Chloe

I was trying to take some photographs out the back today as it was so sunny but Cat Features (Chloe) wouldn't give me any peace. Tail in the face. Head under the lens, bopping up just as I'd be pressing the shutter release button.

Sigh.

Well, I got my own back on her. When she decided she wanted to lie out and enjoy the sun-rays, comfortable in the knowledge that Spot (her nemisis) would never dare enter the garden to annoy her when I was around, I got up close to take some photographs of her happy, little face. I managed about 3 images before she got annoyed and left the scene.

Macro =)

I am now the proud owner of a macro lens!! I haven't had the chance to give it a good try-out yet but I did take a couple of shots of Cat Features last night (that's what I call her, hehe) to see how it copes in darker conditions.

So far I'm loving it just as much as I expected and I can't wait to try out some more images on the plants and beasties outside.

I've included a few of the images that I took of Chloe (Cat Features). I love the darkness and grainy quality to them. It's becoming a regular theme in my photography.

Edinburgh snow

Even though we'd arranged our trip to visit Edinburgh again to complete our "City Lights" assignment ages ago, we all only managed to get there by the skin of our teeth.

The weather was still and calm here but the snow was so deep you couldn't drive. Then, after finally making it into the city, the snow started and worked itself into a blizzard of madness. We couldn't defy the weather's fury so we had to give in and come home.

The weather isn't going to let-up for the next two weeks but, regardless, we're going to try again on Saturday.

The Hub [St.John's] near Edinburgh Castle - handheld while I was sliding down the hill


Stencil Grafitti down a lane [unfortunatley, I can't remember which one] - taken on my phone camera

Attempt at TTV!

Ok, so I didn't try very hard but I did try it, nonetheless.
I couldn't be bothered looking through all my cameras to find a suitable viewfinder so I just used my Centon SLR (and my Sony Alpha). I didn't even remove the yellow filter, how lazy is that?
But, really, I was just trying it out to see what the effect would be and this is what I got....



The difficult part (which I clearly didn't master) was trying to ensure both cameras were focused correctly!!!

Through the Viewfinder!!

I've got a new style of photograph that I really love. It's where you take a photo with one camera, where the lens of that camera is looking through the viewfinder of another.

I haven't actually tried it out yet, but here is how my People in the Fog photo would have looked had I done it that way. I love it!!!

Bokeh!

So I decided to try a little experiment with the bokeh effect on my photographs.
I've done this before and created some photographs that I quite liked but I was only messing around.
This time, whilst I worked hard to achieve certain results, it didn't turn out as I planned. I even tried to create special effects by using shape masks over my lens. I couldn't get the aperture/distance combination quite right and I think my shapes were actually a little bit too large for my purposes.

However, here is a log of my attempts. Hopefully I will have a much improved version soon.

Christmas Tree

Close up of Christmas Tree

Star and Heart Lens Masks