A late catch up

The longer I leave it between posts the more I forget what I've been up to! The weather has continued to be a bit flaky with a couple of warm sunny days followed by a return to wet, and falling temperatures as autumn gets closer.

On one of the sunny days I revisited the pumpkins and got a slightly better picture, aided both by the light and a longer lens.

 
Elsewhere I made more pictures of the sodden fields and the effects of the rain and wind.

Another morning I tried to make a picture of two of the old working tractors but couldn't get a good angle.

Over to my left three farmers were stood taking a break. Their presence made for a slightly better picture, but the grey tractor was still not quite right - it really needed the front end showing, at least in part.

I did get spotted taking these pics though!

Out on a damp and deserted celery field I used my 35mm lens to take some environmental portraits of a celery harvester.

Greenhouses continue to grab my attention. In time I'll end up with enough pictures of them to make a zine or something with them.

At long last I'm learning to love the 70-200. For outdoor photography where getting close to things is difficult, in the case of the moss usually because there's a ditch in the way, I'm finding it's almost perfect. I'd prefer it to be a little wider at the short end but I'm coping so far. Rather than carry a wider zoom in my bag I've settled, for now, on having a second body with a 35mm lens on it. This pairing is doing fine.

However, one evening when I was out more for the walk than the photography I took one body and the old school twosome of a 50mm and a 28mm. It didn't hold me back.

In fact I was surprised how 'wide' the 50mm felt at times. As the sun set I decided to walk back home through habitation in the vain hope I might get some 'night time' shots (by under exposing) for an idea I've got. I was a bit early for that but I did make a couple of pictures with the moon in view. One of which I like quite a bit right now.

The next day it was out earlyish and more of the same old wet land pictures.

I also tried to get improve on my representation of the flattened cereal crops. I think this one is close to what I've been searching for.

On a sunny Bank Holiday Sunday I did some work, listened to some cricket, ten popped out towards sunset, heading merewards for a change of scenery. Out there the sandier soil was drier and some harvesting had been done. I was a bit late arriving to make the most of the rapidly changing light.

Monday morning and it was back to more familiar ground. And more of the same old stuff, just different vegetables.

Walking the flatlands gives me plenty of time to think. But that was this morning and now I've forgotten what I was thinking about!

It was actually about the reason I manage to keep interested in taking photographs. Like everyone I lose my mojo at times, but I know the only way to get it back is to take photos. One reason, I suspect, that a lot of hobbyist/amateur photographers get despondent is that they are not broadly enough interested in photography. They only want to take pictures of the genre/s they operate within. These seem very proscribed to me.

Having been mildly obsessed with photographing sheep dog trials, auction marts and sheep shows for the last couple of years I could easily have become despondent when the Covid-19 situation stopped that for me. But as I'm interested in making pictures all I had to do was keep on snapping until another identifiable subject captured my imagination.

Therein lies the secret. I can make pictures of pretty much anything because I'm interested in how cameras make pictures of the world around me as much as I am in documenting it. I'm not sure a lot of people have that fascination for the medium itself.

Anyway, every now and then I do show an interest in the technical side of photography which a lot of amateurs seem to enjoy. When I read on the photography forum I frequent that the software I'd recently bought was able to do focus stacking (shows how much interest I had in researching it's capabilities...) I thought I'd try it out as it could be useful for my business photos of rods and other bits of tackle. Until now I'd always gone for the 'arty' shallow focus look when photographing rods close up. But only because I couldn't get any more of the rods in focus!

Today I dug out the tripod and DIY table. I even made an effort to modify the light by placing a diffuser by the window to soften the sunlight and a reflector opposite that to bounce in some fill. With the camera locked down I took a number of shots focusing at different points along the rods then stacked them using the software. All very painless and pretty effective. Plenty good enough for my needs. I'll probably never do it again though!

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What's it for?

Sometimes a photograph best serves as an illustration. Without any accompanying text the picture of sheep in a field of red cabbage is pretty meaningless.

