Sunday 29 August 2010

The Rat Pack

Just got back from a great night at Conkers with Dean, Frank and Sammy collectively known as the Rat Pack.

We were invited by Wayne, AKA Dean Martin to come and photograph their tribute band when they played at Conkers auditorium, what a great night loads of atmosphere, good music and a couple of sexy dancers thrown in what more could you wish for..... here's some images, all of them taken without flash and shutter speeds at a min of 1/100 sec, ISO min 800 and a max of 3200:

Dean and the Showgirl                                                        Sammy belting it out















Frank making an entrance






                Dean and his drink








Old blue eyes















The Showgirl                                                               The Rat Pack


















Center Stage

Thursday 26 August 2010

A rainy night at Branston

The day was sunny and bright, I got my camera out to go to the Club meeting at Branston golf club to have a walk along the river.... then getting the car it happened, rain! just a smidgen at first by the time I got to Burton it was truly a downpour. Not wanting to let my comrades down I pressed on to see if anyone was as delusional as me...... you wouldn't believe it but there was Eric, umbrella in hand and camera bag over his shoulder patiently waiting. So now the two of us stood patiently waiting .... and waited ... and waited, and after a very long minute we decided sod it! lets get a drink. just as we were sitting down two other stalwarts, Lu and Ralph arrived and made it four.

We decided that there was nothing better to do that make a night of it me and Eric on the Smirnoff and Coors and Lu and Ralph on the hard stuff.... J2O, well it was Cranberry J2O.

Whilst sitting there setting the photography world to rights we started taking pictures, and blow me Eric gets a kiss from a female and was propositioned... to take some pictures of the newly changed bar area. So off he go's with his trusty 20 year old table tripod and his brand new 5D MKII, sprawling himself across the bar to get  'the' picture.

I meanwhile I, not wanted to exert myself stayed in my comfy chair and put on my f2.8 70-200mm.

Here's some pics to prove it:

The 19th Hole

ISO 1600
f2.8
1/40 sec
180.0 mm














Eric at close quarters


ISO 1600
f4.0
1/640 sec & Speedlite
105.0 mm





Left on the shelf


ISO 1600
f2.8
1/125 sec
180.0 mm





The last Smirnoff

ISO 1600
f2.8
1/10 sec
70.0 mm

City & Guilds College Courses

Hi all,
I have just been speaking to Chris, who the Program Area Manager at the College, we were talking about enrolment on the up and coming photography courses, which are staring on Sat 18th September for 16 weeks in 4 hour sessions.
During the conversation, it became apparent that there will a few changes to the course program....

The first main one is that you will be able to work on whatever City and Guilds unit you want, independently from the rest of the students.

There will be fixed 1-hour tutorials in each Saturday class these may be on techniques or other artists in the style of etc etc.

Lastly, Chris suggested that he might participate in the classes/ tutorials thus giving a broader range of teaching input.

If you want to enrol just turn up at one of the enrolment days, alternatively as a last option turn up on the course day and enrol then. If you are not sure which units you want to progress, you will be sorting this out on the first class, for more information have a look at the city and guilds website for 7512 photography

Looking forward to this next course and … the new BPS club year!

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Lhotte take 2

I've just finished editing the final images from the Lhotte summer location shoot at Calke Abbey.

All the images were taken with my Canon 5D MKII, my Sigma APO DG EX f2.8 lens and I used a 580EXII speedlite and a circular reflector to fill some of the shadows and it was a very sunny day I positioned Lhotte  in the shade under trees and bounced light with the reflector, in the event of the sun going in I used the speedlite...... here are my favourite shots




 

























Saturday 14 August 2010

North Wales coast

Another family holiday in our trusty caravan, staying at a lovely CL site in Old Colwyn. As always my camera in hand to capture those precious moments, sadly though I can never be in them, Secretly I'm hoping my eldest daughter will show an interest in taking pictures, I have given her my old 2MP Sony Cyber-shot digital camera we'll have to see how she develops. Apart from staying in Old Colwyn we visited Rhyl, Llandudno and the Great Orme and Conwy. Heres a few images to be going on with:

This is the view from the CL site, which is the wind farms out to sea in the Dee Estuary.

This is the disused and derelict Colwyn Pier.

And this time with a sunset.


Views from Llandudno.

A Hawk over Conwy Castle.

And lastly one of those precious moments on Conwy harbour front just outside the smallest house in Great Britain. At least the golden rule of portrait composition is right, three is an odd number isn't it?







Wednesday 4 August 2010

Sewerby Hall Children's Zoo

Whilst on my holiday at Filey we visited Sewerby Hall and Gardens, it also had a children's zoo too, the following images were all taken with my Canon 5D MKII and my Sigma 70-200mm APO GD EX f/2.8
















































































leading lines....

Having seen Eric's leading lines I decided to have a look at my images from the holiday to Filey to see if I had subconsciously or consciously included any leading lines in them, whilst going through them it became apparent that there was some attempt to include leading lines into some images, have a look at the following images and comment on whether:

a) they constitute a leading line
b) the leading line improves the shot
c) the line should be leading towards something