Got Your Valentines Day (Sun 14th Feb) Gift?

It's that time of year again, Valentines Day, it's fast approaching and even though we know it a lot of us leave it until the last minute to buy a special gift for that special someone. So this year why not get in early and surprise your lover with a romantic photographic print with a custom message (optional), available here - Valentines Day Prints.

Order by Monday 8th Feb to make sure you get it in time! (UK only)

Photographing Bees In The Garden

Now photographing insects is something I have never done before, however, I have noticed a fair few bees and wasps in my garden recently and although I don't have a macro lens I thought I'd give it a go. Obviously I couldn't get too close with a telephoto lens but with this in mind I tried to capture not only the creature itself but also an interesting composition around it. Using a large aperture o give me a shallow depth of field I was able to create blurred backgrounds so the main focus remains with the bee and the flower it is collecting from. To add a little impact and more colour I was able to use the grass behind the subject as a backdrop to help the purple flowers and colour of the bee to stand out even more, and with the bright sunshine this has enhanced the composition nicely.

Later in the week I was able to borrow a macro lens and although I had to wait for the rain to clear and the sun to shine, I was able to get a handful of very close up photographs of this bee, and as it was my first attempt I was quite please with how it turned out.

Photographing Lilies

These lily photographs were taken in the studio on my Canon 450D digital SLR as test shots for some more shots on black and white film I had planned to take later that same day. The great thing about digital photography is that you can see your results instantly and adjust any settings accordingly, but as you know it is a very different story when using film, which is why I used my digital camera to test the lighting and composition before starting to shoot with film. I opted for 120 roll film and was using a Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera, I will be printing these in the darkroom but will aim to photograph one of the prints and post it here when I have.

A Single Red Rose With Water Droplets

This is one of my favourite and most beautiful flower photographs to date. Shot in the studio using flash and soft boxes I spent a lot of time setting this up and making sure everything was just right. First I used a spray bottle to create the small specks of water you can see, then to create the larger droplets I used a pippet and placed them where I wanted them, all the while trying to make it look as natural as possible.

Using Reflections To Create Abstraction

I took this shot whilst I was patiently waiting for some birds to appear in the garden, a task that can take a very long time so it's only natural that your eye wanders while you wait. The sun was shining brightly and out the corner of my eye I noticed a splash of red and when I looked round it turned out to be the reflection of a rose bush in the window. It was swaying in the breeze and because it already looked distorted and abstract I decided to allow the motion to be captured and set a slightly slower shutter speed. I like that it isn't necessarily obvious what the subject is and that the bright natural colours really stand out in the sunlight.

Sunlit Leaves & Flowers Photographed

Whilst I was waiting patiently for some birds to appear in my garden for me to photograph, I noticed the light filtering through the leaves of the tree to my right creating a dappled effect on it's delicate white flowers, so seeing as though our flying friends weren't cooperating I turned my lens to photograph this tree and its flowers instead. Using a shallow depth of field and focusing on the flowers through the leaves in the foreground has giving a soft foreground of shape and colour whilst enhancing the bright white sunlit flowers behind. Had I used a smaller aperture and allowed the foreground to be in sharp focus too, it would have caused the image to be confusing and over cluttered with no real focal point. I like the 'jungle' feel of this shot, vivid greens and the overgrown enclosed atmosphere.

Unusual Viewpoint

Those of you who live in the UK will know that we haven't had the best summer for sunshine and warmth, however, on those days that we were fortunate enough to enjoy some sun, and inevitably a sunset, were well worth taking a look at. Down in my neck of the woods, Brighton, East Sussex, the sunsets can be spectacular and when the sun gets really low in the sky the light it produces creates long shadows and can transform mundane things we see everyday into a great photographic opportunity. Take these two shots for example, a beautiful rose bush
just outside the window with loads of pink flowers on it, back lit by the sunlight and casting a shadow on the net curtain along with the criss-cross shapes of the window frame. With the warm tone of the light and the unusual viewpoint of looking out of the window through the curtain, this window and what lies just outside it have suddenly become more interesting and worth photographing. Sometimes you just have to grab your camera when you see something that catches your eye, that's what I did here and have ended up with a couple of shots that I would have otherwise missed.

Photographing Foxglove

Having spent a long while sitting patiently and waiting for the birds to fly down into the path of my lens, I had had time to scope out the rest of the garden for other photographic opportunities as well as alternative positions to photograph the birds from. Anyway, this Foxglove had been growing next to my conservatory all through the summer getting taller and taller so that eventually it could see over the top to reach the sunlight it was obviously craving. So I took my camera to it and shot it against the giant Yucca that is growing a couple of meters behind it, though keeping it blurred and the foxglove sharp so that it's bright pink flowers stand out.