Sheep grazing on red cabbage deemed aesthetically unfit for supermarket sale

Add a caption and it becomes a comment on the currently hot topic of food waste. And the sheep do seem to enjoy eating red cabbage because there isn't much of it left a month later.

The weather has finally started to perk up. With the sun shining I went for a wander to look at a barn out on the mere which I last photographed in 2012. Of course the weather changed and I got stung by a couple of hail showers. probably because I hadn't put a waterproof jacket on.

The last time I photographed the barn I use my newish toy - the ultrawide zoom. This time I used a standard zoom. The results are less dramatic, but I prefer them. getting rid of that lens was a good move. I must get rid of the cheaper, not-quite-so-ultrawide zoom I replaced it with.

I was so unenthusiastic about going to the poultry auction today that I overslept. It was only the prospect of one of the mart café's bacon and black pudding barms that drew me. This time I stuck with the 35mm on one body and the 70-200 on the other. I'm growing to like the longer zoom, although it's lack of close focusing continues to annoy and frustrate. Even so the pictures I like best were taken with the 35mm.

That said I might have been better off using the 28mm. Certainly not anything wider. When it comes to getting good depth of field (by which I mean a lot of it rather than a little) 35mm is where it starts, with 50mm tending to be a bit lacking when forced to use wide-ish apertures. Increasingly I'm finding 35mm to be a sweet spot lens.

For getting in close, and making it look like you are, I do think that 28mm is the limit. At 24mm anything close to the lens at the edge of the frame starts to look distorted. If that's a face it ruins a picture for me. I prefer to have the frame cut the face rather than have it look like it's been stretched.

These low viewpoint pictures were taken using the flippy screen again. This time the face detection was quite useful as the people were the important parts of the pictures. It did a remarkable job and I can now see why some photographers like it so much they buy mirrorless cameras so it works through the viewfinder.

Having things cut by the frame edge is often said to be a compositional fault. Yet it was embraced by painters as one of the earliest influences photography had on that medium.

Another photographic trait is the capturing of figures in what might be considered awkward poses. This also appeals to my current way of thinking about making pictures which have 'life'.

While what goes on at the auction hasn't changed some of the faces have. Which is a good enough excuse to keep going back.

Having arrived with just fifteen minutes to go before the auction was due to start I'd missed most of the penning of birds, which is when most activity takes place. I did get one frame which I like. It has that circular sort of composition I often seem to use. Unconsciously, I must say.

I watched another Youtube video this evening. Silly me. The Youtuber (as I think they are called these days) was wandering around, camera in hand, talking about the compositional elements he was looking for as he took photographs.Some of the pics were pretty good (some were not - that's photography), if a little clichéd,, but I didn't always see how the lines he superimposed on them actually applied. And when he said they didn't use the rule of thirds I could see how they did! It was a load of bollocks to promote his big compositional theory.

You can take any picture and draw lines on it to prove anything. What you need to do is develop an instinctive understanding of when a frame 'works'. But also bear in mind that, like the sheep picture at the start of this post, a picture can also be informational and it's content more important than its structure.

The other week I accidentally shot a frame in the dim light of the wood with my camera set to ISO 100 and my usual walking around settings. It came out almost black on the rear screen! It was only a grab shot of some ducks - I hadn't seen ducks in the wood before - so it wasn't a loss. I didn't delete it because I thought it might be interesting to see if it could be 'recovered' in Lightroom. It could. And I was surprised how little noise there was.

I'd read about this so-called 'ISO invariance' on the web but never paid it much attention. At the mart I thought it would be a good chance to have a more serious look into this.

The above was shot at ISO 125. In Lightroom I boosted the 'exposure' buy 4.67 stops, and pulled the highlights back. At 100% what was in the shadows is pretty damned clean.

Most of the time I can live with the noise I get at high ISOs for my purposes. But this could be a trick worth remembering at some point in the future. The drawback is that on reviewing a picture you can't tell what it all is!

After a couple of hours I thought I'd go look at a sheep dog trial for the afternoon. By the time I got there it was over. Fool. I should have hung around at the auction.

