The Royal Wedding.

In the days leading up to the wedding I thought the whole thing was over rated, just another wedding and disagreed with it being made so public. However, I was made to watch it with my bod at work and seeing the atmosphere in London made me want to be there - for photography reasons only of course.
On my way home from work, in the little break over lunch hour I spotted a few houses that had indeed put flags up to mark such an occasion. So of course, I grabbed my camera and my brothers bike (I don't own one ya' see) and whizzed round snapping pictures of any houses that had any signs of celebrations.
I was though disapointed in the lack of events, family gatherings, street parties and so on being held in Davenham. I only came across one.
So here we go, a couple of snaps from around Davenham..

I blogged this one first purely because it is the only picture I have that isn't specifically of a house.
This car clearly belongs to somebody who wants the everybody, everywhere they go to know they are celebrating the royal wedding. I didn't even know that they had made flags for your car for todays special occasion - unless these have been saved from the world cup, which is of course a possibility.

This image wont mean much to you lot, but it is one of my favourites purely because of who lives there. She's a lovely woman, and will be 99 next week so the fact that she still has put a flag up put a smile on my face.

Again, this house belongs to another little old lady. Slightly more obvious this time though due to the little trolley outside the door besides the flag. I like the perspective given from the gates and iron fencing in this image, the post is out of focus to so doesn't distract the eyes.

A third elderly persons house decorated for the Royal Wedding, so far it seems it is only the older generation interested in the countries monarchy.
I like this image because it isn't dominated by the flags and has been framed central.

This image would be so much better if the flag was out flat, however it was not going to happen, the wind refused t blow it back into place.

I have no particular reason to like this photo and I'm not yet 100% convinced that I do?

Again, no reason to like this image particularly. I'm sure its just the vivid colours that do it..

And a third time.. final time too though.

Cant decide which of these I prefer, In one i like the fact that the flag is perfectly flat, in the other i like the stronger perspective. If I could merge the two together it would be perfect.

This is the closest to a street party I was going to get, a couple of neighbours having a BBQ.
I took this image whilst talking to them as it kept the scene fairly natural, the young children at the front just make it, with the confused and suspicious looks up on there faces.

Of course, I couldn't just leave without taking there group photo and they all very kindly let me.. including the women, without complaining that they hadn't done there hair either.
Turned out one of them knew my tutor as well!
A very lovely bunch of people.

When I set out to take these pictures, because I hadn't seen anything extravagant, I knew that none of the image would turn out overly successful, and most haven't. I couldn't capture anything in an "arty farty" way, because no houses were "arty farty" enough. However, there a couple that I am pleased with. You probably won't be at all amused by them though, and they probably won't mean anything to you, but I am happy with my shots. Disapointed by Davenhams lack of enthusiam, but to be fair, considering it is a village full of elderly people we did pretty well I suppose.

Congratulation Will & Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Photoshopping adventures.

Spent my night tonight playing around on Photoshop, celebrate us being re-united. Having not long got it back I've only recently realised just how much i rely on the incredible piece of software. Though, it has to be said we have had quite a few arguments in our time together and don't always see eye to eye, but its like that in most relationships isn't it?!

My first edit of the evening was very simple..
Here's the image before i change anything:

And the image after I had a play:

Spot the difference?
There is only one to find..Well, one obvious one.

I didn't edit this image for any reason in particular, there wasn't anything I disliked about it, it was just an easy one to mess about with.
Admittedly my "cloning" skills are not quite up to scratch, but it is something I'm working on. I prefer the edit purely for the reason the tax disk cannot be seen, it becomes less distracting and focuses upon the parking fine that has been issued. I have also burnt in the side of the car ever so slightly and the rusty bonnet as well just to darken it.

The second edit of the evening, again very simple..
Before anything changed:

In all honesty I wasn't so keen on this photograph purely because I found the paddling pool and the shadow to be too distracting and unnecessary.

After playing in Photoshop:

Two obvious differences this time. One very subtle one.

