Visit to the seaside.

The other day, very soon after receiving my new lens, Jo and I decided to take a visit to a nearby coastal town.

We dined at the most magnificent MacDonalds, and then took a stroll around, over a bridge and back again to our car.

Every time I drive into this town I always love the boat that greets you as you enter - and since I've had my camera, I always say - every time - I really MUST take a few shots of it!

Well today was perfect, so I thought I'd show you what it looks like.



What I love about this old boat is the ropes. You can see over the years where new ropes have been added and tied together, and the wonderful colour of the rust just adds to the whole feeling of a boat that's been loved for a long time.




This next shot is one of my favourites, if not my favourite shot. I wanted to capture the vivid blue of the old tarpaulins, and the ropes hanging, what with the rust in the foreground, it makes for a great view!



It started to turn really cold - especially with the wind chill, so we decided to make our way back to the car. Walking across the bridge, we noticed the timber moorings and decked area across the other side;



..one thing I said I wanted to do with my new lens, was to catch a bird in flight - this one is an ordinary Seagull, but I was amazed at how good the zoom was on my 55-200mm lens, after I had a closer look at this shot!



All in all it was a great afternoon, I really enjoyed myself - and Jo did too - albeit a little on the chilly side!

;)

Snow!

I took a walk around the local area this morning, as we had 6" of snow fall, and what a sight - it's amazing at how you want to capture EVERYTHING!

However, I did managed to take over 400 photos, so you'll have to excuse me if they sort of filter onto this blog - there's a lot of sorting out to do.

I haven't touched up these photos, as I'm still unsure of which ones to properly mount and display, but these should give an idea of the wonderful countryside we live in.

The main (ish) road outside our house...



The path walking down to the fishing lakes...



I loved seeing this - the eye wants to follow the path up and past the sign...



This is a box to hold the local fishing information leaflet...



A similar shot to one on an earlier post...



I loved the reflections on the lakes, it's almost like a winter wonderland.



I hope you enjoy these photos!

New year walk.

I managed to get out with my camera and go for a little walk down the fields next to our house, and found a really nice little path running along the Hedgerow.

I was experimenting with various things, shutter speed, aperture etc and was quite pleased with the results, I WILL get to be off the auto modes... I WILL!!

I've been reading a lot about various techniques and although I'm not ready to try most of them, I thought I'd just go out, play about with the settings, and see what happened.

So here we go...

The bottom of the field next door - I love the shape of trees in Winter, and hedges - gotta love hedges!




I saw this Ivy on a tree and loved the icy leaves, with the flash it really brought the Ivy out from the background.



This is looking towards Lewes, but again, the frostiness of the nettles seemed to grab me when I walked past. I love taking this sort of photo, with the depth of field thing going on!



This next photo was one of my more experimental photographs, I have seen in books wonderful long exposures of waterfalls, rocky coast lines...

...unfortunately all we have round our place is a pipe sticking out the ground with a little stream (although we DO have the fishing lakes at the bottom of the field next door - photos to come one day).

I decided to use the Gorilla tripod I got for Christmas, plus my shutter remote.
I experimented with lots of different settings, a lot of my photos were over exposed, and I soon learnt that I didn't have to have the shutter open for too long to get the effect I wanted. I also experimented with Iso's and aperture sizes.



I like this next photo - it's one of my faves so far. This is one of about 10 or so I took of the same view.

I like the way the eye gets drawn into the photo, it's a very interesting area for shots like this.



As I was walking back home, I quickly snapped this shot - again it relates to how excellent trees look in Winter, and how sometimes they make an excellent frame.



This was one of my last shots before heading back home. The frost on the weeds was amazing - as I trod through them, it flew like dust around my feet.

I found the trees in the background so interesting, I thought I'd combine them with the frosty weeds here.

It's amazing how the frost makes such fantastic crystals and architecture within itself.



I really enjoyed going out on my own to take these photos, I hope you enjoy them. These have been chosen out of about 180 photographs I took that morning in about 1-2 hours.

Focus

I thought I'd have a little play around with my photo editing software this morning...

...taking a self portrait, I blurred the original file so the skin tones and details were much softer, then I took the eye, kept the detail and overlaid it onto the blurred background.

This gives a strange depth of field illusion, one that I really liked doing, and one that has opened up a whole new avenue and excitement for me!

My first photography competition.

Recently I sent off one of my photographs, the portrait view of Mount Caburn early in the morning with the mist in the valley, to a competition after Jo suggested I should.

I ONLY WENT AND WON!!

I won first prize, and my photo was put on the monthly E-Newsletter for a garden centre called 'Garden Pride'.



Although there were a lot of entries, I managed to win, and I received a £15.00 voucher to spend in their shops!

I will be sending off more photographs I think!

Morning glory

Here are some photos of views from our new home.

A view looking south.



A view looking East towards a local landmark - Mount Caburn in portrait and a couple in landscape - it's amazing how different the same shot can be.







I ALMOST took my Nikon off Auto for the landscape shot - I'm going to be brave and take the plunge into manual mode soon!

:D

Kane, cards and insects

Here is a photo of Kane taken at my mums. He was leaning against a wall so I couldn't take his photo, but I managed to swing it under him and take a snap.

The card was made for my friend Dr Michael Bull, funnily enough, the worlds leading expert in IPods and mobile media! It was his Birthday, and Jo and I created this funny card - can you work out what it is? I treated him to a pint and a fairy cake with a little candle in it too.



The photo of the Bee was great - I was taking some other test photos when I saw him (or her) flying onto these yellow flowers/weeds, and I thought what a cool shot it would make if I could get the camera on macro and take a shot. Luckily, it came out very well, and I must admit it's one of my nature photos I'm most proud of so far - I just love the detail!

To trim or not to trim

That is the question.

I haven't trimmed any of the photos on here, and to be honest I'm not sure if I should. I would like to try to see the whole picture, and to frame images in a way that pleases me.

I'm sure at some point I'll want to perfect each photo, but for now I'm happy with the whole scene.

:D

More beginner photos

Here are some more beginner photos I took when I first got my camera.

The Walnut is from our very own tree in our paddock, the Tayberry from our veggy plot, and the flower was one at my mums.

I took the walnut photo by first focusing on the walnut, then locking the focus, and setting the nut in the corner of my shot. It's a tecnique I really like, and I have done it on some landscape photos as well - it gives that wonderful blurred background effect.

I took them all with the macro setting - when I get more used to the camera I'll start to experiment, but until then I'm afraid it's only the standard settings I'll be using!

:D

My first photo

I was so excited to get my new camera I ran outside to have a go at some macro photography...

This was my first ever attempt at it, and I was really pleased.

I couldn't believe the detail I was able to pick up!

My photo blog

I decided that I would like somewhere to show my photos from my new camera, so here we have it....


...Stiggy's world!


I recently bought a Nikon D40 Digital SLR camera. At the moment I use an 18-55mm lens.

I am a TOTAL beginner at photography, so hopefully you will see me improve over the coming decade or so!!

;)