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Resolution time

How long it'll last is anybody's guess, but I'm going to try to stick to my resolution to only take a camera out when I have something firmly in mind to photograph. Excepting taking one with me when I'm going in to town or walking around locally as in both cases I have little projects trundling along when I do that. To kick 2020 off I had two plans in mind. One was a bit half-baked involving tripods and macro lenses. The sort of stuff I don't really like. Thankfully that got ditched before I got anywhere close to the location I was heading for. However there was somewhere I'd stumbled across on the interwebs which I almost went to the other day, but didn't. It involved a route which would take me past a couple of places I have stopped off at for aimless wandering. Could I resist the temptation?

Sort of. I pulled over at a lay-by to have a bite to eat. When I got out of the car to stretch my legs I spotted some Lonks. Maybe a chance for a sheepscape. When I approached them on the public footpath through their field the lambs (or are they hoggs now?) approached me. They must have thought I was a bringer of food! It gave me an opportunity for some sheepy portraits. When three stopped and posed it was impossible to resist the near symmetry.

With Lonks photographed and food eaten it was on the road again. The usual stopping off points were packed with people. That's what New Year's day and sunshine do. This was a blessing in disguise as it meant I wasn't tempted to join the throng and I carried on to my intended target. Which turned out to be deserted. Of course by the time I got there the sun had disappeared. For photographing the outside of the church this was not ideal, although bright sunshine wouldn't have been any better.

Inside it was another matter. Diffuse light was just right for photographing stained glass windows. After taking a series of shots I wasn't satisfied with the results using available light. The windows were fine, but they were outlined in blackness. I turned to the lighting gurus' hated option. The pop-up flash of my camera. I'm no lighting expert but I knew enough to knock the flash power back a bit. One stop, in fact. This did the trick.

Ideally I'd have used a tripod to enable me to drop the ISO and decrease the aperture so as to get greater depth of focus for when I came top correct the verticals in Lightroom. I'd also have taken more care over framing to allow for the cropping which vertical correction entails. I might even have bracketed shots to allow some exposure blending in post. But for a first, down and dirty, attempt at this sort of thing I was quite pleased. I made a grid of the pairs of windows.

After I'd done my processing I thought I'd google 'how to photograph stained-glass windows'. The pages the search threw up showed examples which were worse than mine. None recommended the use of flash. I'll take Frank Sinatra's advice if I do this again!

Leaving the church I thought I'd try to set the scene of its location. This wasn't easy and the grey sky didn't help much either. I got some record shots which I may try to improve on at some point.

I guess this adventure counts as sticking to my first photographic resolution. The second one will be harder to adhere to as it means going way out of my comfort zone. If (big if) I manage to even partially maintain my resolve it should make a real difference to my photographic output. Breath not to be held...

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Sheep, dogs and sheep

After the Toddy show I decided to check out the brand of waterproofs which seemed popular with the sheep folk. They might not be breathable but the price was right for a pair of over-trousers to replace my ancient Dutch army ones which are well passed their prime and no longer living up to their job description. The new waterproofs arrived midweek - along with the promise of hot weather. Saturday's visit to a sheep dog trial was the first event for ages when I didn't need to either wrap up warm or keep the rain out. Those trousers had been a good investment!

With there being a three-day trial going on elsewhere I didn't expect there to be a big turnout at the one I was at, and it seemed to be the case. My main aim was yet another gear evaluation task. To see if I could do away with the consumer telephoto zoom and use my superzoom to do the same job with the sheep dog action. This venue didn't require a longer lens so it was ideal for the job. The mostly sunny day also helped in making the autofocus of both lenses work to their best advantage. I was still trying to make pictures though. The only way I can evaluate gear is by using it as intended rather than doing 'bench tests' like most people on the web seem to do.

I keep trying for a good shot of a sheep being shed and got one that is heading in the right direction.

Silhouettes on the skyline always catch my eye. A pity about the power lines crossing the frame. Or is it?

The sheep were a bit tricky and had got to know where the escape route was. This lot were making a break for it when they stopped in front of me. It's almost a picture.

