It's not often that I put up a shot that I'd like to be remembered by, but this may well turn out to be one of them. And as with yesterday's shot, this was taken outside our house as Rhowan and I waited for everyone else to get ready for a walk.

The original shot is here:

.../iblog/archives/the_snow_queen.php

The post-processing was similar to yesterday's, insofar as I added some blur to the outer areas, but this one was processed in LAB Color mode (the topic of next month's tutorial), hence the unusual colouring. I may well include this in the LAB Color tutorial as it is a good example of how a LAB Curve can be used to dramatically change the colours and colour balance of a photograph.

Update: Paul left an interesting comment earlier when he said "If it wasn't for those 3 or 4 stray hairs over her eye I would rate this as your best", so here's another version, minus the stray hairs. If you'd like to see the slightly hairier version, it's here:

.../iblog/archives/the_snow_queen_v1.php

And on a totally different note …

You may well remember a spate of baby shots back in January of this year (this one, for example), that we were shooting for a book. The book – Baby Photography Now – has now been published and we should take delivery of 70 copies some time over the next few days. If you’re interested in buying a signed copy you can purchase one from our new ‘store’ page here:

www.chromasia.com/store.php

Libby suggested that I should explain this one, as the reality of the situation isn't immediately apparent, but I'd rather not, at least not immediately. Suffice to say that it's a shot of Rhowan, it wasn't posed, and despite appearances to the contrary, she's very much alive and well ;-)

Update: following warwick's comment below, perhaps I should explain ...

Libby and I took Milly, Rhowan, and Harmony to the beach today, and in amongst all the other games they played, they buried each other in the sand. The bow around Rhowan's neck was decorative, as was the seaweed around her waist ( you can't see it in this shot). Anyway, the bottom line is that the reality is somewhat less traumatic than warwick's first impression.

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3.02pm on 4/6/07 Canon 5D EF 24-70 f/2.8L USM 59mm f/5.6 1/250 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro 1x1

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had two shots of this type that I liked and that neither of them were perfect. Well, I've ditched the one I intended to put up in favour of this one, which is as near perfect as I think this type of shot gets. You're quite free to disagree with me, but this one is exactly the type of image I was after: lots of detail, razor sharp (unlike yesterday's, which was a bit soft), and interesting colours and tones.

A few of you asked how these are done:

1. set up a source of smoke in between the camera and a dark background. I used a joss stick.
2. light the scene from the side. I used my 580EX as the main source of illumination for this one, triggered using an ST-E2 transmitter.
3. set the exposure accordingly. I used a manual setting of f/16.0 for this shot coupled with a shutter speed of 1/30. From what I've read, if you're using a source of illumination other than flash, you probably need a shutter speed of 1/125 or above. You also need to be careful to pre-focus. I had the camera about 3 feet from the smoke for this one and even with an aperture of f/16.0 the DoF is only 1" deep.
4. take a lot of shots. I took over three hundred to get these two. There were a couple more that were ok, but only two I was really happy with.

As for the processing:

1. invert the image. This makes the background white rather than black.
2. adjust the overall contrast using a Curve.
3. tone the smoke using a Curve, Hue/Saturation, or similar.
4. use Noise Ninja or other noise reduction software as appropriate.

And that's about it. Let me know what you think.

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9.43pm on 12/10/06 Canon 20D EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM f/16.0 1/30 manual n/a evaluative 100 580EX RAW C1 Pro 1x1

As promised, here's Elvis, enjoying his pipe on Blackpool's Central pier.

Update: As of Friday 28th April, I've entered this in the Photo Friday challenge – Famous ;-)

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4.04pm on 21/4/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 34mm (54mm equiv.) f/5.6 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 (-2/3 FEC) evaluative 100 580EX RAW C1 Pro 1x1

While I don't expect that there'll be any controversy over this shot, I do suspect that some of you will like it, and some of you won't. Personally, I like this sort of graphic shot. My wife, on the other hand, calls them 'nothing shots'. "There's nothing there, it just a red wall". For me, it's about shape, and texture, and colour, but as I said, I don't imagine it will be to everyone's taste. Also, the Photo Friday challenge this week is 'Red', so I couldn't not enter this one.

