As Promised

A selection of photo's from this last week.



The daffodil and the next photo were taken in my parents garden on just about the windiest day of the year! I purchased a Hoya close-up set (+1, +2 & +4) and just couldn't wait for a nice, still day to try them out.






A beautiful yellow rose from my Mum's Mothers Day bouquet.



I think this is my favourite of the flower photo's. Again taken outside in the garden on Sunday in high winds, but I love the way it looks like it is reflected in the bottom part of the image.



Another of Toby, this time showing his playfulness (and sharp claws!).



Teatime gathering. Pigeons on the roof of my parents house just waiting for mum to put out the seed.

The next few photo's are my son, Riley, just after getting in the bath ... note the chocolate still around his mouth :o)









And after a good scrub up ...

Meet Toby

One of my better photo's from the weekend. I do have some more to show this week, including some flowers taken with the close up set I purchased recently.

Landscape Panorama

This weeks homework was to create a landscape panorama, so we went out to a local park today and I took a series of shots then put Photoshop through it's paces. This is what I came up with (clickable).

The Dummy Monster

I haven't had any coursework to show you since the depth of field stuff as it's been mainly theory, but I did take a few shots of Riley this weekend I thought you'd like to see. They're not the greatest - in my defence, we've not covered portraits yet, but I had fun taking them and Riley just loved posing ... for a max of 5 seconds then he was off onto the next thing so I didn't really get to 'set' any of these up.

Please excuse the dummy. The young monster totally refused to take it out, and yes I KNOW his hair needs cutting badly!

all photo's are clickable for a better view











I'm quite disappointed with that photo. I was hoping there would be enough light coming in (a bright sunny day) to stop that area being so dark. I just love the fact that I caught him mid-jump and it's such a shame it's so dark and 'noisy'.

And below is my favourite ... the 'Jail Monster' :o)

Week 4 - Depth of Field

Week 4 and we're off automatic mode. This week we learned about Depth of Field and took some practice shots in the classroom using little Lego type people. Here are a few of my shots from that session using the Canon 18-55mm kit lens. All photo's can be clicked for an enlarged view.

With this one I was trying to get the front two people in sharp focus and the little guy at the back in soft focus. It worked, but the depth of field was still pretty deep.



These next few shots get a little better:







Then it was time to set homework, go home and have a little practice. After reading through my notes again and looking at some other photo blogs, I decided to change the lens. For these next shots (my homework!) I am using my Canon 50mm f/1.8 (Dad, it's the one I got for Christmas). The camera is set to AV mode.

These have been taken in quite poor light and show a bit of noise. Even so, I was pretty happy with them as I seem to be getting the hang of this weeks topic. I wont ramble on, so take a look at my homework below and let me know what you think.

The Course - Week One

I got my new printer on Saturday (thank you Alan xxx). It's a Canon Pixma IP4600 and it's great. I printed off a photo or two of Riley in the park last week and they've come out lovely.

While my parents looked after Riley for a couple of hours, Alan and I took the cameras out for a walk around Stockport Market Place. None of the photo's I took jump out at me as great. Here are the best two of a bad bunch.



Looking through the arch from St Mary's Church at the newly refurbished Market Hall



St Mary's Church

Monday evening was cold. VERY cold. Something like -9C and the roads were treacherous, but Alan and I still made it to our first photography lesson.

It was interesting, although no actual photography took place this week as it was all about understanding the basics. Most of it I already knew from the reading up I did before and just after buying my camera. It was stuff like types of camera, image sizes and mega pixels, explaining film speed etc.

We got homework! Now here's where I think our lecturer is a little insane. Listen to this .... he wants us to take our camera's OFF AUTO and take some shots! Mad! And oh dear, we have our orders to thoroughly read our camera manuals too :o)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! This year is holding great promise for this budding photographer and her hubby. Not only did Santa gift me with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens and leave me an IOU for a new photo printer, which should materialise in the next couple of weeks, he also left Alan speechless on Christmas Day by leaving him his very own DSLR!

Santa did give me a sneaky nod a couple of weeks before Christmas Day to let me know he'd got Alan's camera organised so that I was able to book him onto the Photography course as well. Our first session is on Monday and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Today we took advantage of our new cameras and the frosty weather to get out and about and take some photo's. Want to see?

I have first uploaded the original photo and then my final version after a little playing around in Paintshop Pro. I am still at the tampering stage with PSP and I'm not sure really whether to really study this piece of software or save up and purchase Photoshop Elements and learn the ins and outs of that one instead.

Please let me have your comments on my pics. I'll never learn if you aren't prepared to tell me they're crap when they are! ;o)


A frosty day in Woodbank Park, Stockport






Riley refusing to say 'cheeeeese'





Did I get this 'rule of thirds' thingy right with this one?


Woodbank Park Nursery





I thought this one looked more interesting without all that grass at the front and I tried to add a little more colour to the dreary grey sky.


Oooh, this is kinda cold





Wishing you all a safe and happy 2009!

Photography Course

I am signing up for the course I want to do next week. It starts in January so come back and visit me in the new year to see how I get on.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone!

Sundays Snaps

The lighting is still bad with this one. I need to get this sorted out and soon!



A water fountain in Vernon Park, Stockport.



Riley examining a grid in the park.

Ok, so I've had a look around at some other photo blogs and I know I need to start including some information on the settings I've used. I will sort this out for the next batch I publish.

Make Over

What do you think to my snazzy new look? Much more 'me' than the one I was using. I love it and I'd like to thank Gemmak at Gemmak Designs for a creating this great new 'one of a kind' look for me :o) Thanks Gem, you've done a smashing job!

You'll notice there's a space in the sidebar for my photo gallery and other stuff. At the moment there isn't a link as I don't have one, but once I've got a few more photo's in my novice's portfolio, I'll create a gallery somewhere. Umm, now that's a question ... where would be the best place to set up a photo gallery? Probably not a place where all the experience photographers show their work as I'll look like a right numpty!

The forcast for tomorrow is bright with showers and I'm hoping to get outside for a while and take some shots NOT using the automatic mode.

I'd like to thank Rob for the great advice he gives me in his comments. It is all read and re-read and then read again. I am taking it all onboard and hopefully tomorrow will see some improvements.

Silk Flowers

I took this photo on Tuesday at my parents house. Their house lets in so much more light than mine. I'm still waiting for a dry, bright day to get outside and try out some of the other settings.

First Photo's

I didn't really get a lot of time today to investigate all the settings on the camera. I took these using the Auto modes. Yeah, ok I'm chicken LOL, but I need to find some time (during daylight hours) to have a proper play with the settings. I haven't made any changes to these photo's apart a bit of cropping.





The pear at the front was extremely juicy and yummy ;o)



Alan bouncing Riley's ball. I took this one using the 'Sports' mode. I thought it'd stop the movement better than this, but I'm not sure what I need to change to make this happen.



I need to find out what sort of size I need to resize the photo's to for web use. I think these may be a bit too big. Also, does anyone know if it's better to turn off the auto rotate on the camera and do it manually with the software? I heard that there were better/worse ways of doing that to save the quality of the photo, but I don't know which is the better way.