Chesham in Fog

Wow, I can't belive I have not updated my photo blog in so long! Quite a lot has happened in the past 9 months (no, not that!), and I guess it has taken me this long to get back into the swing of things.

My first offering is Chesham in the Fog. This was taken about a month ago on my way home. The lights and were halo-ing in the fog creating such a dramatic effect. Unfortunately, being at night, the light was difficult. This particular photo was taken by balancing the camera on a post while crossing the bridge.

Post Processing Fun

Part of my enjoyment of photography is the thrill of the hunt. I like trying to find a good shot, and then playing composition/exposure/aperture roulette to get the film to see what I see. I have taken many photos which I thought would look good, only to see I could have used a different aperture to reign in the depth of field.

Nowadays, in the digital age, this isn't as big a problem as it was during the 35mm days. One of my pictures of the last entry was a little red flower. When I brought it up on my monitor, I felt that the picture could have benefited from a shorter depth of field. Just one stop would focus the eye in on the flower, and hide a not so exciting background. So I went about trying to do this manually.

I use GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) as my photo processor mainly for the fact I cannot afford Photoshop. The advantage of GIMP is that it is free and contains many of the features of Photoshop.

So, a quick bit of searching lead me to GIMP Guru's tutorial. I followed the instructions and came up with this:

So, from this:

We get this:

I think it works quite well. Click on the pictures to see the larger versions.

Macro Fun

Having bought my snazzy Canon Powershot, I haven't done much photography with it. However, a couple of days ago it was just light enough when I arrived home to take some photos.

One photographic technique I enjoy is macro. Nearly everything looks dramatic when taken so close that one can see all of the fine details. My new camera has a macro function which works quite well. I was very surprised by the quality of the shots, particularly when they were handheld. I think the built-in image stabiliser helped me out a bit. My composition leaves a bit to be desired, but I am rather happy with the results. Particularly the red flower.

 
White Flower Macro

Blue Flower Macro

Curly Red Flower Macro

By the way, if you know what these flowers are called, please leave a comment. I would love to give them a proper name rather than "Blue Flower...", etc.

Exciting Photos (I Hope)

I'm really excited. This weekend I finally managed to go to the weir near me to take photographs of it and the surrounding area with my 35mm camera. I am excited/nervous about the shots as I tried lengthening the exposure on some of them. I am going to put my film in for development soon and see what comes out, so watch this space! In the meantime, here is a photo of the weir taken on my N95.

  
Weir From an Old Watermill, Chesham

I really like this area of Chesham. There are a couple of lakes nearby with various birds in them. Further on from that is the Chess Valley Walk which provides some wonderful scenery. Now that I've found my tripod, I'm sure you will be seeing more from this area soon.

The Chesham Sunset

If you read my Mouse's Musings blog, you will know that I now live in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Last night the sunset over Chesham was so beautiful I just had to take a few photos of it. This one is the best in my opinion. You can't beat light being reflected in vapour trails on a clear evening.