Shoot first, ask questions later.

You know how sometimes you turn up at a beach or somewhere and think, this is nice i will get my camera out later and get a few shots....well that's what i thought.
I arrived at a beach near Appledore with all the family at about 9.30-10.00am, the place was deserted and it looked really pretty.
The local sailing school had some boats at the waterside, waiting for lessons to start, fishermen where out with nets near the edge, and there was the wrecked little boat near us.
We got all our kit out near the old boat and set up for the day.

This was my first holiday away with my new camera and for some reason i was a bit shy of walking around trying to take nice pictures, crouching, moving, climbing things to get interesting angles, for some reason i though i would be making a bit of an exhibition of myself, also i wanted to play with the kids and relax with my wife. One hour later the beach was
busy and most of the shots i wanted where getting lost
in the crowed.

Finally the urge to take some nature and scenery pictures got to much, my chance at the boat School had gone and the abandoned boat had a family right next to it, the fishermen where still out but someone parked a red van on the opposite beach right behind them, all the obvious shots ruined i took a stroll, got some pictures, cursing my luck.

Thinking about it, it could have got cloudy or even rained and ruined my chances too.

The Lesson learnt: See it, shoot it, keep it! or risk Waiting, it may change, then you lose it!

More editing required, i wanted these fishermen to be timeless but the V-dub transporter makes it after 2002, as the van was there i got the fella parascending in too, trying to fill the frame with stuff to look at
when i first arrived at the beach there was a different sailing boat in shot.




These two are like one of those spot the difference competitions now i have edited them. I like to think this is now anytime after 1950 (the sailing boat is just a bit modern looking to me, i know nothing about boats).







The very frustrating 'abandoned boat shot', i wanted to shoot from sand level, so, more foreground, with the boat hiding the '10' signs and still get the hut and flag in, because i waited a family set up all their beach stuff right next to the boat. Fortunately they went for a swim so i got a quick compromised shot of what i wanted, it still made my desktop background for 4 months.

Processing can be fun !!!

So i finally got a camera that's capable of producing the images i want to shoot.

So everything should be easy now right? ......er yeah, but there's a whole load of other issues, like only half of the picture is interesting, I got some great pics of some geese all in a line and some inconsiderate council workers stuck a rubbish bin on the other side of the bank, and its bright red! DOH!!! I was so exited about the line of Geese i didn't see the bin through the viewfinder. Thankfully editing software saved the day.

Some time back i did some web design for a local school i was working at, so i was not too frightened about copying images and manipulating them. Some of my early crops didn't consider the size of the file left after cropping, they blurred so badly they where useless. This is not a tutorial, but, always work on a copy never the original image, then you will have something to go back to when the drawing board breaks ;-)





Two for the price of one, just a straight crop, didn't want to lose the original image, that's a holiday memory the crop is arguably, arty.















My camera came with some editing wares, Windows Photo Gallery has a limited selection and there's Photoshop, Gimp which is my tool of choice, free, feature rich (no CMYK yet, but hopefully soon) and professional enough for me.

SO i was working on the Isle of Dogs for a bit, i took my camera to shoot the docks, cranes, boats etc. and noticed that the buildings where not straight checked my pictures the ground was but the buildings all had a bit of a lean.


Before:
Leaning tower of Barclays.

Apparently this is common, real photograghers have special lenses, us mortals have vanishing point tools in Photoshop and perspective tools in Gimp.




The black and white is done by clicking greyscale in my editing software, you can do it with Windows Photo Gallery with the colour tool.

After:
Perspective and greyscale Barclays now propped up straight and not a penny of taxpayers money spent.








Any package you use will have a forum, or just search the help menu's when i worked in IT it was not 'what you know about computers' it was knowing how to find the information you needed that always saved the day and its the same with editing, to cure this problem i just had to search:
'Photoshop leaning buildings' and i got 75,000 results most of which where very good tutorials.

So what about the camera

I bought the lumix Fz18 about 18 months ago, it has drawn me into being a keen amateur by being so universal.
Being so light and simple means it can be used anywhere without fuss and having that fantastic zoom makes it really good for birds and sport shots as well as the wide angle for snappy family and events pictures.
The fantastic AI function means even my 5 yr old can take great pictures with it.
theres a link here to a review or just google it if you are interested.

http://www.digicamreview.com/panasonic_lumix_dmc_fz18_review.htm

heres what it looks like

A bit of Background

I have never run a Blog before and have not really worked out what you are supposed to do with them, here i go feet first leap then look.

