OH CAMERA, let's never fight again!

Short post filled with joy.

Today I was determined to get out with my camera for the first time in ages which hasn't involved an actual event of some kind. It was so worth it. We're into August now and while it's still summer, it's slowly winding down. There's the smallest hint of autumn in the air. Not much, mind -- I went out in bulky shoes and a cardigan and was sweating unattractively within minutes.

Anyway, I am so glad I went out. I want to go out again. Also as an aside, I have been berating myself for not being more diverse; shooting almost exclusively nature close-ups and the like. Well, today I figured, why the hell not? I could branch out into landscape eventually but it's difficult and requires the use of expensive filters to get evenly exposed shots of sky and foreground... the concept does intrigue me and I love looking at landscapes, but right now it's just not my thing. I want a macro lens. OH GOD I want a macro lens.

Anyway - the output of today's shoot!



There was something in the air today - the bees, (and fake bees like this one, I think) were so busy chowing on nectar and gathering pollen and doing all those wonderful things bees do, they didn't seem to mind me getting all up in their grill. ALL of today's shots were taken with manual focus, which is nothing short of a miracle - firstly, that I managed to capture these shots given how generally clumsy I tend to be, and secondly that the buggers stayed still long enough. I lucked into a few of them, without a doubt. Especially this one, which is my favourite of the day:



There's a really pretty wild sort of area in the park which is fairly sparse in the winter and beginning of spring. I wasn't expecting all the life that was there when I sauntered through today.





Heck, the insects were getting in my shot even when I wasn't going for it!



Today was a good day -- I feel very happy about the results, more inspired to shoot again, and as always, pining for better equipment.

Some day you will be mine!

Minute Differences

What a difference orientation can make to a shot. I learned this totally by accident while idly snapping in my mum's garden the other day.

I'd say up until that point, some 99.9% of my nature shots had all been shot in Landscape orientation. It was just the way the camera naturally went to my face. The results were all fine, nice, good even, but I was getting totally bored with nature shots. In fact, I started writing up a post just the other day on how uninspired I was feeling.





These shots are all fine. Good, even (by my own meagre standards); certainly I would happily show all of them as part of my portfolio. But I felt like it was all getting kinda samey.

Then by total accident I shot this at my mum's:



Ignore the processing I've done on this for a sec and just think about the composition. It's not a huge change; you have the subject in neat focus and the bokeh is nice and smooth, same as the others. But somehow I feel like the change from Landscape to Portrait has made the shot a little more interesting, a little more pleasing to the eye, a little more inclined to make you stop and look.

Of course I didn't realise this until I came to process the shots the next day; needless to say I got kind of excited and went straight to the park to test my theory.






Well whaddaya know! I love all four of these. Maybe other people looking might just think "feh, more flowers, they all look the same" but to me the difference, as minute as it may be, is enough to renew my love for photography and the myriad ways one can capture the world's beauty.

Incidentally, who know tulips were so darn photogenic?

Also I just want to throw in there that all of the shots on this page were taken with manual focus. I am extremely pleased with my progress in learning how to control every setting on the camera to get exactly the shot I want -- in close-ups, auto-focus just doesn't do it for me -- and the fact that my shots are continuing to get sharper is happy-making. In fact for most of the last set of shots I did, I didn't even have to run the Unsharp Mask in post-processing. Hooray!