On another matter: I probably won't be overly chatty over the next couple of days as I've got a stinking cold (probably serves me right for trudging round Blackpool in the snow yesterday) and Finley isn't overly well either. We suspect he's teething, but whatever the problem is I spent most of last night wandering aimlessly round the house with him. He finally settled at around 5am, but he's not had a great day today either, and I suspect we'll be shuffling aimlessly from room to room for a good portion of tonight too. So, I've not really been keeping up with your comments, and am miles behind with emails too. I'll try and catch up soon.

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9.30am on 12/3/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 20mm (32mm equiv.) f/5.6 1/30 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor

I didn't have anything much to put up tonight so, given that this week's Photo Friday challenge is Best of 2005, I thought I'd take the opportunity to repost a few of my favourites. I did try to pick one, but it wasn't possible: it was hard enough to whittle it down to four! Anyway, in the end I decided on don't look up #2, space, SG-Blackpool and those eyes again. There were many others I could have chosen, but these are the ones that I'm most attached to, in one way or another. They're also mostly the ones that you suggested yesterday, so thanks for helping me decide.

On another matter: I'd like to thank you all for visiting chromasia over the last twelve months. As always, you've provided great feedback and support, have been understanding when there have been technical problems with the site or I haven't been able to post for other reasons, and have continued to make this project worthwhile. Without you, I'd still take photographs, but I'm sure that the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as rewarding. So thank you, and I hope that you all have a great 2006.

On a personal note: 2005 has been a really hectic year. Finley was born back in August, work has been hectic, we've had numerous projects on the go in terms of sorting out our house, I visited China and so on. And while 2005 was enjoyable, it was bordering on being a little too hectic for my taste, so I'm hoping that 2006 will be a little more relaxed :-)

And finally, after months of trying to sort out the problems with chromasia's server, I've managed to migrate everything to the new server. As I write this the DNS changes haven't propagated so chromasia.com still points to the old server, but this should all sort itself out in a few days. Anyway, chromasia is now hosted/sponsored by Richard Jones who runs pixyBlog. Over the next twelve months or so Richard is going to be developing various online services for photographers and photo libraries, including a hosted photoblog solution and, all being well, I'll be piloting some of these for him in the months ahead. Anyway, many thanks to Richard for providing a home for chromasia.

I'd also like to thank a few other people while I'm here: my wife and kids, for putting up with me constantly disappearing to either take photographs or post-process them, and thanks too to John (Washington) for keeping me company while wandering around Blackpool and the surrounding coast.

So I guess that's about it for this year. Once again, thanks for all your support over the last twelve months, and I hope that you have a great new year :-)

John and I went for a walk along the beach this afternoon – between Blackpool and St. Annes – and came across this TV. Admittedly, it was a little further up the beach when we found it, but it would have been dark by the time the tide came in so we took the liberty of moving it. I think that John will be putting up a similar shot this evening and I'll be putting up a black and white version tomorrow.

Oh, and many thanks to John for lending me his 1Ds for this shot. My batteries had gone flat so I had to beg a few shots with his camera. I suspect he won't let me forget it in a hurry ;-)

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2.55pm on 28/12/05 Canon 1Ds EF 28-70 f/2.8L USM 70mm f/8.0 1/160 aperture priority -1/3 partial 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor rotation

Update: At PhilB's suggestion, I've entered this one in this week's Photo Friday challenge, Depth of Field.

John and I went for a stroll round some of Blackpool's back streets this lunchtime and I came back with about 100 shots, but the only one I'm happy with is this one. There are probably a few more I'll be able to work on (or, more accurately, will have to work on), but this is the only one that really worked out as I intended. I guess that some days are just not photography days.

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11.54am on 18/12/05 Canon 20D EF 50mm f/1.4 USM f/2.8 1/250 aperture priority -1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro no

I've assigned this one to my 'photoblog' category – the one I use for shots that are either not up to much, or just simply shots I've taken that record what I've been up to; i.e. they're not, by any stretch of the imagination, particularly great photographs. Anyway, excuses aside, I'm currently sat in a hotel room after spending a good portion of today and most of yesterday travelling, I've had about six hours sleep over the last 48, and I'm struggling with a demo version of CS2, an LCD display, and the overwhelming desire to sleep. But I thought I'd put this one up with a question. Where am I? To make it a bit easier I'm staying in the city in this shot and will be hear until Wednesday morning; after which I'll have to reverse the journey and go home. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out and about to take some decent photograhps, but I'm working on Tuesday so will post as and when I can. Oh, and I'll probably reprocess this one when I get home as I have no idea how it's going to look on my usual setup. Anyway, all being well, I'll put something a bit better up tomorrow.

