Oil and Water

Last night I was back in the studio. I thought I'd give something a go that had become a little cliche a few years ago, but I think is due a renaissance...maybe only I think that...

Anyway, What I did was spray some water on a silver CD, shine a light on it at an angle so I got the spectrum of colours visible through the drops and photograph it with my macro lens. They make for brilliant computer desktop wallpapers.

Tomorrow I shall be photographing a car rally through Merrick in the Galloway National Park. Probably in the rain, but this should make for more interesting pictures hopefully!

Water Bottles

Last night I tried something (photographically) I've never done before. The setup for this job took easily 4 times longer than the shooting itself, but I'm very pleased with the results!

Basically I got a empty glass bottle, tied it upside down to my background stand over a bucket and photographed the coloured water coming out. I tried different colours but I liked blue the best as it's slightly see through compared to the other food colouring I bought.

Settings and equipment were as follows: Nikon D800 with 105mm Micro VR lens. 1/250th of a second at f/22, ISO 100. Camera was tripod-mounted and I used a cable release for the shutter having focused the lens previously and knocking it back to Manual focus. Regular food dye, a bucket, a background stand, a measuring jug (to decant the coloured water into the glass bottle), a glass bottle and a towel. Oh, and 2 Interfit EX150 heads on full power. One was pointing at a white background and the other was in a softbox pointing straight at the bottle.

These are the results:

I decided to make a triptych (more of a quadtych!?) out of these pictures which I am going to frame and put up in our kitchen, I'm that chuffed with it :)

This week's Headbanger challenge: That's a surprise

I had a hard time finding one picture for this week's challenge never mind the 3 I eventually came up with!

The one I've chosen was taken on a quiet summer's evening about a year ago. I was out in the long grass right next to where we used to live photographing the cat when I decided to put the camera flat on the ground pointing straight up and take a shot. When I looked at it on the computer some time later I really liked it! It reminds me of my youth, lying back in the grass looking up at the summer sky - not having a care in the world...

This picture was taken on bonfire night, again last year, and I genuinely didn't expect for it to turn out anywhere near as good as it did.

The final picture was taken in early summer this year and it was the usual story; I was out and about for work, travelling down a country road and I liked the look of the long grass and the sky so I pulled over to try and capture in the camera what my eyes were seeing. I had taken loads of pictures and they just didn't look very good in the camera's screen so I left quite despondent. I got back home and downloaded them and this one surprised me because I had captured what had made me pull over in the first place.

The Ethereal Beauty Of Smoke

Tonight I had a migrane! Which is bloody typical given that I'd been counting the hours down all day so I could finish work and get into the studio. I've been watching some photography videos on You Tube during my lunch hour and as always, it inspired me to have a go myself so this evening, once the pain of the migrane had reached a tolerable level, I had another crack at smoke photography (possibly not a good idea to use 'crack' and 'smoke' in the same sentence!).

So below are the fruits of my labour. I've got it almost perfect now and if you fancy having a go then let me know and I'll run through how I do it.

Tomorrow is challenge night and I'm really struggling!

My great solo adventure Part 2 - Bracklinn Falls and Loch Lomond

I came across Bracklinn Falls quite by accident. I was following behind a VERY slow driver on the A84 towards Callander when they suddenly pulled up in the middle of the road and I nearly went in the back of them! After sitting there for what seemed like ages, they eventually indicated to turn right. So there I was shouting all the obscenities my mind could muster when I noticed the sign to the falls "ooh", I thought, "that could be interesting!". So off I went up a very steep hill and as I pulled up I noticed the sign 'Bracklinn Falls 3/4 mile <-------' "ughhhhh, 3/4 of a mile!!!" Anyway, I sorted my camera equipment in to just the essentials and headed off. The walk there was easy, it was all flat and then downhill to the falls, but as I passed the red-faced, sweaty out-of-breath elderly couple coming up the hill, I knew it wasn't going to be as much fun going back the way...

I took a few long exposure shots of the falls and I'm fairly pleased with the results, but It's not something I've done that often so I'll take on board the lessons learned for next time.

I really like the pics from Loch Lomond though. I love using the 14-24mm in portrait because you get much more of everything in..but I use it too much and had to tell myself to 'go landscape!'

My great solo adventure Part 1 - Dunblane Cathedral

I saw pictures that another photog had done of Dunblane Cathedral by chance when browsing the web last week and I decided I had to go myself. So early (ish) this morning I packed up my van and moved myself and my camera gubbins 125 miles north. When I got there I found that I pretty much had the cathedral to myself which was great, and in all I spent about an hour walking around and photographing the place. 

Dunblane is unfortunately well known for the appalling shootings that took place in the mid 90's. Picture 9 is of the commemoration standing stone which is a really beautiful and touching piece.