Whenever I fall at your feet

Okay... so this week I decided to have a good look at some feet... I'll be moving soon and will no longer have this nice looking wooden floor so I had to get around to this sooner, rather than later. I've had the thought in my head for many weeks/months now - so it was nice to finally get it out and see if I can make something that compares well to the image in my mind.

I thought a good starting point would be to practice with lighting on some inanimate object, such as these shoes. I was limited to an extent as the only room long enough to use a long focal length and shallow depth of field happens to have the main window behind where the subject would be placed - so my main starting thought was just to expose for the front of the shoes, and use my giant silver reflector camera left to get some light back onto them... and this is what I got:

However, in my ever so humble opinion, I still thought there was too much shadow on there... so time to get the flash out. The next one was never intended to work, but I thought I'd take it for the purposes of this blog post to show just how bad it was. This one just uses a bare speedlite (at 1/64) to the right with the reflector on the left. Not nice, not nice at all...

Close Encounters

Due to tidying, window cleaning, hairy legs, too much sleep, solving a problem to do with the slow roll parameters and The Simpsons - I didn't get out much this weekend. Fortunately for me, though, I did manage to have a very close encounter... meet Morris...

Lord's Seat and back to Mam Tor

Well, today we decided to get out of the ever-so scenic Sheffield and back into the lovelier parts down here in the 'south'. It should be made quite clear that this decision had been made regardless of the weather - it just so happens we always seem to pick the most perfect of days...

After getting the train to Edale (there and back for £5!!!) we got off and found our way along the road to Barber Booth... at which point this little trail starts us on our actual walk.

Looking back towards Grindslow Knoll - sitting just in front of the Kinder Plateau. Must make this my next hill!

I Pictured You In The Sun

Well, it has been raining all day so after much procrastination I finally decided to get around to looking through yet more old photos - and this is what I found.

The swirl effect was by physically twisting the camera - adds some interest to just another sunset shot!

On the left is the original, straight out of the camera and on the right is what I got after literally 2 minutes of playing with it - just levels, saturation and some noise reduction... all very nice and simple.

Not sure how this one is gonna go down though with all of you adoring public... it is something very new and different for me - but hopefully you'll like it and my view counts will fly up! After all, that is all I'm after.

Enjoy!

Here is my first ever post on a blog... don't I feel cool. I thought I would start with some of these previously unseen pics (I think) from our walk up Mam Tor last October... not long now until this weather returns and I shall have many more peak district adventures... 

A stranger enjoying the views, can you blame him?