Anyway, this is what you get – this is part of the sculpture that is on the side of the new Coventry cathedral which I have taken many times before.  I am now trying to work out which is more at fault for the grain and poor focus – me, the camera or the developing.

Anyhows, the film was a 36 exposure (bit of an error there) Ilford FP4.  I did the developing with the prerequisite chemicals, although, they were admittedly suffering from cold as it was Winter (despite sitting in the house all day – the water came from the tap!!).  So, whilst pleased that I have actually developed a film, I am a little disappointed in the results, but as they were of steps, I thought I would put them on anyway.  I now have to work out whether the issue is the camera (it isn’t the lens because it was my favourite 50mm lens) although there isn’t much to go wrong, the age of the film and the fact that it has been sitting around for ages, or my developing.  I am placing my bets on the last two, and, so have loaded the camera in the last week and am going to attempt to take 36 shots and develop the film in the next week or so.

The little boy was playing in the middle of the pigeons (I use that word loosely, I think that trying to stamp on them is a better description) in the square outside the Palais des Papes.

I had one with a better expression on his face (well, you could see his face), but by the time I had cropped out some of the other people in the shot I didn’t like the position in the frame.  I think this one works well, it has the movement of the pigeons and shows that the boy is moving into the flock as well as the frame.

I used my EOS 400D with the 50mm lens and at ISO200 the shutter speed for f/9.0 was 1/640secs.

One of the places we went to was basically a dumping ground for the bits left over from the making of the interchange – lots of bits of steel slowly rusting away.  If the light was good, then the shadows made my the steel should have been very photogenic, but I did find myself a bit bunny in the headlights, not sure what to try and take a picture of – hence I came home with more than 300 shots from the day.

One of the suggestions that he made was to look through things – to try and get a different perspective.  This is the shot that I found – although I think my blog and Flickr account may become populated with images from the day.

There were numerous bits of steel lying around, and this was taken using my 50mm lens on my EOS400D (ISO200 1/200secs at f/5.0) through one of the holes made for a bolt.  I have cropped in quite a lot and changed to black and white in Lightroom as well as upping the contrast a bit and applying a blue filter to pick out the texture.  I did think it looked better in black and white, but have included the colour version as well for comparison as on reflection I am not so sure.

Urban photography is a relatively new area for me, and one I think I could enjoy a lot.  Whilst on the course I was really a little bit stuck as to which photo to take – and I did get distracted a little by flowers and butterflies, and found that I was trying to take photos that I though summed up urban photography.  It was only towards the end of the 3 hours that I started to relax a little more and take the photos that are more about the smaller details, perhaps that other people wouldn’t see.  This is one of them – I was surrounded by the tall pillars of Spaghetti Junction and a veritable junkyard of things that had  been abandoned – but I decided to take some pictures of nuts and bolts – even though I didn’t have my macro lens with me.

I will freely admit that photographing other people’s artwork is not my thing – I don’t feel that it is something that I have any skill or feel for, but I do try my best.

The latest work was a particular challenge because it was almost a metre long – try finding somewhere to take a photo of something that size without having extraneous bits and bobs sneaking in at the edges!  After having taken a couple of sets of shots, both outside and in an exhibition, my friend decided she would like some with it in a stand they had created in order to make a submission to an event in Rugby.

Whilst we managed to take some on the patio (getting far enough away was a challenge and involved dangling from an upstairs window) James came up with the excellent idea of trying to take some against the blue sky.  This was my favourite – I have some with no background, but I quite liked the wisp of cloud on the right and the bamboo holding the sculpture in on the left – it sort of puts it into a similar context (if that is possible).

Despite my plethora of lenses, I used my compact for this photo – the settings chosen were ISO80, 6mm, 1/500secs at f/4.5.

I admit it is not a great picture, but it reminds me of Winter evenings in the UK, a bit cold and empty, but surrounded by nature, even if it is hidden by the night.

I put the picture into black and white in Lightroom and tried to reduce the noise a little (after all at ISO8000 there is a lot of noise!) and applied an infrared filter to lighten the sky. I thought that the black and white showed the shape of the tree a little better.

I had my compact on low light setting, and the settings were ISO8000, 6mm, 1/15secs at f/2.0.

It is the porch roof and I liked the shadows cast by the sun and the contrast of the dark waves with the white snow.  I also like the repeating pattern, interrupted only by the moss growing up there.  I also think there is a bit of a sense of motion from left to right.  The horizontal lines also recede slightly, drawing the eye into the picture a bit.

Perhaps I should enter this into the other set subject competition titled ‘Only a photographer would take this’?

My new 50mm lens was employed again, settings were ISO100 f/7.1 and 1/250secs.

I took this on a whim when out for a walk in the snow, but not as an entry in the competition.  I cropped it savagely in Lightroom to try and concentrate on the couple out for the walk and to cut out a lot of parked vehicles and road furniture.  I like the warmth of the sun on the ground, the darkness and sharpness of the figures contrasting with the haziness in the background and the shape of the tree.

I was unhappy that there were so many lamposts visible, but when I look at the picture again I think they add to the vertical nature of the photo.

The thing that I don’t like that I didn’t notice at the time is the figure that is just the other side of the tree walking towards the couple.  In fact, as I watched they stopped and had a chat!

So, I will probably not enter this, the judge will think it is too messy, and someone will probably win with a letterbox style picture of beach huts or something, but at least I am thinking about different crops.

I had my 50mm lens on, settings were ISO100, 1/1250secs at f/3.2.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my compact has a low light setting, so I thought I would try it on the industrial estate on the way home.  However, it had some trouble with autofocus and couldn’t seem to catch hold of the building so I took the shot out of focus.  This is how the world looks to me if I take my glasses off, so I guess it is relevant.

Compositionally I am not sure if there is too much straight black at the bottom, but this does mean that the light is contained in the central third and the photo is relatively symmetrical which I think works for a shot all about reflections.

The settings on the camera were ISO3200, 6mm and 1/30secs at f/2.0.

My Canon S90 has a setting for low light, so I thought I would experiment and try it out despite the fact that it was a bit miserable and damp – no reason not to take pictures I thought.  The leaves on the pavement, and the pavement itself, were glistening in the rain – perfect photo material.

Basically the camera bumps up the ISO setting to 3200, but (considering my love-hate relationship with this camera) I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the picture that I got.

These leaves were lit by the yellow of the street light, so I adjusted the temperature a little in Lightroom to reduce the yellow cast, but other than that this is pretty much how it came out of the camera.

The resulting settings were ISO3200,1/50secs at f/2.0, 6mm.

I have taken pictures with a lower ISO with this camera in much better light and not had them anywhere near as sharp – definitely a setting worth playing with.