Why am i writing this?
I wanted somewhere to put some of my pictures and to get some feedback if anyone ever reads this.
I looked into competitions and found that professional photographers are having lots of issues with rights control of pics entered.
I will link to rights issues later on as it is important that us amateurs don't kill an established industry.

Many many years ago in Barking (East London), there was a young lad who wondered, what should i be when i grow up? (I think my parents where getting concerned about my lack of direction, i was probably 7 or 8 years old and showing no signs of looking forward to a nice career in Dads DIY shop.)
Sometime during the next few weeks i while watching my usual diet of nature programs and The High Chaperal, David Attenborough did something i had never seen him do before, he stopped chatting about animals and drove (in a Land Rover) to a man in a tent in the middle of nowhere, or Kenya, i forget which (i was only 8 fer-*$%"@s sake)! This other guy was one of the worlds premier nature photographers, Mr A. and the other fella chatted about what he was shooting today and then they showed, through the miracle of modern technicolour television, some of his pictures.
Hmmm. Tent, big view, foreign travel, Land Rover, no one telling you what to do or when to do it (as far as i could see), getting paid lots of money, meeting Mr A. for chats about what a great bloke you are and how inspiring your pictures are, got it!!!! ''Mum, Dad, i know what i want to do when i grow up.... I want to be a wildlife photographer!" "Don't be silly son, you'd need a university education and contacts in all the right places to do a job like that, jobs like that are for rich kids! What about Fords or the railways, now there's a job for life."

In 1974 when you where 8 dad knows best, end of dream.

Punk came and went so did school and the 80's where so good we listened to 60's and 70's music for a decade joined bands and watched 'The Young One's, Easyrider, Woodstock Festival and went camping at bike shows, music festivals and anywhere we liked, which was anywhere there where trees fields and wildlife. Cameras where cheap nasty without zoom and you had to go to boots to get the pictures developed and it was expensive, Dad was right.

So eventually the 80's ended (hurah! it took a whole decade!) and we drifted seamlessly from hairy bikers to dirty ravers (it was so Woodstock!!! i think!) cameras where still rubbish i would get one every few years try it get frustrated and give up.

A trip around the world in 94-95 further frustrated me i still had rubbish film cameras with little or no zoom or shutter adjustment just point and squirt, i got some nice pics sent the best ones to friends and family at home to 'share the experience' and never saw more than a half dozen again.

By the end of the 90's i was in a band again and our other guitarist, got his photographer mate to come down and do pics. He brought with him his new state of the art digital camera, it was the dog's, no film, process it on the PC and away you go, probably 3-5 mega pixels, AWESOME!!!(this was press photographer quality stuff)

One year or so later i got knocked of my bike (tail ended at a roundabout), I thought i was in for a few quid this time, the guilty party and the woman i was knocked into had plenty of time to chat at the side of the road, while i lay in the middle of the road dreaming about the shiny red Ducati i was going to buy when i got this sorted out. Short version is i got £400 scrap value for my bike and tough titties, so, just enough for a computer then, and a while after that, with a Cycling holiday in Spain on the horizon i bought a Cannon 1.3 mega pixel with 3x optical zoom it cost about £300. With it i took one what is still one of my favourite photos of my Wife on her bike somewhere between Castro Urdiales and Larado

Pic:001
Here's the Missus before the promotion, when she was still the girlfriend, in northern Spain.
We didn't know she was pregnant when we left for 2 weeks riding the mountainous north august 2002.











The years have sped by, a new house later and the kids are at school and old enough to take camping, 3 mega pixel cameras are cheap as chips, time is short, but every once in a while i get a little inspired and get out whatever snappy cam i have to hand and start shooting 'the natural world'.
Usually only to find that i didn't have enough zoom or couldn't focus that close to the subject.

Pic:002. Slug and Woodlice on log back garden 2004

OK, so i got my first half decent camera, 18 months ago or 35yrs later depending, on your outlook, i am starting to make excuses to go and use it.

Some of you will scoff but my 'half decent camera' is a Lumix Fz18 compact. i needed a camera for all things quick light and easy, lots of zoom and a DSLR was just too expensive for an out and out noob like me, maybe in a couple of years a second hand one will appear for the right price.

I think i may be getting the bug.

I am also getting a number of projects together the snow covered tree at the top of the page will also have spring, summer and autumn added to its folder so i get an all seasons set of the same tree, or so i hope, i want to arrive at about 7pm so the sun is about the same place as it was at 3pm in winter.

I will work my way through all the Corny arty shots you see on photography sites, you know the ones, car lights speeding trough a junction at night on long exposure, drops hitting water with fast shutter as well as wildlife stuff too. this will in no way be a tutorial but if you have a question i will try my best to answer it.