Here are a couple of night time shot taken recently in Poole, Dorset to mark the 11th November 2011. I had originally hoped to venture outside during the daytime to capture some shots but in the end had to find my inspiration after dark.
It was pretty much impossible to avoid the fact that the date could be expressed as 11/11/11 recently, with numerologists crawling out of the woodwork everywhere you looked, while getting incredibly excited at the prospect of this once in a century event (these events seem to happen far more regularly than the excitement they generate would suggest).
There was even a Flickr group created especially for the occasion, as well as numerous other sites set-up to encourage people to document the day and I decided that I wasn’t going to miss a good opportunity to create some photographs. I was quietly considering the options available to me when I suddenly remembered seeing these lights embedded into the pavement back during the summer but was unsure at the time how to make an interesting shot with them. Fortunately 11/11/11 gave me the perfect opportunity to return for another attempt.
I don’t really need much of an excuse to take a photograph, even if I am a little dubious at times about the significance of the event in question!
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So last night we went along to see some fireworks at a local display and the venue we had chosen also had a fun fair with a bunch of rides featuring lots of neon lights and motion. It had been raining quite heavily when we left the house and I hadn’t taken my ‘proper‘ camera with me. So I nonchalantly took out my iPhone 4S and snapped a few impromptu images shortly after we arrived. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised with the result of one of the shots in particular.
I think what is really incredible is that the iPhone camera (and lots of other mobile phones I’m sure) have the potential to capture such decent quality shots in less than ideal conditions. It’s wonderful to have such a capable camera in my pocket with me everywhere I go and from now on I’m going to make a more concerted effort to use it. I think Chase Jarvis may have actually been onto something when he said that The Best Camera is the One That’s with You.
This has really made me reconsider how I think about my iPhone camera in relation to my Canon DSLR. I guess at the end of the day all that matters is making the shot, everything else is kind of irrelevant.
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I’ve been thinking about it since Thursday and wanted to take a moment to post something about Steve Job’s passing.
I found out that Steve Jobs had passed away just under a week ago while eating breakfast and scanning the headlines using my iPhone, which has become part of my morning routine over the last few years. It was of course incredibly sad news and shocking despite knowing that Steve had been unwell for some time. I think it is fair to say that we all realised this was going to happen, especially following his resignation as CEO of Apple back in August but I don’t think anyone expected it to happen quite so soon. It was perhaps poetic that I along with many others learned of his passing while using one of Apple’s iconic devices.
I was of course saddened to learn of his death but not having known the man personally I didn’t feel the emotional connection that some people seem to have felt, judging by the numerous tweets and blogs posts that I have subsequently read. I did however spend my drive that morning on my way to work thinking about Steve Jobs passing. I thought about the legacy he leaves behind and the impact he has made on the technology landscape. He was multifaceted. A perfectionist and by all accounts could be very difficult to work with or work for but he was unquestionably driven and his drive has to be the biggest factor in pushing him to succeed and create the innovations that he will be forever be remembered for. I did not however intend for this post to simply be a shrine to Steve Jobs – there are already plenty of those available elsewhere, no doubt written far more eloquently than I could possibly manage.
While driving home that evening I turned on the radio and caught the second half of his 2005 Stanford speech. I do remember hearing this speech before only this time it felt even more poignant and personal and I have to admit I actually had a tear in my eye towards the end. I don’t think I have ever shed a tear due to the passing of a company CEO or somebody in the public eye but this was a little different. When you listen to Steve talk about life and death you forget who is speaking and just hear a universal message that applies to us all. The video is posted at the end of this post and the whole speech is moving but here are a couple of extracts I felt were particularly poignant:
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
– Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005
The sentiment is both incredibly profound and completely true and has been at the back of my mind since hearing it. It makes me think about my own life and making the most of the time I have. We each have a responsibility to ensure our own individual happiness as nobody else can do this for us.
Stay hungry, stay foolish and thanks for everything Steve.
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Some shots taken during a much needed sunny spell at Bournemouth Kite Festival 2011. The weather was terrible for most of the day but there was a brief sunny period late in the afternoon at which point I decided to pop down for a few shots.
View the featured image on Flickr
The Bournemouth Kite Festival 2011 took place on Sunday 18th September at Hengistbury Head, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK.
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This stunning time lapse photography video released by NASA includes photos from space shuttle Discovered and the International Space station.
All images © Nasa
The fact that space shuttle space travel is now over makes me feel extremely sad. I personally cannot wait for the the next phase in space exploration and I really hope we don’t have to wait too long.
(via PetaPixel)
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**I do currently have some spare Google+ invites so if you’d like one just drop me a message on Twitter or leave a comment below and I’ll send you one.**
So I’ve been using Google+ for a few weeks now after receiving an invite from a friend and I have to say that I think it has some real potential from a photography perspective, especially with the rebranding and integration of Picasa as Google Photos in the coming weeks.
I won’t spend time describing the numerous features of Google+ as there is already a huge amount of articles online about just that, but if you are already using it then why not add me.
NOTE
The URL above is provided by gplus.to and provides Google+ users with a more memorable URL as the standard URLs are not easily remembered. For example mine is https://plus.google.com/u/0/110511685769077130162/.
I think that Google+ certainly needs some refinement, they need native vanity URLs and more options regarding the way your circles display updates. I personally do not like the fact that posts I have commented on belonging to other users bubble to the top of the circles (a circle is just like a twitter stream) as this means I can miss newer content that may have less comments, but I’m sure this option is something that Google can provide as they refine the product. Let’s not forget that at this stage it is officially still in beta.
