I have recently started taking some shots using film, but am still learning about the development process, but I have found that when I do take my digital camera out now I am taking about half as many shots as previously.  It would also appear that I am starting to think about my photos a little more.  Today I decided to go out to try and capture the Winter light.  I had been thinking about getting up early and catching the sunrise, but that would mean going out in the cold and scraping the ice off the car!

I set off towards the Northamptonshire countryside and, as usual saw lots of photo opportunities.  Unfortunately what I didn’t see was somewhere to stop the car!  I therefore made a stop in Preston Capes, the second village I came to.  This is somewhere I have driven through, but never stopped in, mainly due to the aforementioned lack of somewhere to put the car.  Today I was in luck and quickly abandoned the car on the main street and made my way to the church, partly in the hope that I could get some views of the countryside as well as pictures of the church.

I saw this picture and, although it wasn’t the one I set out to get, it came out in the camera exactly as I had hoped when I pressed the shutter.  Well, almost, what I didn’t notice until I put the image into Lightroom was the transmitter showing behind one of the trees and, I am ashamed to admit it, I am tempted to try and clone it out should I wish to enter any competition.

However,  the light, the shadows, the rolling landscape, are just as I wanted in the photo.  This was taken with my 50mm lens, ISO200, f/9.0, 1/320secs.

Settings for my EOS400D with a 50mm lens; ISO100, f/9.0, 1/320 secs.

On a hot day (by my standards) in  Nimes, I was looking for the gardens that I had read about on Trip Advisor, turned the corner, and saw this site.  The waterway ran the whole way to the gardens.  The colours were stunning and, despite the fact that this was one of the major roads in the town there was an air of tranquility.  So, no apologies for a tourist photo on my blog.

The settings on the camera were (with 50mm lens) 1/80secs, f/9.0, ISO200.

I usually take a shot which shows all the architectural features of the church (and I do have one of these for Great Brington) but on this occasion I prefer this one taken from the back of the church.  The churchyard was a very peaceful and rural place where I felt totally relaxed and apart from the world.  I could have spent hours there and will possibly go back at some point.  The area close to the church was well kept, whereas further away from the church it had been allowed to grow wild.  As a result there was  profusion of flowers moving in the breeze and the sound of grasshoppers and crickets in the afternoon sunshine.   I think that this photo therefore sums up the place better than a full on shot of the architectural details.  I had my 17-40mm lens on the camera and used settings of ISO100, f/9.0 which resulted in a shutter speed of 1/160secs at a focal length of 40mm.

This was taken at the end of the day, underneath Spaghetti Junction, when I was starting to feel more relaxed about my photography.  This is another shot that I am not sure is better in black and white, I am not sure whether it just looks too complicated, but I am sticking with the monochrome version.  I had my 50mm lens on the camera as I wanted to blur the background somewhat to reduce the business.  However, with an aperture of f/2.8 I think that I blurred the foreground a bit too much as well.  with settings of 1/4000 secs at ISO200 I think I could have afforded a smaller aperture and still had a decent amount of blur.

From a compositional viewpoint, I like the (completely untouched) arrangement of the nuts on the diagonal which is complemented to a degree by the grasses.  I also like the sharpness of the grass in the bottom right had corner which, as it is quite light, leads the eye to the centre of the frame.  The nut in the background also balances those in the foreground and fills in what would otherwise be empty space without interfering with the main subject.

This pallet had been abandoned near the box sections left over from the building of Spaghetti Junction, and had probably been there for some time – it doesn’t exactly look in A1 condition.

I liked the fact that the flowers were growing through it, regardless of their environment.  I used my 50mm lens in order to blur the background sufficiently.  However, the mistake I made was to use too large an aperture, which meant that although the purple flowers are nice and sharp, the white flower is distractingly blurred.  Settings were ISO200 1/32osecs at f/4.0 – plenty of room to close up the aperture.

Other than that it is a photo that turned out as planned, the graffiti in the background is visible enough to show the context of the reclamation by nature, but is soft enough that it does not distract.

Whilst I do like this picture, I have included it mainly because this is typical of the type of photos that I expected to take on the day, rather than those in my previous two posts.  There were better executed pictures taken by the tutor, but of the same type of subject matter.  Therefore, I am not sure I can get that excited about it.  That being said, I would still consider entering it in the camera club competitions!

I was struck by the layers, textures and different shades of brown and green of the overwintered plants across the lake on my way to work.  So, I took a picture which I quite like.

It was taken using my compact, ISO80, 1/50secs at f/3.2.

I used a wide aperture on the lens (50mm of course).  I didn’t want to chop too much out of the scene, for example, I think that the picnic table and the other trees show some context and situation for the shot, after all, it is a public space.  However, I didn’t want them to intrude on the main photograph, so I settled with f/3.5mm and focussed to the front of the picture to ensure that enough of the snowdrops were in focus to make the picture look intentional and not fuzzy.  This also keeps the smaller trees sufficiently focused that they almost act like a screen across the diagonal – marking the boundary between sharp focus and soft.