Not every trial has a livestock trailer in attendance as a mobile office, but when they do I like to get a picture of it.

The lens evaluation proved to be a failure. Most of the pictures I ended up keeping were taken with the telephoto zoom, or at focal lengths it covered. I also thought the pictures looked more pleasing in the out of focus areas. That was a bit of a blow as I was hoping to sell it as surplus top requirements! As it was I decided to take it to the final day of the three-day trial to see how it fared for photographing the sheep show being held there.

Day two was probably the busiest day at this trial, with lots of other attractions to draw the family crowds, but a sheep show featuring my three favourite Pennine breeds was of more interest to me. The venue is owned by the sheep dog society and features a permanent stand and judges' box, and a 'clubhouse'. The crowd isn't all sheep dog people either, there are plenty of 'normal people' there too!

The sheep show took most of my time, and most of the day too, which meant I didn't spend much time at the trial field. It is a pretty good venue with the pen close enough to the stands for a 300mm lens to get good shots from the fence at the field edge.

Unfortunately while I was by the trials the sheep were mostly uncooperative and most handlers retired before getting near the pen. That prompted me to look for pictures around the event.
There was quite a bit to photograph and I almost wished I had attended one of the first two days.

Regardless of missing out on the dog front I had plenty of opportunities with the sheep. Being further south than I have been before there was a good showing of Whitefaced Woodlands. So many that I overheard on exhibitor bemoaning the fact that there was more competition! Woodlands are listed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trusts as 'vulnerable'. Derbyshire Gritstones are listed as 'at risk' and were also well represented. Lonks are not on any RBST list and also had a good turnout.

Although other breeds are photogenic there's more to photography for me than making pretty pictures. I like my photographs to have a point. What this point is when it comes to sheep I'm not sure, but I have narrowed my field of view from sheep in general to the three breeds mentioned above. That doesn't stop me taking photos of other breeds, but the pictures tend to be stand-alones or parts of sub-sets. Something which I haven't considered as a project within a project, but which someone else pointed out to me, is hands. Rather than hands on their own I'm thinking hands on sheep might be the way to progress the idea.

Unlike the other Pennine breeds Woodlands have white faces. hard to believe given their full name, I know! I think they are a fine looking, and very sheepy, sheep.

The telephoto zoom did a good job of the close-ups. However, it's people interacting with sheep and each other which is my main area of interest. I was able to get in close enough to use a wider zoom and to alter my viewpoints to get the framings I wanted. Even so I shot a load of rubbish which needed deleting.

I'd been looking at an Elliot Erwit contact sheet which contained one of his best known pictures. The impression we get from seeing a great 'street' photograph is that it was a quickly grabbed frame that captured a fleeting moment. Yet there it was, the last frame of almost a complete roll of 35mm film. This made me think about shooting more frames of a scene until I either get a picture or miss out altogether.

Early on I spotted a personalised polo shirt being worn by one farmer. I took a quick shot of the wording on his back. As it was it made a 'one liner' as I call them. A picture that is worth a single glance of recognition of the message. Later I was stood by the guy and it struck me that a photo of a wider scene which included the shirt might merit a second look.

As I got into my stride I tried to capture the feel of the show rather than what it looked like. The results are a bit chaotic, which I like.

This isn't to say that I ignored details. One, which was another hand picture, got me close to making a picture of the awarding of a rosette.

Details do tend to be one-liners, but this sort of picture can work either as a group or to add to the rhythm of a sequence.

The lens evaluation was a bit of a flop. I didn't work out if using the telephoto and a wider zoom was any better or worse than using the do-it-all lens. Either in terms of the dreaded image quality or the user experience. I do know that the results from all the lenses I use are on a par when it comes to the ways I'm likely to show them. In fact, apart from light gathering I can't see any need to use fast 'pro' zooms at all. I can get subject separation with slower lenses by using  longer focal length and standing further back. Most of the time I'd rather have more depth of field anyway. Bu tI'm not normal!

In terms of adding to my collection of sheep show pictures and idea development I was more successful. That's more important than gear. With good ideas the gear's not all that crucial.

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