Glasgow Night Photography

It's been a while since my last post, and this one is not going to be a huge one. I just wanted to share some shots, that I recently took at night. It's been taken from the roof of Glasgow Metropolitan College, which has great views all aound Glasgow city centre. It was all generally long exposures - about 10 seconds each at about f/11. And here is what you can see from just above George Square...

Remember, remember the 5th of November

"Remember, remember the fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot
I know of no reason,
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot... "

Just a couple shots from the last Bonefire night in Glasgow. It was a cold night, but at least weather was good as it decided to stop raining. And as every year there is plenty going on in Glasgow Green, including great fireworks. Credit crunch cut them short, but they're still great to watch!

Anyway all of them is a long exposure - about 2-3 seconds at around f/11 on a tripod.

Studio still life photography

Here are some pictures that I wanted to share with you. I have shot them all during photography classes that I enrolled to couple of weeks ago. It's called Basic Studio Photography and is run by Metropolitan College of Glasgow. It started with portrait photography and now we moved into still life. I learned a great deal about using studio equipment and manipulating light. I will post some of the portrait shots later, but it's the still life that shows really what you have learned.

Why use flash?

In my photography so far I was always trying to use only available light for my pictures. But there is a time in every photographer’s life when you feel you need more control over what is going on in your pictures light-wise. You begin to choose time of day, angle towards the light source more carefully (at this point it would probably be sunlight). You may try to use reflectors, gobos or shade to change light. And as you move forward in your photography you will do these things more and more intentionally. This leads directly to using artificial light sources to help you achieve the effect that you've been after.

Some time ago I began to wonder, if I can do anything to my pictures, to have some more control over light. I started my research from the internet and stumbled upon a site called Strobist and a number other similar photography blogs. Their common thought was "don't let the light ruin your picture". So true ...

Anyway I decided that I need something more that the sun, to light my photographs. Following the guidance of David Hobby from the Strobist I went for old and cheap manual speedlights (the kind that you would normally mount on your camera). I have recently bought almost everything that I will need to start bending the light to my needs.

In this post you can see some of my early experiments with one strobe and a glass. I must admit I like it, and for me the glass is half full. I should finish gathering my One-Light-Set and will get on with shooting some more still life and portraits.

I've been using flash the wrong way!

For the last couple of weeks I have been exploring previously unknown to me type of photography. I have always been using available light, maybe with some simple reflectors, or occasionaly fill in flash. I have never felt the need to use something different that what I had. Until some time ago I came across a website, that I think every photographer should know - Strobist. Created by David Hobby for anyone interested in creative lighting techniques. You may be under impression, that this is a site for people, that use some pretty strange equipment, and that have no idea, how to use a flash in their photographs. You can't be more wrong! It is absolute MUST for every photographer, who wants to understand the light.

One September Afternoon...

There are about 362 rainy days in Scotland a year. The 3 remaining days are summer. A sunny day in the end of September is a real treat and we couldn't miss it. We decided to tackle one of the best viewpoints on the east coast of Loch Lommond - Conic Hill. At 381 meters in height it can hardly be called a hill, but it's slopes give an hour of quite a steep climb. Becouse of it's position it gives fantastic views over Trossachs National Park and Loch Lommonds islands and therefore is one of the most popular hills in this part of Scotland.

Nature on our doorstep

Just a couple of photos from Sunday leisure time, that we had yesterday. And who would have thought that there are places, like the one recommended to us by our friends, just on the outskirts of Glasgow. This Nature Reserve is just between Milngavie and Strathblane - about 25min drive from our home. Just a glimpse at what you can expect if you'll bother to look.

A Trip Down South - Around England Road Trip - PART 3

After four days in Cornwall has passed we headed east along the coast and stopped in Axminster for a cream tea in River Cottage Canteen. After a refreshments a busy afternoon was waiting for us, as we had visits to Stonehenge and Avebury planned. When we arrived at Stonehenge site and got past the gates we walked around it. Even after 5000 years and not at it's best Stonehenge is very impressive.

Voyage, voyage - Around England Road Trip - PART 2

Here we are - sitting in our small tent amogs huge caravans in Seaview Holiday Park near Boswinger, Cornwall. Although we seem not to fit in this place it is very friendly and in a great spot. So we are off to see some more Cornwall. The first on our list is Eden Project - recultivated clay pit just north of St. Austell. It's amazing how place can change, when there is will and vision. And money, because it's not cheap - neither to create such a thing nor to visit it. But it's absolutely worth it.