My attempt at cloning is even worse on this image. The grass has become out of focus, this however wouldn't be a problem to me if it wasn't for the fact its a bit patchy around the wheel of Menna's dolly's pram. The confused look on Menna's face just makes this image though, I love it. I also had a play with the dodge and burn tool here, burnt in some detail to Menna's pretty little face, not much though. I dodged part of the background, again, not by much. I do think the lack of paddling pool and shadow increases its strength as a photograph, despite it not being one of my strongest images, or edits. You may have noticed I cropped this image as well.


I think its safe to say that the only thing that got me through this photoshopping session was the beautiful Hollywood Undead album i recently purchased. I am slowly getting a little more confident using photoshop though, so hopefully HU will help me get completely confident and turn me in to a photoshopping genius (nahh, that wont ever happen). I must congratulate HU though on producing such an amazing album, its so funny and just genius.

But, back to photography.
Hoping to attempt some joiners over the next few days. David Hockney style.
Of course they won't ever live up to his standard of creation but we shall just have to see what we get. Should be fun experimenting.

Liverpool.

Trip to Liverpool where I didn't venture far from Liverpool One sadly, so I didn't take many photos. Here's a couple of those I did take though.

I like this image as the framing shows the majority of noise in the left hand side of the image, therefore the right is more peaceful.

The different lines and textures of this image make it an interesting image to look at. The person that can be seen ever so slightly shouldn't be there, and I wish I had taken the image again after he had walked through.

I love this photograph purely because of the man thats sat on his own in the bottom right hand corner. He stands out because the majority of the image is a shade of orange and he is in black.

I like the lines and tones within this photograph, the textures as well are interesting as there are so many different ones.

This final image is simply just a zoomed in version of the one above and I dont like it as much as I do the one above.

Becky.. again.

I got photoshop back today. Oh how I've missed it.
In celebration of getting the software back I couldn't not have a play. The first set of pictures I had any editing ideas for were the ones from my shoot with Beck. I'm only uploading one edit though, too much other work to be getting on with for now.

Walking in a winter wonderland..

Admittedly it isn't winter. And the image doesn't even look like it was taken in winter. But that title was the best I could think of.

I love this photograph for the pure reason that the man I have photographed is completely unaware I have taken his picture. He is however aware of the fact that I have a camera.
The lighting is purely natural and I think I got the exposure just right. The reflection of the road and his foot just makes the image that little stronger in my opinion. It is definately one of my favourite images I have taken recently.

Down at the courts..

This was originally my preferred idea for my location portrait shoot. However due to the fact that the Courts were rather busy (silly people being naughty caused that) I wasn't able to do it in time. However when I was offered the opportunity to go back shoot to of the ushers anyway, no way on Earth was I turning that down!

Target One: Ray King.

I prefer the second image overall. I think it shows the importance of his job more and reflects him as person more. However I prefer the framing of the first image as its more central.

Target two: Kate .. surname unknown.

I love the first image purely because all though it looks posed it isnt.The second image i would prefer if she was framed on the other side, to the left. Had I included the top of her head as well it would be better. Otherwise I love it. Again though, it is the final image that is my favourite. It doesnt show her as being formal depsite being outside a court house in her uniform. It shows her own true personality and how much of a happy person she is.

Target three: The pair.

The first image here is my favourite of the three, they're both happy and laughing and it is entirely natural. The second one isn't quite as strong, neither is the third. However I absolutely adore the facial expression in the third image. They weren't being silly, they were just talking to each other.

For this shoot I didnt tell my models to do anything, I just let then stand and talk as they usually would and shoot. Of course though they were aware of the cameras presence.
Pretty pleased with my results. Though some editing is required becasue certain areas are bleached. That will have to wait till I have photoshop though (this weekend hopefully :D)

Northwich.

Went for a walk through the lovely town of Northwich the other day. Armed with my camera and a tele-zoom lens.
I must say, I was rather surprised at how pretty the little town looked in the sunshine. Never thought that Northwich could look good. Admittedly i didn't venture into the town centre, I remained at the outskirts but it really did look lovely.
LOOK!

Three very pink trees's. the third image is my favourite out of them all. I think its because of the vibrant green behind the pink, rather than just a solid pink image.

