The Finale (but not really)

Evening Surfers!

I'm back for the new year! Sorry about the lack of posts but I started a new job and suddenly became insanely busy!! New years resolution: actually write my blog...

So we're going back a few months to July for this post; it was the final class of my photography course and we all headed over to the beautiful riverside village of Henley-on-Thames to try out some street photography. Below is just a quick shot of the main square; Henley really is the epitome of the quaint, English village, and it is quite an affluent area: riverside getaways, private boats and beautiful wrought iron gates; all of which made for some pretty interesting pictures.

A pretty little cafe which was reminiscent of Paris.

Our main aim for this final class was to put all of our new skills into practice using the village as our setting. Our teacher, Rich, told us to keep an eye out for interesting reflections in shop windows, similar to what I was taught on the Topshop workshop. I loved this vintage flower display with the old tudor building tucked into the background, its a little like seeing Henley as it was when it was first built. It's amazing how such a simple technique can create an insight into the history of a place.

a 'lil bit of old meets new.

Our wandering took us down to the Thames River where we found a striking statue of a woman which stood looking out across the water. It was hard work trying to get a decent picture as the lighting was terrible but I think they turned out quite well.

Wouldn't be complete without a coloursplash photo

Exploring the village with all of my class mates was a really great adventure; we ended the trip with a coffee and an email exchange. The classes themselves were a fantastic way to learn more about my camera and the techniques which made me a better, more thoughtful photographer.

I'll hopefully be back soon with another post.

Love Lily

"Hump day treat" - Having fun with Photoshop

Happy hump day Surfers!
(We're over the hump of mid week!) Also, I hope you all got the "Mean Girls" reference there.

It's been a while and I have failed miserably in terms of photography, so I had a look through my memory card before it was formatted and found a few pictures which had the potential to be quite interesting; they just needed a little help. I had a play about with Photoshop and turned out some pretty decent images (in my opinion at least!) I've included the original photographs so that you can see just how much has been changed.

Now I don't pretend to be an expert with Photoshop, I used some preset effects which are on the program then made some adjustments and added a few bits, but hey, I'm still learning.

Before

These are some shots I took back in the summer in the orchard. I was actually trying to learn about focus points when doing this and the original picture is pretty basic; however with some contrast changes and a lens flare to imitate the sun it has ended up being quite a pretty picture.

This image has actually inspired me to take some more conceptual photographs, I just need to find myself some willing models! Haha.

Before

After

This final image is one I am quite proud of; it was taken on one of the last times I was in London. 

When I first purchased Photoshop I wanted to see how much it could do so, after watching some Youtube tutorials, I had a go with some real photo manipulation and ended up with this :) I know you can still see the reflections of the buildings in the water but we'll work on it.

Hope you enjoyed this mini post. I'll be back when I have persuaded some of my friends to stay still long enough for a picture!

Have a good rest of the week.

Love E

Don't forget to check out the blogs which have links at the top of my page! They post much more regularly than I! 

x

A photographer always has muddy jeans...

Afternoon Surfers,

After a long week I've been enjoying a lazy weekend :)

Yesterday I thought I'd experiment with the manual mode on my camera. I confess that I am usually quite lazy and keep my camera on auto. The few times that I have used manual mode my pictures have come out terribly...but since I was at home I had the time to figure it out.

I went out into the garden to take a few snaps and they all turned out like this...

I went back indoors after a bit and checked my photography guide to refresh my memory on aperture, shutter speed and white balance. I use the one below, its taught me quite a bit. 

The book definitely helped as the next few pictures turned out much better.

Other than bees there wasn't very much in my garden to photograph, so I decided to take a walk by the riverside to get in some more manual practice.

These two pictures were shot using the selective colour function on the camera. I'm really not sure why there was a chair just sat here on the path but it was an interesting shot.

The sky was beautiful as I walked past, but as it was quite bright I had to play about with the camera settings so that the sun beams and clouds would show up. This meant that the river and trees became silhouetted but I was happy with the over all result.

The title of this post came to my whilst taking this picture. I saw the baby bird swimming toward me and the only way to get a good picture was to kneel down in the grass. It has been raining quite a bit recently so the grass was sodden and the path was churned mud, I wrecked my jeans but the end result was worth it :)

This is one of my favourite images. I was still working out the dials on my camera and, as I didn't have the aperture as high when the sun peaked out, the camera left the background very black and highlighted the leaves. The dimensions in this image make it very striking.

This was another selective colour image, the plant was growing on the underside of a bridge on the riverbank, so I had to angle my camera over the water, knelt in yet more mud :)

I had gone to the river with the hope of seeing some interesting wildlife, I've seen herons there before, but there was nothing really around. I was getting a little bored, so took off my pocket watch necklace and decided to play around with a few shots on the bridge.

Where are the fairies?!

I had to take this picture several times to get the lighting right. It has been photo-shopped to darken the background and enhance the colours. Quite happy with the final image.

Another selective colour image

 Another image which makes it appear to be close to sunset, it was actually very bright out.

I walked for over an hour before I decided to head home. I think I have a much better grasp on manual mode and how to use it to make a picture look the way you'd want. I still have more practice to do though.

See you next week!

Love E