Messin' about

Nothing much to report owing to work and fishing. At least the fishing was slow, allowing me to play around with some 'selfies' and other stuff for a bit of fun. Taking photographs in the dark certainly finds the limitations of your gear and my fishing DSLR is a bugger to focus with when there's barely any light. For the first shot I hung my head torch on the brolly, zoomed in on it using live view and focused manually. I used a radio remote to take the shot.

In daylight things were easier, except for some reason the camera used face detection to pick the focus point - even with the distant face - when I wanted the reels sharp. Once more the best shot of the bunch was the one with the dodgy focus and the ones where the focus was on the reels were rubbish because the light had changed.

Next time out I tried some light painting using my head torch as an experiment to illuminate the rods. Difficult to pre-visualise the results at first, but I find it far easier than using flash. You might think that spending twelve hours in one spot trying to catch fish would mean I had a high boredom threshold, but I gave up on the photography long before the moon moved round to the perfect place in the frame because it became tedious!

At dawn I spotted (ho, ho) a four-spotted chaser waiting to dry off and warm up before taking flight. So I pestered that with both fishing cameras. The best results coming from the compact. Not great by most standards, but acceptable for unplanned pictures. Especially as the only flash I had was the one built in to the camera.

Using the flippy screen I was able to get better angles than the awkward ground allowed. I'd have got a dunking had I tried to use the viewfinder for framing. Rather than go for the usual out of focus background I was trying to make environmental pictures. Even so I could have cleared some of the dead reed stems out of the way as the insect wasn't going anywhere. Again I gave up before I got a really good shot. I don't have that urge to pay attention to every detail and strive for perfection. Story of my life really. Near enough is good enough for me most of the time!

Despite this lackadaisical attitude I have learned a few things. So maybe one night, or day, I'll be able to get some better results from the gear. If I do some pre-planning. Which is unlikely...

Same old same old

I could have started this post with the first paragraph of the previous one. Time to get into some concentrated photography has been hard to find. There was a poultry show, a junior and egg event, which wasn't as busy as the usual shows. The lack of occupied cages got me one extra shot for the files.

The chap who is usually there to take pictures of the winning birds was absent, apparently he doesn't bother with the junior show. I almost got roped into doing the honours but someone else had a camera with them. A shame that the young fanciers won't have carefully lit pictures of their winning entries.

Daft as it sounds, and in a typical justification of extravagant expenditure, part of my plan to reduce my camera gear inventory has been another purchase which I tried out for the first time at the poultry show. It proved it's usefulness too. Every camera ought to have a flippy screen of some sort. They really do make it easier to get a different perspective on things - often without drawing attention to yourself. More poultry pics here.

Since then I've used the screen at the sandplant, which has changed dramatically since my last visit, to put the camera above my head. Future uses for the screen are sticking the camera on a monopod or pole to raise it higher still. Although given the ability to use a smartphone to view the screen's output and fire the shutter a flippy screen might not be necessary for that! More (slightly repetitive) sandplant pics here.

While the poultry visit fell back on my usual two fixed focal length lenses (28mm and 50mm) the sandplant saw me giving my cheapo wide zoom a work out along with the 85mm. These two make a useful combination. Sometimes a longer zoom would be handy, but as a weight saving venture it's good enough. As ever I remain convinced that there's no need to cover every focal length in order to make useful pictures. Just look for the pictures that suit whatever focal lengths you have with you. That way you don't even notice that you are 'missing' shots. Besides with a gazillion pixels available a bit of a crop still provides a usable file if pressed.

I also gave the wide zoom a whirl at the tackle shop. Given it's slow and variable aperture I wasn't too hopeful. But not only is that multitude of tiny dots excellent for rendering detail, it somehow manages to work in fairly low light at high ISOs (3200 below). Yet to be used in anger, I see a different approach to the tackle shop project - that flippy screen might be useful too!

The low light capabilities of modern cameras is lessening the need for fast aperture zoom lenses unless you want to use wide apertures for subject isolation. The two 'cheapo' zooms I have are plenty good enough for me (manufacturers might be making better lenses to work with higher resolution sensors), and subject isolation can be achieved by standing further away and using a longer focal length. All this means that it's possible to have a full frame set up that weighs next to nothing. As soon as I can offload some gear I'll be able to get my entire kit into one small shoulder bag.

It's a lot easier to write about gear than making pictures, particularly when it's a struggle to get out and do the latter. At least I can fit in some time for my local projects on my way to and from the Post Office. The church continues to be a challenge. Making pictures that seem to accidentally include the church is harder than I imagined it would be. Certainly without making different versions of the same picture.

