52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 32 – Shallow Depth of Field
Posted on May 1, 2017
To my mind, the manipulation of depth of field that is possible with a DSLR camera is one of the most creative aspects of photography. As The Girl That Dreams Awake rightly says in setting this week’s theme, it is most commonly used in macro and portrait photography.
Well, I don’t take many portraits but I do photograph a lot of flowers, where shallow depth of field is particularly effective. This close-up (as opposed to macro) image of a bud about to open was shot at ƒ2.8 – as big an aperture as it gets on that particular lens – in order to throw the background out of focus, providing some pleasing bokeh to complement the subject.
R is for Raindrops
Posted on April 28, 2017
This tulip was actually a lovely shade of buttercup yellow, but it’s easier to see the raindrops in monochrome.
Thursday Doors: Chartres – final instalment
Posted on April 27, 2017
A last set of doors from the cathedral town of Chartres. Most of these are well cared-for, but interesting nonetheless:
I don’t really understand why the railings on this window are on the inside:
More tidy doors:
For the sake of variety, a blue door, slightly tatty:
And, to finish with, a door and an ex-door next to each other:
Thursday Doors 27 April 2017
Weekly Photo Challenge: Wanderlust
Posted on April 27, 2017
I have been very fortunate to travel widely – and not always on business – but the ten years we spent living an working in Abu Dhabi were particularly memorable: and, of course, completely different in almost every way to what we were used to.
On the nature reserve of Sir Bani Yas Island, in the Arabian Gulf, we went for a game drive at sunset, where I found this lone oryx, which seems to have some wanderlust of its own. There really was a yellow cast to the sky as the sun was going down.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: RGB
Posted on April 26, 2017
This week’s Tuesday Challenge on Dutch Goes The Photo! was to post an image containing the three key photographic colours of red, green and blue. Simple enough, you might think but although I have lots of shots with two out of the three, there weren’t so many that included all of them.
However, I found this: it’s a windsock at a small local airfield that has an annual summer air show. As you can see from the bend of the pole to which it is attached, it was quite a windy day, but a fast exposure (1/750) effectively froze the movement to reveal all the colours.
Tuesdays of Texture: Boulangerie
Posted on April 25, 2017
This shop sign provides an attractive juxtaposition of textures with the wall on which it is set, above a boulangerie (bakery) in the town of St Junien.
To put it into context, here is the street view:
52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 31 – Empty Space
Posted on April 24, 2017
It’s good to have The Girl That Dreams Awake back and resuming her 52 Weeks Photo Challenge with the theme of ‘Empty Space’.
I do believe that sometimes less is more, and it isn’t always necessary to fill the frame with your subject.
And I particularly enjoy photographing fireworks: like snowflakes, every one is different. Some are best viewed in ‘full frame’, but with some thoughtful cropping a lot of empty space can enhance an image, as in this example.
It’s a rocket that was part of last year’s Fête Nationale display in our local village. However, with a little imagination you could also see it as a picture of a sunrise, taken from outer (and therefore empty) space.
P is for Parisians
Posted on April 21, 2017
Last year we were in Paris and took a trip down the River Seine on a bateau-mouche. It was around lunchtime on a pleasant sunny day, so people came outside to eat their lunch. These particular Parisians were sitting on a set of steps that lead up from the river to the embankment.
This shot works much better in monochrome than colour because of the strong lines, with the steps providing a pleasing diagonal.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: O or P
Thursday Doors: Chartres – Down to earth
Posted on April 20, 2017
After last week’s exploration of the cathedral, we’re back to secular Chartres for the next instalment. However, to ease us back in to less spiritual matters here are a couple of images of doors from the immediate environs of the Cathedral.
These doors are in the gardens immediately surrounding the cathedral itself. I suspect it’s where they keep the lawnmower.
This building houses one of the administrative offices of the cathedral:
And, inevitably, there’s the souvenir shop…
Speaking of shops:
One practical problem for the door-hunter in Chartres is that the street are narrow, even before taking into account the cars that are parked all along them, so it’s not always possible to get a ‘head-on’ view…
…although we do our best.
Thursday Doors 20 April 2017
Weekly Photo Challenge: Earth
Posted on April 20, 2017
WordPress is marking Earth Day this coming Saturday by taking ‘Earth’ as the subject for this week’s Photo Challenge.
In the same spirit, I’m recycling – in this case, an image from a previous post. Admittedly, though, this also has a lot to do with the fact that I’m travelling this week and so don’t have access to my full photo collection.
This field is no more than a few hundred yards from my house in rural France. It rained quite heavily after the crop was harvested, highlighting the lines drawn by the farmer’s plough.
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