Back to basics

Bad weather makes for good photographs. So the saying goes. When the mist came down the other afternoon I downed tools and rushed out with one camera and the 35mm lens. In the wood (again) I realised that a longer lens works better for that kind of misty scene, particularly when the mist is wispy. Never mind. Walking back through down the farm track the mist closed in a bit.

As I thought about making my evening meal the mist got thicker and the street lights came on. With nothing better to do I went back out again to see if I could make any nocturnal pictures. The floodlights on the rugby pitch make interesting light when it isn't misty. When there is mist in the air the effect is enhanced. As most of the pictures I was seeing involved silhouettes the monochrome conversion seemed justifiable. As it did for the daylight mist scenes which were about shape and tone rather than colour.

Encouraged by my results I couldn't wait to get back out the following evening when I saw the mist come down early. Alas it thinned again soon after, but I ventured out nonetheless, still armed with my minimalist gear.

 At less than an hour for each walk I came back with some decent pictures. This made me revisit older night time shots and begin to think about a project. What became apparent was the better pictures involved silhouettes or 'bad' weather rain soaked streets or mist. As always, if there is a person in the frame the picture becomes more engaging regardless of how well it is composed!

With ideas for this project floating around in my head I was somehow enthused to get to today's show and sale of sheep up north. However, arriving rather early I was turned off the idea and very nearly came straight back home. Instead I dropped off a repair job and took a detour back to the mart. On my return things were livening up. I picked up where I left off in the dark - with just the one camera and the same lens. That didn't last as I found myself cramped for space. Although being restricted in how you can frame shots can lead to thinking harder.

It was time to go back to the old ways and use my three trusted focal lengths - 28mm, 50mm and 100mm. It worked. I ended up ditching the 100mm after a while. It might be a bit old school to use just a 28mm and a 50mm, but there is something about both the simplicity of the approach and the look of the pictures which 'works' for me.

I even did a Martin Parr pastiche...

After my initial lack of enthusiasm I managed to get enough pictures to make a gallery - here.

The struggle still between recording what goes on and making interesting pictures which aren't in teh usually accepted 'good photograph' style or are livestock photography clichés. My photographic life would be so much simpler if I didn't want to be doing something 'different' all the time!

For the time being keeping away from zooms and sticking to the handful of focal lengths I have is a way of forcing myself out of a box. I do much prefer repositioning myself to get the framing I want to taking the easy option of twisting a zoom ring. It feels more like taking photographs did in 'the old days'. I'm not sure if the pictures are any better than when I use a zoom though.

Adventures in Toyland

Not exactly a new toy, more a slight upgrade of an existing one. That's how I think of my 'new' 20mm lens. I had the feeling that the old one, while working well enough, might be heading for a breakdown. Any new lens has to be tried out under field conditions once it's functionality has been confirmed. With little chance to go anywhere for more than an hour or two I took it first for a walk to the village and back, photographing stuff I knew I would delete. There was one frame I saved as it had wheelie bins in it and can go in my village views folder in Lightroom.

This picture demonstrated again to me how little distortion there is from this lens when used with a bit of thought. It doesn't have that ultra wide look to it. This makes it usable for people photographs. Although you do have to get pretty close to people for them to appear as more than distant specs! The advantage here is that you are so close they don't imagine you have them in the frame.

A few days later I took my slow medium zoom out. It's been languishing for a while but a recent outing encouraged me to dust it down in an attempt to decide if it should stay or go. It's staying. But the crop sensor body I attached it to is going. There's nothing wrong with the body, it's just served it's purpose in an experiment. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't take photos in dingy places quite so often I would be perfectly happy with a smaller sensor camera, but hand-held in low light is something I like doing, and some of my preferred subjects frequent dimly lit places. High ISO performance rules, OK.

Although it's a 'slow' lens, and not all that expensive, it does a nice enough job on out of focus backgrounds. Another good reason for keeping it.

It was only on Thursday that I managed to get enough free time before dark to do some more thoughtful photography. As it happened the time available coincided with a heavy mist descending. I like mist for outdoor photography - sheep dog trials excluded! It's especially useful in a woodland setting. The light is diffused to eliminate harsh shadows, and the mist hides a lot of background clutter while enhancing the aerial perspective.

Having learned in the steamy auction mart that longer focal lengths work best for showing a misty effect I ventured out with my long zoom. I stuck the 28mm on a second body and put that in my new bag. The longer lens did the donkey work.

Although I like the way mist turns all colours into pastel shades I still wanted the final pictures to be in monochrome as part of the ongoing project. Because of the haze many were almost monochromatic anyway. Some I made colour and black and white versions of. The colour versions being stand-alone pictures outside of the project. They joys of digital.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for. It turns out I was after subject-less pictures. I took quite a few with my viewfinder eye squinting as I framed the shots.

Outside the wood I couldn't resist the goal posts on the playing field. It's a bit of a cliché, and I first photographed misty goal posts a long, long time ago with one of my first cameras. But I don't care. This time I stuck with the colour shot.

It's hard to believe that I used to leave my long zoom behind more often than not as I ma now using it a great deal. So much so that I could probably manage with just this lens, 28mm on the second body and a 20mm in the bag. The trouble is there are so many ways to skin the lens choice cat. I could probably manage with just teh 20mm and the super-zoom. Or go retro with my four prime dream team. Or...

In the final analysis it's the way you look for pictures that matter more than the lenses you point at things.

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Challenging weather

Glutton for punishment or up for a challenge?Probably the former in my case being someone who likes and easy life. I knew it would be overcast today, and I know that whatever the weather on the coastal plain the Pennines to the east will have something completely different. It was no surprise to see veils of mist rising from the valleys as I headed east. I was encouraged to see sunlight breaking through creating some very appealing lighting effects. However...