Home Range is a more local version of Sandgrounding (which has reached it's 500th post) and has been added to recently. It has a more considered approach to subject matter and framing than Sandgrounding, although quite what either of these series are about I can't honestly say! I am clear what the 'big project' is about, and have made some preliminary progress on it in the limited time I've had available. As soon as work eases up I'll get some more done. Having clarity as to what a project is about helps provide an end to it. Open ended projects simply blunder on and on, never getting finished. Then again, if you have a date set as a conclusion point it can mean that you don't get all the pictures you'd like. At least with the sandplant I think a natural end will come when the restoration work is completed.

The worrying thing with long term projects is that when you come to review what you've got early pictures often look different to later ones. Your vision and aims change with time. What seemed like a good idea at the time might not fit in with later ideas.On the positive side some pictures which might have seemed pointless can, when set next to later views of the same scene, provide a useful comparison of change. There's more to project work than taking good pictures. Which make it interesting.

All work

It's not for lack of motivation that I've been neither writing here or taking photographs but an unseasonable amount of work (and a bit of fishing, which is sort of work for me)  that's been occupying my time. In fact I've got a few things I'd like to be doing photographically.

I tried to add to my collection of church pictures during a sunny period. The trouble is that when I make a conscious effort to take pictures for the series they look forced. The one that didn't look that way was messed up by my laziness - and the lies that a camera's rear screen tells. When looking at the whole frame the small screen size gives a greater apparent depth of field than a larger screen or print does. That meant my wide aperture shot looked okay at the time I took it, but not okay back home. No problem, the light would be the same the following day. Which it was. This time I messed up by going out a couple of hours later - and the previously raking light that had shown texture on a wall was hitting it straight on and flattening the features. Since then either the sun hasn't shone or I've been otherwise engaged.

On a whim one evening I took the fisheye to the woods to try and get some bluebell pictures. The wood doesn't have vast carpets of these spring flowers which usually attract photographers of a certain bent at this time of year, just odd scraggy clumps of feral looking, rather than wild, plants.

I hedged my bets and took a standard zoom with me too. Which worked okay. None of my efforts were really satisfying though. I'm not cut out for this sort of thing. I seem to need hard edges to make pictures I like.

Hard edges can be found anywhere in the built environment. I even find them at home when the light plays on the walls. Why people have to travel far and wide to be inspired to take photos has always baffled me. Fair enough f there's something specific you want to record, but if you're primairly interested in making pictures anywhere will do.

This one even works in black and white. One day I might gather some of the photographs I've taken round the house together to see what they look like.

Parochiality is part of my Sandgrounding 'project', an eclectic collection of photographs of things that have caught my eye in Southport which may or may not come to an end when it hits the 500th post in the not too distant future. What a lot of the pictures have in common is a focus on the banal and a lack of composition. This approach appeals to me greatly as I become less and less interested in 'good photographs', which is why one of the latest additions to my groaning bookshelves has become a current favourite. An unpretentious gathering of pictures of things, dull or humorous, seen around Britain by The Caravan Gallery in their book extra{ordinary}. Some of the pictures will make camera geeks freak out, but I think a picture of an Afghan hound in a shell suit is worth including even if it does look like it was taken with a very poor compact camera made a decade ago!

One of the benefits of having a number of loose projects on the go, or at least in the back of my mind, is that I can grab shots to use in them at any time. Although sometimes it is much better to go out with the intention of making pictures for a specific project. My biggest problem is that my mind works in peculiar ways and keeps on finding new things to make series of pictures of or about. The latest one is a narrowing down of my pictures of mobility scooters. Quite why I started taking these photographs is a mystery. I think it had something to do with Southport being overrun by the things. Recently I've begun to notice how frequently their owners park them outside pubs. The idea of being drunk in charge of a mobility scooter appeals to my sense of humour!

On a technical note I've discovered that putting a faster SD card in my compact camera has speeded it up when shooting raw. It used to lock up for quite a time while each file was being written, making it useless for reacting quickly. Now I find it far more useful. So the camera has become my choice for wandering round town when I have nothing specific in mind. Another breakthrough has been to keep the shutter speed up by using the widest aperture. Although that is pretty fast, in combination with the small sensor depth of field remains large enough for street shooting, and using face detection either detects faces or the closest object. All in all it makes grabbing shots quickly practical and effective. The camera also goes in a jacket pocket. This camera has also become my favourite for my fishing blog. Not least because of the flippy screen that makes low level shots a cinch. When I'm not catching anything (all too often the case these days) I bugger about with the camera. For blogging purposes I'm finding the 9:16 ratio useful. That's my excuse for the B&W 'street' shot being in that aspect ratio as I'd left the camera stuck in that mode, and in jpeg...

Where the camera falls down is dynamic range and shadow detail. Even crop sensor DSLR photos seem to be 'richer' to my eyes. You can't have everything in a camera - yet...