Harmony, now just over two and a half, is mostly quite happy, often quite stroppy, and sometimes upset. In this case I can't even remember what the problem was: we'd be chatting, and taking photographs, and she asked me something to which the answer was no ... this was the result. I should add that two minutes later she was as right as rain, but for those few moments it seemed as though her world had become quite unbearable.

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2.01pm on 16/10/05 Canon 20D EF 50mm f/1.8 II f/2.2 1/125 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 400 no RAW C1 Pro no

I did try and take a few shots of our son today, but I wasn't particularly happy with any of them. The 'problem', such as it is, is that because he was late his skin is now quite dry, and he really doesn't look at his best. Hopefully he'll be looking a bit less traumatised in a few days time.

Anyway, we took the youngest three to the park this afternoon and Rhowan and Harmony spent quite a bit of time chasing around under this tree. Most are just a blur of movement, but occasionaly they paused long enough for me to get a focussed shot. This was my favourite of the bunch.

And thanks again for all the comments on Tuesday's shot; 186 comments must be some kind of record :-)

Update: Sorry, I should have mentioned that this is Harmony rather than Rhowan. Also, this was processed quite simply, i.e. it was colorised using the Hue/Saturation tool set to 45, 8, 0.

Update #2: I looked at the Photo Friday challenge earlier this week, and what with one thing and another I promptly forgot about it. But the theme this week is One so I thought this would make a good entry.

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5.32pm on 25/8/05 Canon 20D EF 50mm f/1.8 II f/2.0 1/125 aperture priority -1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro no

I'm a bit late putting up tonight's entry as I've been processing a set of images that need to be finished by tomorrow, of which this is one – a shot of the Big Wheel on Blackpool's Central pier.

Update: I decided to enter this shot for this week's Photo Friday challenge – Complexity.

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11.32am on 2/8/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/8.0 1/160 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor

It's a while since I entered anything in one of the Photo Friday challenges but I couldn't not enter this week's challenge – Somber.

[French sombre, from Old French, from *sombrer, to cast a shadow, from Late Latin subumbrare, from Latin sub umbra, in shadow].

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4.17pm on 23/7/05 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 200mm (320mm equiv.) f/5.6 1/200 aperture priority -2/3 (-2/3 FEC) evaluative 200 580EX RAW C1 Pro flipped horizontally

This is another shot from my recent trip with John, Paul and Ioannis, and is probably the last I'll put up (as I messed up the rest of them). And as I mentioned one of John's shots yesterday it's Paul's turn today. Ioannis has also put up a shot of me and John.

Update: I've entered this shot in the Photo Friday Orange challenge.

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9.58pm on 23/6/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 40mm (64mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/50 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor rotation

I've put this up a bit early today as I think it's a great example of what we were talking about yesterday; i.e. altering a photograph to match a preconceptualised vision of a scene rather than simply producing some sort of literal representation. Let me know what you think.

Oh, and as you can see from the title, I've entered this one in this week's Photo Friday challenge, Space.

And finally: what story do you think this tells?

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2.37pm on 14/5/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/8.0 1/320 aperture priority -2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor rotation

Too tired to speak this evening but did want to mention that other than a Curves adjustment and a 180 degree rotation, this is a straight shot.

Update: I've entered this photograph in this week's Photo Friday challenge – Action. It's not entirely suitable, but I've missed loads of challenges recently and wanted to enter this one.

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8.13pm on 12/5/05 Canon 20D 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM f/5.6 1/250 aperture priority -2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor / rotated 180°

A few days ago Maxinne said that she "... would love to see how your new baby and wife are looking at the moment", so I thought I'd try a few portraits today with my homemade tilt/shift lens. Unfortunately though, my wife isn't too impressed with this one – she's not a great fan of such minimal depth of field – but I quite like it. As always, let me know what you think.

As for the lens: if anyone's interested I put up some details here:

.../iblog/homemade_t_s_lens.php

Update: after putting this one up I thought it would be a good entry for this week's Photo Friday challenge, Rest.

