Studio

Playing with naturally occuring shapes in the environment and used my yoga studio as an example.  Tried to produce abstract images and used naturally occuring light to produce shapes rather than simply record products.

Flash

As a result of doing a flash course I bought a Nikon SB-700 speedlight for my DSLR.  Am selling a lens on ebay and took the first shot using the built in camera flash, the second using the speedlight.  Bounced the flash off the wall in the corner of the room to get side lighting as well and the difference between the 2 images is considerable.  Used iTTL with the built in defuser to soften the light a little.

Manchester Photographic

Speedlite course

 Did a  half day speedlite course at Edge Photographic in Manchester.  Taught me more in 2 hours than days of reading books!!

First image is using the speedlite off camera to the side.  Second adding a red gel on speedlite pointing behind camera


Use of reflector to create shadows and enhance depth
















Bleaching out background by using manual setting on speedlite in background and iTTL to speedlite on camera

Developing the photographers eye

 Went out this morning and tried to be a bit more 'arty' with my camera by changing camera angle and focussing on things in different ways.  I like the angle shot of the barbed wire as the sharp pointedness seems to be magnified by the diagonal angle somehow and the curve of the fence away from the gate lock seems to lead the eye into the near distance of the green foliage behind.  The final picture is just a normal point and shoot of the type I would take before signing on to this course and it really looks quite boring now!!

Flickr comment

Got  my first comment on flickr - I am sooooooooo excited!!!!!!

Relating to TAOP assessment 1 pictures on flickr  - curves

This image stands out from the others because it is not a too literal take on the element of curve, here the viewer questions what he is looking at, and then explores the rest of the frame. There are very few non-curving lines in this photo... 
Hope to see more in this less literal line of thought :-)
Good luck.
Dewald

Flickr

Changed my flickr name but for some reason the link at the bottom of this page does not work.  New name is www.flickr.co/photos/norrisphysio


Changed link at bottom of page so it now works.  Seemed to want to keep adding blogspot by default so I shouted at it.

Forum discussion

Had some good advise about lens on the OCA forum and Nikonites and Nikon user sit.  Links here

http://oca-student.com/node/88872

http://oca-student.com/node/88850

http://nikonites.com/telephoto/6260-55-300-70-300-a.html

http://nikonites.com/prime/6380-af-s-35mm-1-8g-40mm-2-8g-micro.html

Prior to this course I had not really used forums before but am finding them quite useful and getting fairly rapid responses back.  Cuts down on the need to search the web.

Partners in crime

 Now I can hear a DSLR versus Bridge discussion coming on here.  OK, I know the bridge has a smaller sensor but the convenience means that it can be with me all the time, has a great macro to zoom capability and is light to carry around.  Keeping both, but one day may go to bridge such as XS1

Macro

These are taken on a Fuji HS20 with Raynox super macro conversion lens.  Considering the small sensor of the camera (equivalent to point and shoot even though it looks like a small DSLR) compared to APS-C I think these are pretty good..  It was a windy day so set on ISO 1600 at f8 with a shutter speed of 1600. Would have been better quality at ISO 200 on a tripod with a slower shutter speed if there had been no wind.  Even at high shutter speed there would have been less grain at lower ISO.


The pink middle shot is cropped by about 50%.
The lower shot is uncropped but camera is closer

This system seems better for me that wordpress so I think I will use this as my learning log for OCA Art of Photography course

This is the beginner of a new OCA blog as wordpress does not seem to work very well with Picassa