relatively enclosed space like a zoo requires huge amounts of patience. Maybe if I spent the entire day watching only the wolves I would have gotten that photo I wanted of one of them emerging from the den (the dark hole at the top right of the picture) I however was impatient and had at least 4 other animals to see still, so after an hour I left. My 70-300 mm lens, even at max didn't enlarge quite as much as I thought, but with photo's like these I can't complain. Now I just have to work on my composition (and my timing!)