Picture from my window

Just testing

Patch the Cat

Just testing the set up for blogging from my photo gallery.

Day 15 - The Family Silver

Yesterday morning I was trying to get a shot of one of our cats for the blog but he was being incredibly uncooperative so as I headed back to my study to put the camera away I saw this shot.  On the top of a short bookcase in the dining room we have an arrangement of semi-precious items including the silver photo frame, a pair of silver plated goblets and a crystal glass decanter and matching tumblers.  The most precious things about the items are the memories associated with them.  The decanter and glasses we have had for a long time and sometimes the decanter actually has something in it.  The goblets were bought for our silver wedding anniversary by Lynne's family over seven years ago now.  I bought Lynne the silver frame for either her birthday or Christmas some years ago.  The photo was one from our wedding slides which Lynne had copied to a photograph as a present for me.  Thinking about it now I realise that my memory of the hard facts is somewhat flaky but the sentiment is still there.  We've been together for over 35 years now and these items span those years and take pride of place in our home.  They are not expensive but they irreplaceable.  

Day 14 - The Decisive Moment

A bit of a grand title taking the name of a book by Henri Cartier-Bresson but I've had a burst of enthusiasm because we're into a new month.  I'm breaking all the rules by having two images today in the hope that it makes up for a two week gap.  Anyhow I was out walking with Evey dog near the house yesterday morning just after the heavy rains had finished and I was wanting to make some nice autumnal pictures with lots of freshly fallen leaves.  I also shot some images of the stream in full flood and some new pictures of the remains of Mytholmebridge Viaduct which was demolished about thirty years ago.  I'll probably make a post in my normal blog with some of those images later in the week.

It hadn't actually stopped raining when we set off so I had my camera with just the 50mm lens stuffed into my little pouch (a bigger lens on the camera just wouldn't fit in the pouch, I tried).  As we walked the rain eased off and then eventually stopped so I fired off a few shots as we walked.  As we crossed over the road into the other woods we started to get some small patches of blue sky and occasional sightings of the sun.  This time of the year is quite good in the woods because not all of the leaves have fallen but the canopy has thinned out enough to let some of the sun get through to the ground.

So the first shot is when the sun was shining and making shadows with the trees across the ground and the tree themselves.  The second shot was just ten seconds later when the sun had gone back behind the clouds to make the light duller and more even.  For the second shot I had bumped the ISO setting up from 100 to 400 so I could keep the same shutter speed and aperture.  I did exactly the same post processing on both images so that it's a fair comparison.

Which is the better image?  Well, it depends on what you are looking for I guess.  The first image is very contrasty and the colours are much brighter which is nice but the dark areas have lost detail and the light areas are a bit blown out.  The whole image feels a lot softer, although I think it could be that the focus point it a little further back making the nearest tree slightly blurred.  The second image has far more detail in the dark areas and the only part that is blown out is the sky in the background.  However the lack of contrast makes it quite flat and the absence of shadows on the ground don't give as much depth as the first image.

In conclusion, neither image is a masterpiece for many reasons.  There's no real subject and no particular path through the composition so I find my eye just jumping around the frame.  They're too busy, although I suppose there is an element of repetition but it's not very strong.  Between the two I prefer the first because I like the high contrast and I'm not too concerned about the lack of detail in the shadow.  Not really a decisive moment but I guess it's a fair illustration of how ten seconds can make a big difference.

Day 13 - The Kiss 2

As I suggested yesterday I thought I'd take the last image and spend some time trying to improve it and  these are the adjustments I have made.  Firstly I have blurred the hair of the girl a little to stop it looking as though it's in sharp focus so that it doesn't pull the eye away from the heads.  For the same reason I have also darkened parts of both bodies especially where there were areas of high contrast.  To accentuate the heads a little more I've added a bit more contrast and sharpened slightly.  I cloned out the light patches in the top right hand corner and between the two bodies.  Then I added a vignette to make the corners darker and bring out the statue from the background.  Finally I have increased the colour saturation to really make the whole statue pop.   I think the improvement was well worth the effort.

Day 12 - The Kiss

We have this little sculpture which we have in our dining room that was bought for us some time ago.  I can't remember who bought it or what the occasion although I suspect it could have been a wedding anniversary.  We had a party for our 25th but I felt that we'd had it longer than that (7 years ago I think).  Anyhow the sculpture alternates its position, with the artificial flower display from Day 6, between the window sill and the wooden pedestal in the corner of the room.  The sculpture has the window position during the summer because it doesn't obscure the garden as much as the flower display.  The flower display has the window position during the winter as there are no flowers out there during the winter.

I always thought the statue was called 'The Kiss' like many other sculptures (for example Rodin and Klimt) so I decided to look it up.  It has a signature on the back which reads 'Martel' so started out by searching on Google.  Not too much success to begin with but eventually tracked it down and found out that it is actually called 'Exchange of Rings'.  The holes in the head signify the rings and the kiss is the first kiss after taking the marriage vows.  I haven't been able to pin down who the sculptor is although there were a couple for French cubist sculptors called Jan and Joel Martel so it could be them.

As with day6 I've been experimenting with my flashgun again.  I was using a shallow depth of field and concentrating on getting the focus on the kiss (or the rings).  Because of the angle I have taken the picture the girls hair is also in focus which is pulling my eye away from the main subject of the image.  I might have a go at blurring the hair to see if it improves the image and I might replace this version of the photo or just add the new version for comparison.

Day 11 - Tree Fungus

After finally managing to rid my daughters computer of the fake anti virus program I went out for a walk in a nearby woods.  Just a quick post today as I'm so far behind. Here's an impressive fungus I saw as I was walking around.  I've lots more photos from the walk and I'll put them in my main blog later in the week.