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12.03pm on 17/4/05 Canon 20D homemade T/S 80mm f/2.8 f/2.8 1/400 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 800 no RAW C1 Pro no

I haven't entered any of the recent Photo Friday challenges but thought I'd have a go with this one, the theme for which is Plastic. Technically this shot was relatively straightforward but was a bit of a problem to light. In the end I went for bouncing a low-watt desk lamp off the ceiling and a long exposure. There are still a few reflections that I would preferred weren't there, but I'm quite pleased with the overall result.

And for those of you who are too young to remember Bill and Ben, the characters depicted on this toy, it was a TV series in the UK that ran between 1952 and 1970 but recently made a small comeback (but now seems to have dissapeared again). Did it ever make it to the US or elsewhere?

Oh, and you must view this one with the black theme.

As for the shot I mentioned yesterday, the advert for the soft-porn, I decided not to use it as a main entry as it may well offend some visitors. If I thought it was a great shot, or significant for some other reason, I might well have put it up but as I mentioned, what was interesting for me was the way I approached the shot; i.e. I didn't consider the content until afterwards, treating it instead as nothing more than a photographic subject.

Anyway, after all the hype yesterday I don't imagine that anyone will be too impressed with it, either as a photograph or a shocking image, but if you do want to see it I've put it here:

.../archives/wap_enabled.php

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and brownie points to the first person to correctly identify the mystery Star Wars character that seems to be lurking in the shot ;-)

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9.35pm on 13/4/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 36mm (58mm equiv.) f/8.0 15s aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro repositioned

I know this is pretty similar to yesterday's shot, but I couldn't resist putting it up as I think I probably prefer it. It's not as serene as yesterday's, but on the whole I think it's a stronger shot. Let me know which you prefer.

Update: I've decided to enter this one for this week's Photo Friday challenge – Glow. It's not quite as directly relevant to the theme as I'd like, but I think it's close enough :-)

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8.24pm on 23/3/05 Canon 20D 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM f/9.0 1/160 manual +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX RAW C1 Pro no

I've missed the last couple of Photo Friday challenges, but really wanted to do something for this week's theme – Distorted. I did think about using the shot of the crumpled can I put the day before yesterday, but decided that I liked this one better.

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and I guess I don't need to tell most of you this but, other than the colourisation and a Curves adjustment, this is a straight shot.

Update: I'm inclined to agree with the initial comments that the original version I put up may have been a tad over-saturated, so the version that's up now is toned down somewhat. The original can be seen here.

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4.01pm on 5/2/05 Canon 20D EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM f/5.6 1/250 aperture priority -1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro rotated

Update: I'm really pleased to be able to say that this shot was awarded a noteworthy in the recent Photo Friday challenge, Signs. Thanks to everyone who voted :-) Arguably, with four children, sometimes five, you could say that we probably already have more than our fair share, but it seems that fate has deemed that we'll have another one. Well, more likely the logic of biology has deemed we'll have another, but you know what I mean ;-) Anyway, when I saw that this week's Photo Friday theme was Signs I knew roughly what shot I wanted to get. Earlier this evening I took about 50 shots and have spent the last couple of hours trying to decide which one to use; and I drew a blank, mostly because I didn't have a single shot that told the story I wanted to convey. So, in a bit of a departure from usual, I've gone for these two. Had I not being trying to get something together for Photo Friday, I think I would have gone for a variant of the first shot, but I didn't think that it did too great a job of conveying the notion of a 'sign', whereas the second one seemed a bit bland on its own. On which note, look out for baby pictures some time around the middle of August :-)

This is the first of four shots that I took yesterday while walking along our windswept beach. Two were taken walking south (of which this is the second, hence the title), two are colour, and two are toned. This is probably my least favourite of the four, tomorrow's my next least favourite, the day after is my favourite, and the final shot is my wife's favourite (which, on past experience, probably means it's the best of the four ;-), but there isn't really a great deal to choose from in terms of my view of their quality. One of the things I was trying to show, though not so much with this one, was some indication as to how windy it was – there was a steady 40-45mph wind blowing in off the sea – but I'm not sure that I managed it all that successfully. Oh well, as landscapes go I'm quite pleased with all of them.

