This weekend cyclists took over London which gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with the shutter speed on my camera. Firstly we headed to Wimbledon to see my boyfriend’s Dad ride past, then we watched some more riders as they went over Putney Bridge as we made our way to the pub – a much more sensible way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
I quite like how the images above turned out, particularly the ones on Putney Bridge, but the photographs below were not all quite so successful:
The two above are over-exposed, although I do quite like the effect!
Nothing beats the scent of sweet peas at this time of year, and to encourage further flowers they need to be constantly picked. This is great for me, as it gives me a new flower to let dry out and photograph.
A sudden breeze was a real help in taking the image above, I love the sense of movement that it gives the petal.
On an overcast Sunday I headed back to my parents house and my Dad suggested a walk in the woods with a film camera. It was a test to see how much I understood the camera settings and the impact of these on an image. He gave me his Pentax ME Super and we set off!
I found it hard to use the viewfinder rather than the screen as I am used to, and I occasionally accidentally took a photo before I was ready. A few times I had the settings and composition just as I wanted, before realising I hadn’t wound the film on between shots – the perils of growing up in the digital age! Although we did reminisce that I did have a film camera as a child, I seem to remember that it had a cartoon tiger on the front.
These are some of the images which I am most pleased with:
Although the focus obviously is not what I had intended I quite like the effect of this photograph.
The focus isn’t quite right here, but again I like the effect of focusing on what you wouldn’t necessarily expect.
This is the image I am most pleased with:
Overall I really love the effect of these photographs, and can really tell the difference between film and digital. The film was slightly out of date which may have affected some of the colours on the final images but on the whole I’m quite pleased with my first attempt!
But of course there were also a few photographs that didn’t come out too well, because I had not got the settings quite right. As my Dad says, a film camera is a lot less forgiving for your errors as a photographer than a digital!
Despite working in a Garden in Chelsea for 2 1/2 years I’d never been to Chelsea Flower Show, so this year I decided to go with my parents. There was also the added incentive of the Head Gardener at the Garden I work in having a Show Garden at the show. It’s perhaps not the ideal place for photography, lots of crowds and never long to set up a shot as you have so much to see! However I took my camera with me to see what I could capture.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by the show overall, I had heard comments that it is incredibly busy and too crowded and commercial to enjoy but in fact it was great. I didn’t feel that I was being sold to and found so much to see that the 3.30-8pm ticket time soon flew past.
The biggest challenge was that the sun was so bright a lot of my images are overexposed, not that I should complain as it was a beautiful evening! Here are a selection on the images that I am quite pleased with from the show.
Capturing the sunset on the planting in the Royal Bank of Canada Garden
The Imperial Garden: Revive
A tunnel of orchids was a particular highlight of the show for me, I took this as I was entering the tunnel. I could have spent a while in there taking photos but unfortunately this was a particularly crowded spot!
A bed of lavenderSunset accentuating the copper in the Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden
The Husqvarna Garden
Detail in the Harrods British Eccentrics Garden
I had such a great afternoon at the show, and want to say a huge congratulations to Nick for his stunning Show Garden, The Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden which was awarded Silver-Gilt.
I’ve done some more experimenting with photographing flowers that are past their best, and these are the results! Unfortunately these flowers were so far gone that they fell apart as I tried to position them onto my sheets of watercolour, however I think they are actually quite beautiful in this state.
I used photoshop more than usual on the image above, I wanted it to look more like a painting than a photo so I played with the levels and contrast settings to create this effect.
I cropped the image above to focus on the head of the flower, it’s quite beautiful the way the petals are falling away, almost like silk.
The image above is a cropped version of the below , as I wanted to focus on the detail in the petals. In the un-cropped version IÂ wanted to make it appear as if someone had randomly thrown the petals down and left them.
I don’t think I quite got the focus right in the image below, but the colours are so stunning that I wanted to include it anyway.
It’s been a very grey and drizzly day in London, but an upside of this is that all the flowers are covered in water droplets. I captured this tulip at the end of my day at work today.
Last week I was lucky enough to join a photography workshop at the Garden I work in. It was run by Philip Smith who founded the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition, so I hoped to pick up some tips on how I can improve my own photography.
The course was great, partly because it taught me to take my time when setting up a shot and also because it really clarified some of the more technical aspects of photography that I am still getting my head around. Inspired, I headed out into the Garden.
Here are some of the results, as usual comments and thoughts are very welcome.
A stunning poppy display. I wanted the two purple flowers in the foreground to be the focus.
Last week my boyfriend and I headed to Budapest for a long weekend. We’d been to Prague in April 2015 and so were keen to explore another Eastern European city. We found a great deal with British Airways for flights and a 4* hotel, so before I knew it we were heading to Heathrow. Of course this time I had my camera, so alongside the usual holiday snaps I also experimented with my photography in a new context – hopefully without being too annoying to my travel companion!
As we were so lucky with the weather, it was above 24° c for the 3 days we were there, we spent a lot of the time exploring on foot. A walking tour was a brilliant introduction to the city, and I was fascinated to hear about the city from a local. Budapest’s turbulent history is evident through it’s architecture, particularly striking when two completely different styles are juxtaposed as below.
It’s also noticeable in the background of this photograph on the other side of the Danube.
Here are some of the other shots I took while wandering around the city in the day.
Matthias Church, Buda
Changing of the Guard outside of ParliamentView across to Buda from Pest
Budapest has a number of ruin bars, think London’s Shoreditch and you’ll get the idea, so we tried to find a few. Some that we’d marked on our map  didn’t seem to exist anymore, unless they were too hidden for us to find. But following several recommendations we did visit Szimpla Kert  which was a maze of rooms filled with all kind of lovingly dumped junk! I used this opportunity to take some photos using the filters in my camera, here are the results.
I found myself moved by Shoes on the Danube, a memorial for the victims who were shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross Militiamen in 1944-45.  I did question whether it was appropriate to take photographs, but wanted to see if I could tastefully capture the poignancy of the memorial.
Next I come to the night-time photographs I took while we wandered the city after dinner and between various wine bars!
ParliamentThe Liberty or Freedom Statue seen on the Gellert Hill behind the Liberty BridgeThe Chain Bridge
Finally, a lesson in the fact I might need to invest in a tripod for focused night-time shots. That or I’d sampled one too many glasses of Hungarian speciality Pálinka.
I hope you enjoyed my holiday photographs, hopefully a step up from the holiday snaps I would have taken before. As always comments are very welcome.
I was treated to a beautiful bouquet of flowers a couple of weeks ago. While I enjoyed them at their peak I was looking forward to photographing them as they started to fade, in a similar style to the daffodils and using the watercolour washes as backgrounds.
My favourite flower in the bouquet was this stunning lily, I love the iridescent effect of the petals.
Alongside the lilies, I also captured two other striking flowers in the bouquet.
Lily M Photography 