Taken from the midpoint of Castle hill in Northwich, these two images are almost birds eye view. My favourite of the two is the top one where it is literally just the top of the house that can be seen. Its a nice compostion of lines in a variety of directions.

Gettin' a close up of this flower was difficult considering i'm still learning the lens. Not particularly fussed on the image however I do like the composition, because the subject isnt in the centre of the frame.

And finally a picture of a tree..
This tree still seems rather autumny, what with the red leaves and all. I like the feeling of this image, its a little mixed buh it fun. The two colours work well together and neither dominate the frame.

Theres my pretty little walk round the edges of Northwich. I hope you agree with me?!

SU Conservatory

This post sounds a little dull i realise. However I have spent the past two days sat in MCC Student Union Executive Committee Office with a fellow student officer going through mass amounts of paperwork, filling in forms and finding out what we could change to make our union stronger. We got a lot done in all honesty. Anyway, I found at one particular point that I just had to take some pictures, the paperwork was getting a tiny bit much.

I like the bright colours spread out through this image in small clumps. The unorganised desk also adds to the atmosphere of the photograph. It is though my tatty handwriting you can see on the note-pad (proof we were working!)

Again it is the bright colours I like the most about this image. As well as the fact that Emilys outline is visable via a reflection i the mac screen. The daffodils add that bit more colour and nice feeling to the photograph as well.
Some might think that this image is just a cropped version of the one above when in fact it isn't, it's just zoomed in further. I think this is why i prefer this image, there is less going on and it still shows what was going on.

The third and final image is Emily Spiers, my fellow officer I have spent the tow days with. Her company is probably the only thing that stopped me wanting to shoot myself.. haha.

Daffodils

We only have two in our garden this year, I have no idea where all of last years have disappeared too. We seemed to have hundreds of them this time last spring. I decided it best to photograph these two poor daffodils incase they too fail to return next year.

This first daffodil has more of a tonal range due to the two different shades of yellow present in the flower. Something has clearly had a good munch on one of the petals as well.

I personally prefer this image of the daffodil. I'm not sure why, it could just be because no little creature has been eating it for its dinner so it is fuller, I really don't know.

Self Portrait.

So you've seen my studio shoot. And my location shoot, for this portrait project. I suppose it's only fair that I should show you my self portrait as well.

Its very abstract and trying to figure out what was what proved a challenge. Not even I could remember where it was taken (thats pretty bad i know!) Eventually though it was Danni that solved the mystery.

The image should be a simple monotone one however the scanner seems to have added a slight green tinge to the image. Not really sure why thats happened. But you get the gist of the picture. Good look trying to figure it all out, Im not going to explain. That would be too easy, too nice :)

Massey Ferguson 135

Flicking my way through magazines today at work, unexpectedly came across the photograph below. I took it the other week and emailed it off to Classic Massey, had no idea that it would be printed in this issue though. Was a lovely surprise.

National Conference 2011

Its been a while since I last blogged and I suppose that one doesnt really count does it? Ahh well.
Been a busy week. Attended a 3 day conference organised by the NUS with a fellow exec officer, Emily Spiers (sustainability officer) and found it great fun and incredibly interesting.
A lot of voting was involved, my poor arms have never been flung up and down so many times. New delegates for the National Executive Committee along with finding out plenty of information on how to improve our own exec, we also learnt more of the actual damage these costs will cause.
Back to the point (being a photography blog) I did take plenty of images whilst there. they aren't very good, I didn't go prepared for most environments and so struggled a little. timing as well was limited due to the jam packed schedule.
Still, heres a few of the best.

Reflection in the over head baggage area.

Passing by places

and again..

In the conference - speaker is Usman Ali (VPHE)

Balloon at the fringe "cuts cuts cuts"

View of the Sage from Quayside.

Bridges.

Out of focus reflective image of the bridge lit up.

Inside the Sage.

View of the Sage at night.

Viewing the bridges out of the Sage windows.

Old building reflected in new.

Fellow exec officer, Emily.

Train journey home. Evening reflection in the window, out of fosuc due to movement and darkness of the train.