And I know that I said I was going to do more portraits, and I will, but having got these shots yesterday I do want to put them up. Besides which, this gives me four days to take some decent portraits which, I have to confess, I find much more difficult than landscapes.

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and I found out how to export my usage statistics to make them publicly available. I don't know if this will be of interest to anyone, but it's the sort of geeky thing that I find quite intriguing when I see it on other sites so thought I'd include it ;-) I've also included a link on the sidebar of my main archive page. Correction: Following quis's comment I checked out the referrer section on other sites that do this and lo and behold they're full of spurious sites that probably used a false referrer. So it's back to the drawing board with this one.

And finally, many thanks to everyone who's been voting for chromasia in the Best Photo/Art/Poetry Blog category in the Best of Blogs Awards 2004 – it's much appreciated and I'm currently in a respectable second place. If you'd still like to vote you can do so every day between now and the 14th :-)

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3.45pm on 8/1/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 40mm (64mm equiv.) f/5.6 1/250 aperture priority -2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor

This week's Photo Friday challenge – Tacky – proved more difficult than I imagined. For those of you who know Blackpool, you'd probably agree that it's the world's capital of tackiness, but photographing said tackiness isn't easy. Well it is, but you end up with a photograph that looks tacky rather than one that depicts tackiness.

Anyway, the end result is this shot, which is kind of a compromise: the subject matter isn't quite so tacky as some of my other attempts this week, but the photograph is better ;-)

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9.23pm on 23/12/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 70mm (112mm equiv.) f/6.3 1/200 manual +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX RAW C1 Pro minor

For most of the time our three year old acts as though she were possessed, and "relaxed" is the very last word you would use to describe her. Rarely though, as with this shot, she appears almost magically elfin and mysteriously calm.

Oh, and this is one that must be viewed with the dark theme.

Update (31^st December, 2004): The final Photo Friday challenge for this year is Best of 2004 and it didn't take me long to decide that I should put this shot up. Technically I'm not sure that it's my best shot, but it's certainly one of my most striking and one of the ones I'm most proud of out of all the ones I've posted in the last 12 months. And oddly enough, this time last year, I posted a shot of the same daughter for the Photo Friday Best of 2003 challenge.

Update #2 (11^th January, 2005): I'm really pleased to be able to say that this shot was awarded a noteworthy. Many thanks to everyone who voted :-)

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6.36pm on 14/12/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 200mm (320mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/60 shutter priority +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX RAW DPP no

As many of you will be aware chromasia has been doing really well in the recentBest Photoblog category of the 2004 Weblog Awards, and I'm extremely grateful to all the people who voted for me – it's much appreciated.

However, over the last few days I've watched various of my fellow bloggers (Justin, Miles and Fredrik), all of whom I respect, ask to be withdrawn from the poll on the grounds that the political views of the sponsor are extremely right wing. So, I decided it was about time I read through some of the blog. And, to cut a long story short, I'm no longer happy to be affiliated with the awards nor the sponsor (WizBang), as I find their politics objectionable and suspect that the awards are quite probably little more than a marketing device.

So, my apologies to everyone who took time out from their days to vote – I now feel as though I've completely wasted your time – but I hope you can understand why I'm no longer happy to be involved.

On a lighter note: the thing I particularly like about this shot is the translucency of the newspaper and, on the basis that I don't have a great deal of time this coming week, I'm going to enter this shot into this week's Photo Friday challenge – Abandoned.

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4.40pm on 11/12/04 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/22 30s aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW DPP no

I haven't been taking part in all the recent Photo Friday challenges but I could hardly miss this one – Reflections.

As for this shot: I tried a version of this one yesterday with our existing decorations which, because they're made out of shatterproof plastic (i.e. they're two and three year old resistant), didn't reflect the scene all that well. So I went out this afternoon to look for a single, large glass decoration ... and couldn't find one. However, I did find these small ones and think the photograph is probably more interesting as a result. So, a festive take on this week's theme which I'm actually quite pleased with :-)

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5.07pm on 4/12/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 168mm (269mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/200 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX and 420EX RAW DPP minor