I don’t use Facebook as there is something is something I’m just not comfortable with about it, so I think it’s great to see viable alternatives and who better to take on the Facebook juggernaut than Google? Let’s just hope that Google have learnt some important lessons from their previous unsuccessful forays into social media. From what I have seen so far it looks encouraging.
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Trafalgar Square in London used to be famous for it’s many tens of thousands of feral pigeons but due to the costs associated with cleaning up after them and concerns about hygiene and potential damage to local monuments the Greater London Authority turned to using trained falcons as a form of pest control. Hardly any pigeons remain in Trafalgar square but you can often see handlers with the falcons, which are perhaps even more photogenic than the pigeons.
In the shot above the photographer is doing his very best to capture a photograph of a falcon perched on a lamppost ten or so feet away just off camera to the right of the frame. The photographer spent such a long time with his eye pressed against the viewfinder in an attempt the get the best possible shot than he failed to spot the falcon that had landed just a few feet away from him in a prime spot waiting to be photographed.
I took this shot because it was an amusing spectacle but it got me thinking about what we could be missing when we focus all of our attention intently on a subject. I guess it’s worth looking up from the camera every once in a while to see what’s unfolding around us as we could be missing a great opportunity! There may not always be a large bird of prey sitting just a few feet away posing for a photo but there may be something unexpected and equally as exciting just waiting to be discovered.
I don’t know how this ended up but I really hope the unidentified photographer managed to get the shot he wanted.
Here are a couple of shots I was able to take:
Happy shooting.
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I came across a blog belonging to Ryan Bradford who currently works as a mailman in San Diego. He currently has a wonderful (not to mention rather amusing, from the viewer’s perspective at least) post on his blog entitled All the Dogs Want to Kill Me and as the title suggests it consists of a series of pictures of his various canine adversaries while doing his rounds.
The pictures were all shot using a disposable 400 ISO, 35mm film camera.
All images © Ryan Bradford
You can see all of these photos and more in full size photos over on Ryan’s blog post here.
Happy shooting!
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I’m a huge fan of Flickr and something I’ve noticed more and more recently when viewing users work is the adoption of HDR photography techniques.
For the uninitiated, HDR stands for high dynamic range and essentially enables a photographer to produce an image with a far greater range of luminance than would otherwise be possible. That is to say an image with far more detail in both the dark and light areas by combining three (or more) exposures of the same scene together and then tone mapping them to produce the best result.
HDR is popular is because the sensor in a digital camera is unable to capture the full dynamic range of a scene that can be perceived by the human eye. By using HDR photography it is possible to address this issue and produce a photograph that more accurately represents that scene that the photographer witnessed and avoid losing detail in the darkest or lightest parts of the scene.
Any camera that allows over or under exposure of a photo can be used to create a HDR image and many cameras now come with auto exposure bracketing which allows all of the shots required for the HDR to be created automatically. This technique is even available on the iPhone now.
Some example HDR images
The HDR examples above are from Trey Ratcliff’s stuckincustoms.com. Trey is probably the most well-known HDR photographer around and you should take a look at his site to see more examples of his work and information regarding HDR photography.
So HDR photography sounds great, right? Especially if the end result is images that more accurately represent the scene? Well I have mixed feelings about HDR photography and I’ll explain why below.
I have played with HDR photographs in the past with varying degrees of success and I believe that HDR photography is a great idea and certainly has its benefits. As photographers it enables us to produce more accurate results, bringing life to an otherwise flat photo and potentially producing a more pleasing result. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility and unfortunately HDR is very easily abused. The problem I have with it is that people often take it to the extreme, tone mapped images have become very prevalent, you only need to perform a quick search Flickr for HDR to see examples of vastly oversaturated images that literally hurt your eyes to look at and to me at least look more like abstract paintings than photographs. This is not so much a problem with the HDR technique as it is with the application of the technique. Photographers are sometimes guilty of using HDR with otherwise unremarkable shots in an attempt to add interest artificially.
I guess this ultimately boils down to a question of judgement and artistry and while I can certainly see why HDR images appeal to people, I personally find many of them rather difficult to appreciate. I’m sure as photographers we have all bumped the saturation of an image up or down to produce a more pleasing result and I don’t have a problem with this. I guess there are different schools of thought when it comes to post processing and I firmly believe that post processing is absolutely fine and the important thing is that the photo has a pleasing end result rather always recording the scene exactly as it was. However when the end result is not pleasing and images all begin to look alike is when I have a problem with it. Unfortunately much of the HDR photography I have seen recently has the over-processed/artificial look.
I do believe that HDR has its place in a photographers repertoire, it’s something we should know about and understand but I can’t help but feel that subtlety is key and for a HDR image to be truly effective the viewer should perhaps not even realise they are looking at a HDR image.
I’m sure that this kind of question will divide opinion and of course there is no definitive answer, it is a subjective thing after all as with other art forms. But I’m interested to know what you think, is HDR photography hot or not?
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I have been fascinated by photography for as long as I can remember.
I find myself consumed by thoughts of photography and while not taking shots I’m spending time reading about photography, looking at the work of others and listening to as many photography podcasts as I can find. I seem unable to walk past a store without picking up a new photography magazine or book and of course I’m always looking for new a photo blog to digest.
The things that appeal most to me about photography is that there is always something new to learn, something that you may previously have never considered and inspiration is absolutely everywhere. Photography helps you to see the world a little differently, as a photographer you notice things that others don’t and find beauty in some of the most unlikely places.
Photography has the potential to be both highly technical and highly creative and creating a personal photography blog seems to be the most natural place to converse with likeminded people, share some of my own photography and write about my thoughts on the ever evolving world of photography.
Find me on Twitter & Flickr and feel free to leave a comment.