Back on the project front I have a 'big idea' that I might just get under way and even complete. Budding authors are often advised to write about what they know. So I'm thinking hard about photographing what I know. I've done some ground work, begun writing a plan (!!!!) and shot a few trial photographs. I think it might work. Part of the plan involves me leaving my comfort zone. Which is kind of worrying, but kind of exciting too. I'm keeping everything under wraps for the time being until I have gathered my thoughts about it more fully. In the meantime I'm sure I'll stumble across a few more mobility scooters, catch a glimpse of the church, and photograph a few more lost balls. So many daft ideas, too much real work to stop me carrying them out!

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The gift that keeps on giving

Not having been to the sandplant for a few weeks but having driven past it I thought an evening visit might be in order. What a difference low evening light and blue skies makes! I like dull overcast days well enough, but raking light brings out texture far better, which can be important for some pictures. Bright sunshine also makes colours more vibrant. Something that no amount of computer trickery can manage if the light was dull in the first place. Different light gives different ambience to pictures, as does it's direction. All of which makes me thing about different pictures from the same subject, and given the changing nature of the sandplant there are always new photographs to be made.

This picture wouldn't have worked had the sky been overcast and the light flat as it's all about the colour and the cloud seemingly hanging over the skip.

The annoyance with this picture is that the top of the skip is in line with the horizon. Unavoidable really as I wanted to include the rust metal in the shot. If I had been lower in order to push the top of the skip above the horizon less of the tangle of metal would have been visible. Any higher and ther ould have been too much space between the skip and the cloud.

It's a funny thing, but I find if I am using a zoom lens it usually gets used at the two extremes. rather defeating the purpose of the thing! At least when using two zooms that gives me four focal length choices. A good enough reason to have lenses that don't do what most amateurs want them to do - cover a continuous range of focal lengths. I know it's often mentioned that single focal length lenses make you think about your pictures and that zooms make you lazy. It's often said because it's true. When you have to use your feet to frame shots you tend not to just walk forwards or backwards, you also move left and right, and even up and down to get the framing you want.

While the first picture was shot very wide with the sun to my side, the next one was shot long and into the light. There's compression and shallow depth of field to provide isolation, and the quality of light adds a different feel. Most photographers would have preferred a gorgeous blonde as their subject rather than the bucket off a digger. But that's so clichéd!

The place has changed dramatically. The outer bunds are disappearing fast, but the rabbits are clinging on. The interior space is getting flattened and the concrete is almost all broken down now. This time next year it will be unrecognisable to what it was twelve months ago. The next picture is a very boring one, but to me it has a symbolic significance. The grass on the right is original saltmarsh, the track-marked sand to the left is reworked land. If all goes to the plan I have heard I expect it will eventually all look the same. I expect that there will remain traces of what went before under the returned saltmarsh as I cannot see every scrap of rubber, plastic or iron being removed from the site.

As ever after a trip to the sandplant there's a gallery/slideshow of today's pictures to be found here.

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Project thoughts

I suppose I could pretend that one inspiration behind this project is Hokusai's 36 views of Mount Fuji - but it isn't. It's just a daft idea that grew out of finding the local church hiding in a few of my pictures, then thinking that I could make a series as a pastiche of the kind of sets of postcards or calendars that institutions like churches sell to raise funds. Badly produced calendars with hideous graphics. I've already made the front page of the calendar with a tasteful mix of colours.

That gives a clue to the way my mind is working! I already have a few suitable pictures filed away. Some are a bit too pretty to fit the skit really well, almost too much like the kind of thing that really would be used in such a production!. But I took one yesterday that I think might work.

This project does stand a chance of getting completed. For a start I don't have to go very far to take the pictures. I can take them pretty much any time I have an hour or less spare. Best of all I have a target to aim at (twelve pictures), and a clear vision of what sort of pictures are required (ones where the church isn't the obvious point of the picture). It's also quite light-hearted - although on the serious side is the fact that with it being so flat around here the church spire really is visible from unexpected, and distant, viewpoints.

This is in complete contrast to a project which I have been making notes and plans for which I am pretty sure will never get any further than that. It seems like a really good idea that might even  appeal to people. Trouble is I not only know what kind of pictures I would need to make, I know exactly where to make them and even how to frame some of them. To actually go and take the pictures would be just joining the dots. Yet some people seem to like working that way.

I'm wondering if there are two photographic personalities: the proactive and the reactive. The former would approach the church project by using Google to check out potential vantage points, plan out what time of day would be best in relation to the position of the sun, decide in advance what focal length was required. Me? I pick a lens at random and go out the door for a walk when I feel like it. The only planning is to try to remember to keep looking for the spire and not get distracted by other things.

Doesn't often work though. I mean, this picture was all about evening sunlight, space and the shapes of the trees. Part of my ongoing collection of views around the village. But look! The church is in the frame. So which folder does this file go in?

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