I had intended to get out and about this afternoon, at least for an hour or so, but as usual events conspired to keep me in – though in this instance the events were rather unusual. I got a phone call from American Express asking if they could check some of my recent credit card transactions with me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it appears as though I've been the victim of a minor form of identity theft in that my card was registered at an address in London and around £800 has been spent on mobile phones. What's scary is that whoever did this must have access to at least some of my security details otherwise they wouldn't have been able to arrange the change of address. Anyway, I don't know the full details yet - the fraud team are going to ring me on Monday – but it did mean that I spent the afternoon ringing my bank and other credit card providers to check that I wasn't now living in the south of Spain hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt. Fortunately I'm not ;-)

Anyway, back to the photography: this thing/object may be immediately familiar to some people, but I hadn't seen one before, and thought it would make a good shot for this week's Photo Friday's theme – Patterns. And, in this instance, the only change that was made to the image was to colourise it.

And finally, a couple of people mentioned yesterday that they liked the writing I put up to accompany my entries. Interestingly enough chromasia is a descendent of a static blog I first started writing in May 2003, and at the time the photographs were very much an accompaniment to the text. It's interesting how things change and switch around over time :-)

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4.50pm on 20/11/04 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 36mm (58mm equiv.) f/10.0 2.5 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW no

It's a while since I took a shot of the world's largest mirror ball (my previous shots are here and here) and as neither of my previous attempts have included the whole ball I thought I'd put this one up.

As for how this was processed: basically this is almost a straight shot, but I did drop the brightness of the sky, increased the overall saturation, and upped the contrast a little. What I particularly like is the contrast between the drab greyness of the sky in the background and the reflected blue sky and clouds in the ball.

Update: Having just taken a look at Jon's latest entry I thought I might as well join in and submit this shot to this week's Photo Friday challenge – Radiant – as, like him, I don't expect to see too many radiant skies over the coming months.

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3.58pm on 9/11/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 200mm (320mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/320 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW no

Photo Friday is a little different this week:

Rules for the "2 by 4" Extra Challenge:
1) Keep yourself safe.
2) Start outside your location (could be your home, school, workplace - it's up to you).
3) Travel two units straight in one direction.
4) Turn to your right and travel 4 units.
5) Whereve you are, so long as you are safe, your mission is to creatively interpret your surroundings. Bring back and post photographic evidence to your website that you were actually there. Make the absolute best of whatever you find, no matter the subject or how mundane it might seem.

So, I left my house, walked two streets east, then fours streets south and ended up at a T-junction. I'd decided to take my 70-200 (on the basis that I'd have a longer reach if there wasn't anything interesting immediately in front of me) and vowed that I'd stand in much the same spot until I got a shot I was happy with. I came home with various pictures of leaves (all crap), some passing pedestrians (equally crap), some poorly focussed cars, buses and taxis (yes, you've guessed it), and this shot: which, all things considered, I'm happy with. And I'd be interested to see whether you can identify how it was done :-)

capture date camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality white balance cropped?

5.44pm on 10/8/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 200mm (320mm equiv.) f4.0 1/125 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW auto no

Update: Despite what I said below I decided to enter this shot for this week's Photo Friday challenge – Speed. It doesn't show speed, but it does involve speed. Besides which, I know I'm not going to have time to shoot anything more obviously relevant. Also, I've put the original of this shot up here:

.../archives/in_motion.php

As you can see, the changes aren't too drastic. Oh, and I was trying to work out why the original shot turned out so dark, and realised that I metered before the tree obscured the view; i.e. the exposure was set prior to the tree entering the shot.

--- original entry follows ---

I have mixed feelings about this shot, particularly as presented here (i.e. I suspect a printed version would look better), but I'm putting it up for the sake of interest, not least because it's a straight shot (well, other than the colorisation, and a Levels and Curves adjustment). I took this from the train on the way home yesterday, and it started out as an attempt to produce something for this week's Photo Friday challenge – Speed – i.e. use a slow shutter speed and pan the shot on an item in the middle distance. However, as I took this shot a tree went past, or rather I went past a tree, which obscured the view of the pylon. Anyway, I thought the almost 'pen and ink' feel to this shot was rather interesting so I've put it up.

As for the Photo Friday challenge; I guess I'll have to shoot something else.

Oh, and this is another one that looks better if you have your nose against the screen ;-)

capture date camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality white balance cropped?

5.21pm on 5/10/04 Canon 20D EF 50mm f/1.8 II f14.0 1/8 shutter priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW auto minor