15 Days of England - Road Trip pictures - PART 1

We all go on holidays from time to time, and holidays are a great opportunity for taking pictures. Many of the places we visit are very well known and photographed by many before us. So if we want our photographs to look just a bit different and just a bit more interesting we have to forget about all those cliches that you can see on the postcards. We have to get creative instead of just copying others' ideas. Sometimes all it takes is just a step back or a step forward, adding some great foreground interest or maybe just getting different point of view. Take a leaning tower of pisa as an example. Why just take a normal photo of the tower leaning? Why not try to make the tower straight so all other buildings appear to be leaning down? It's just a simple example what you can do, and how you should try to think out of the box.

For my holiday I wen't for a road trip across England. From Glasgow, along the west coast through Liverpool, Birmingham, Bath and all in between them to Cornwall, where we were supposed to have a little break and leisure time. And then back up again on the east coast of Britain. It didn't quite work out as we hoped it will (turns out we were over-ambitious), but it was a great holiday. And I set myself a task of documenting that trip with my camera. In 15 days we drove 1870 miles through 31 counties and visited a lot of Britains famous and lesser known places. One of the first stops along the way were the sands of Morecambe Bay.

It's time for the Fringe in Edinburgh!

It's August, and as usual Edinburgh is home to a number of great festivals: Edinburgh National Festival, Edinburgh Book Festival, Fringe and probably a few more. But it is Fringe's tradition, that artists take over the Royal Mile and advertise their performances there. And if you're in Edinburgh during this time, you'll be overwhelmed by the festivals' atmosphere! Here is what I was able to capture last Saturday.

Some people were quite friendly and posing quite happily - like this man giving away leaflets for one of the shows.

Welcome!

Here we go!

Welcome to my very own blog. It all started a couple of years ago, when I first started to take photography seriously. It was very long time ago, in a country far, far away... Actually... it was about 10 years ago in the city of Wroclaw, Poland.

My first camera given to my by my father was a russian Zenit-E - a SLR that a limited series was made for the 1980 olympics that took place in Moscow. The camera itself was a typical soviet construction - bulky, heavy, not very precise and certainly not user-friendly. But it worked and the quality of images it produced was just way above what I could have done so far(with my very own point-and-shoot Kodak 35mm camera). So I started to read about all those things, that I had never heard of - exposure, composition, depth of field... a whole new world.

I used my Zenit for about a year learning about all those new things and just soaking up all that knowledge. But how far can you go with just one prime lens(a Zenit standard Helios 58mm f/2) when you're so eager to explore new grounds and try new techniques. So I started looking for a new pieces of kit to play around and ened up with a great piece of german technology - Practica MTL-3 with great Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 lens. It is so good, that I still have it and it works perfectly!

After another year or so of experimenting with all kinds of subjects, and all kinds of photography, I decided to get a 'real' camera and I bought my first modern SLR. It was a Canon EOS 300V camera - best I could afford at the time being a student. Along with its standard zoom it offered a great deal of versatility and new posibilities. And it served me well for a good 2 or three years - up to the point when it was a high time to move into digital photography. I have already moved to Glasgow by that time to finish my last year of studies at Glasgow Caledonian University and I had just enough cash to get a brand new Nikon D40X - a basic but very well made entry level digital SLR. And this is the camera I still use today, and probably will be using for some time. It is this camera that gave me the most experience and helped me develop my photography skills to my current level. Thanks to digital revolution I didn't have to pay for films, developing, scanning and prints anymore. All I needed was my camera and my laptop.

And ever since I moved into digital photography I had an idea somewhere in my head of having some place on the internet where I can publish my work, get some feedback from other photographers and maybe somehow build up some kind of my own portfolio. For years I have tried by registering to all kind of community pages and ading images on photography forums and it has never turned out as I expected. For many reasons - mostly becouse it is very difficult to get into already existing communities, but also becouse I have never realy had a good idea how it should work and how it should look like.

But now I have. And this blog is a part of it. I call it my biggest photography project to date. To build my profile - as a photographer - from scratch. Through this blog, my portfolio website and a number of community pages.