Fairy Princess

Fairy Princess (Explored), a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

This is a picture I took of my daughter in May this year.
She is wearing a fairy dress so I could practice my portraits.
I dropped the clarity of the picture to add softness and enhance the fairy theme.

B6 + Calcium

B6 + Calcium, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

Had a little fun in the kitchen today which included garlic,milk and off camera flash.
The background was some white paper which was lit by my Nikon sb600 at full power and a red gel.
I lit the garlic with 2x jessops 360 afd flashguns set 1/16 power placed level with the garlic and either side of my camera.
I set my camera on manual mode and at the fastest flash sync speed of 1/250 sec to try and freeze the action..
I experimented with the aperture for different results but stopped down to f/14 to help darken the red of the background.
My camera was on my manfrotto tripod and fired via cable release.
All three flashguns where fired off camera via my Yongnuo RF-602 trigger + recievers.
I was using a funnel to direct the milk onto the garlic but it wasn't working out how I imagined so I got rid of the funnel and kept tipping milk straight from the carton and firing the camera randomly.
Got loads of usable pictures some with more splashes and some with less but I liked the simplicity of this one with the milk in a vertical line.
Cleaned up the picture with spot removal then added a slight 's' curve for contrast.
Also the whites of the milk where a little dark and muddy so I selected just milk and garlic with the magic wand and brigthened it up with levels.
I finished off with some unsharp mask for detail.
The title is a combination of the vitamins contained in these photographic ingredients.
In garlic you get B6 and obviously calcium in milk.
The red lines on the underneath of the garlic is the red reflecting off the milk from the background.

A Walk On The Wild Side

A Walk On The Wild Side, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

I keep trying new things and thought I would give candid street shots a go so I'm always on the look out for people opportunities.
Got quite a few now in the archives so thought I would share one to see what you think.
This is a picture of a couple in St James park in London.
I loved the colour of the womans outfit especially with the greens and golds of the autumn leaves.

Ghosts Of Buckingham Palace

Ghosts Of Buckingham Palace, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

Went for a walk around London for a couple of hours.
Goddam it was busy, the pavements where chock solid with people and so was the shops.
Finished off the walk at Buckingham Palace and decided to try some LE without a tripod :)
Attached my cable release then set up the camera by pre focusing and using manual mode.
I placed my camera on the floor of the steps in front of the palace then using bulb mode and my ND110 ten stop filter I made an exposure of 67 seconds.
I love all the ghostly figures especially the person sitting right in front of me as he sat down mid exposure I thought it might spoil my shot but you can see right through him :)

Dehydration

Dehydration, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

One from the archives.
Sovereign harbour in eastbourne.
A long exposure of 67 seconds to blur the clouds.

Rough Terrain

Rough Terrain, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

Fancied a change so whacked on my Nikkor 70-300 VRII for a change.
Zooming in with wide apertures makes for nice shallow dof.
Saw this chained up bike on the beach just past hove with some people in the background.
Converted to mono and added a little unsharp mask.
This is one of those pictures I really like but not sure why ?
Anyway I really enjoyed using my zoom and looking at things in a slightly different way.

The Emerald City

The Emerald City, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

This is a little Jetty along Hoves seafront which is just past Brighton.
Took this today just before the sun got too high for a long exposure shot.
I used ISO 100 and an aperture of f/32 with my B+W ND110 ten stop filter to get an exposure of 81 seconds.
I normally convert my LE to mono but Ieft this one as it works better in colour, especially with the plain sky.
Due to the sun burning out the left hand side of the picture slightly I had to darken it to balance everything out.