As I left the motorway and began to climb towards the sheep dog trial field the mist closed in, but not enough to obliterate all the wind farm from view. I pulled the car over and made some exposures. It didn't take me long and the mist began to clear. That spoiled what I had in mind for the pictures, but gave me hope for the sheep dogs.

Continuing onwards the mist descended once more. Thicker than ever. There was no sign of even a gentle zephyr to shift the stuff. On the positive side, it wasn't freezing fog! Fog isn't conducive to sheep dog trials, which meant there was a lot of standing about and talking going on.

The quad dogs were irresistible, and captive, subjects.

This being a charity open trial, and an annual social event, there was outdoor cooking taking place. Not your average barbecue, but what looked very much like a very home-made wood-fired oven cum grill cum hot plate. Call it what you will, the toasted sausage butty was great.

Eventually the fog lifted just enough for the sheep to be seen and the trial got going.

All the time the mist would clear a little, then descend again, then clear, then descend, then... This meant it could be hit or miss for the dogs. Some appeared to struggle to spot the sheep. I struggled to make any decent photos and was restricted to shooting only when the dogs were close.

Back home I chose not to boost the contrast on the action shots in order to preserve the misty feel. It is all too easy to add a bit of 'punch' to pictures which are taken under such conditions. If the aim was illustration, then that would be fine, but I hope my pictures convey some of the 'feel' of the day. Even if the subject matter is more of the same old stuff it provides a counterpoint to the pictures I took during the summer heatwave.

Photographing action like this continues to baffle me. This might be because I am always trying to keep my framing the way I want it. In turn this often means that the autofocus points are in the wrong place. I should probably use the most effective focus points and crop the pictures after the fact. But that goes against the grain for me. I'm also unsure of what would be the most appropriate lens for the job. Probably the most expensive one! It's also possible that a different camera body might work better. As I'm not doing this for a living I'll struggle on with what I've got!

As the focus points in the camera I was using are not close to the edge of the frame, and I often want the dog at the bottom of the picture, I tried shooting in crop mode. While this puts the edge of the frame closer to the focus array, it does make framing shots more tricky as only a thin line indicates in the viewfinder where the final frame ends. A mirrorless camera with its electronic viewfinder would be easier to use. And it would have focus points right up to the frame edge. Maybe one day I'll have another try at that sort of camera. Maybe not.

When the fog returned around noon it was time for the bonfire to be lit and the auction and raffle to commence.

Overall it was another day spent fishing and not catching very much. That's when taken in isolation. The thing with projects is that even one picture from a bad day might find its place in the final edit. So no day is totally wasted. The usual collection of pointless pictures can be seen here.

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Zoned

At last I've had some time away from work forced on me and managed to make use of it with the camera. Friday saw me having to go into the market town of Ormskirk for an unspecified period while Vauxhall attended to my car on its second recall. The first recall saw me wandering around the place all day, so I didn't know what to expect. Thankfully it was all over before lunchtime. The place grows more like a ghost town each time I visit it.

That means there's not much to photograph, especially on a non-market day when the streets are all but deserted. Without the market there are few places to buy anything that isn't a coffee or junk from a charity shop. Shops which have been there years, as far back as I can remember when I was on work experience in the town, are closing down. The record shop where I bought Never Mind the Bollocks went long ago, but the greengrocer's which I photographed back in 2013 with it's wares displayed on the pavement as ever, is also appeared to be no more. Maybe it was shut for the day, but it didn't look like it. Photograph things when you have the chance because they might be gone before you realise it.

Whether it would be worth recording the closed down shops, the charity shops and coffee houses, I'm not sure. It feels a bit obvious, the sort of thing you expect someone is already doing. But is it being done?

I was in half a mind to go an have a more serious look around today but I let things slide and had some shopping I wanted to do. That meant a trip to the seaside. With the shopping a failure I headed to teh park and ride for some cheap, time unlimited, parking. The bloody council had put the charge up by 50p, so I parked in a two hour free parking zone and used the park and ride toilets anyway. Tight? Me?

I left the car in bright sunshine, and almost immediately began to see pictures to add to Sandgrounding. But barely had I got to the sea front than a heavy mist rolled in.

I've written about mist and fog before. They are transformative and simplify what can be seen. Not one does background clutter get hidden, but colours become softened and can almost disappear completely. Fog is a sort of monochromatic filter. I don't know what it is about the go-kart track that attracts me, but it has done ever since I picked up a camera and walked past it.

Add a wintry sun to fog and it becomes easy to see pictures. It's hard to stop snapping away.

Every now and then the sun would strengthen and add light to a subject.

Then it would fade and a little help might be required to add some 'spot colour'. To heighten it I used the photography enthusiast's hated tool - the pop-up flash of my camera. I actually like the effect the pop-up flash gives. The drawback is that when I'm wearing a cap the peak gets in the way and half closes the flash which then refuses to fire.

Soon the fog was really closing in. All I could do was get increasingly minimal.

Maybe it was the fog, maybe it was having a break away from any serious photographing. In just under an hour I'd rattled off a load of frames and come away with some I like and some that have got me thinking. Why it is that some days you get in the zone is a mystery. One thing I do know is that being there doesn't last long. As in anything, when you are in the zone your brain is working overtime. It can't last before the intuitive thinking starts to get sluggish and you slip back into trying to make things work. Which they rarely do when you desperately want them to. far better to stop. Chill. Start again and hope you can get back in the same frame of mind.

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