Down by the river...

This afternoon I went for a quick trip down to the river Stour near where I live. One side of the river is a lot more accessable than the other so I went to the quieter side, it's late winter at the moment so whilst the sun wasn't setting, as such, it was pretty low in the sky, dragging out shadows and giving some nice orangey tones to the scenery depending on whether a cloud slipped in the way or not.

It wasn't a terribly warm day and it was a little windy. All the plants were mostly dead and withered but the sky was fairly dramatic, the river was partly flooded and there was great textures, shapes and colours to try and photograph. I also wanted to make sure i captured a bit of winter before spring starts and I try my hand at getting blossom and all those springtime things which I usually don't get round to.

Smoke on the water

So tonight I tried my hand at photographing "ink" in water. (I say ink but what I actually used was food colouring as I believed it would more or less serve the same purpose.)

My plan was simple... but elegant... well maybe not elegant but it was definately simple!
The plan was to grab a fish tank, fill it with water, drop some inky substances into the water and photograph the results so I might get some smokey/inky type images for use as stock images and such.

On attempting to buy a fishtank I quickly found they were either too big, too expensive or out of stock. It couldn't be too big as I knew I'd need to clean the water regularly otherwise the ink or so would murk the water up too much for subsequent shots, additionally I knew I'd want flat, clear and undistorting glass.
In the end I had no choice but to get a rectangular vase, the glass was not quite flat and distorted a little but I felt it would suffice for the sake of experimentation at least.

I quickly learned two things whilst setting up. If I used cold water the glass would get covered in condensation on the oustide and/or mist up on the inside whilst using hot water caused little bubbles to appear in the shots.

You can see the bubbles in some of the shots below.

In the end i'm not very happy with the results but feel I've learnt a thing or two. I didn't manage very even lighting, the vase is all together too small, it was hard to find a suitable angle that didn't distort the image or where a chunkier part of the vase wasn't in frame that reflected the light.

I think next time I attempt this I will try to use a proper fish tank and a larger one, I think the images would be better if the fish tank were large enough that it was only half full and I could take a picture that includes the water line.

Photograph of the week #019

"When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a (mostly) weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week."

Photograph of the week #018

When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week.

Today I nipped out to a bay near my place of work(day-job) to see what photo oppurtunities might be available. I only had half an hour but I once i opened my eyes a little several potential shots started to present themselves.
I came away with a small selection of shots several of which i'm quite happy with, I may post them all later* but for now here is my choice for PotW

* But not as PotW's ofcourse as that would be cheating

"I put you in that darkness, and i shut that door"

Two years or so back I started work on a project for the cover of a book called Claire's Ghost. The book was not yet completed at that time but it was clear what some of the highlights of the story would be, which was more than enough for me to start work on the cover design.

The cover design is a very simple composite of various photographs I went out and shot of obvious locations with additional editing here and there to tidy the images up. I worked entirely in CMYK and at a resolution of 300 dpi as this is a project intended for print, with that much detail there isn't much room for error. Among other things the image has had work done on it to add emphasis on certain features, give a more dramatic mood and sky, remove tourists and traffic, boats etc.
The novel has now come out and is available to buy, so pick up a copy and have a read.

Author's website: talia-blakely.co.uk
Amazon link:        http://www.amazon.co.uk/Claires-Ghost-Talia-Blakely/dp/1780030525

Photograph of the week #017

When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week.

 My boy's favourite toy, he carries it round with him everywhere but I managed to catch a moment where he'd been left abandoned... but as can be seen, i'm not the only one to have noticed.

Photograph of the week #016

When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week.

This is our cat, his name is Eccles and he's a grumpy ol' sod! (Blast that was almost a good start to a childrens story)

Behind him, just out of focus and snuggled up to the grumpy ol' sod, is little Belle, one of the rescue kittens we adopted last year. Whenever Eccles thinks there are no humans about he'll play and snuggle up with the kittens, frolicing around like he's still young and... fancy-free!

As soon as he realises he's been spotted however he'll bat the nearest cute thing on the nose with his paw and storm off in a huff, he's far to sensible for that sort of thing.

Eccles is also a rescue cat and despite his grumpyness and tendency to bite, claw and wee at things that would rather be left alone, he is, at heart, a lovely ol' sod!