Not the Lynx you were expecting?

Another one of my favourite macro shots - this is an Australian Lynx spider (possibly Oxyopes elegans ?)

This guy (girl?) was posing nicely on a stalk of parsley in the garden and again is tiny.  I love the markings on the body;  perhaps that's the reason for the name 'Lynx'?
 

Snail's pace

This is one of my favourite macro images - a  small snail (or more likely, just the shell) on a blade of grass, with the sun shining through it.  (For a sense of scale, the shell is probably the size of the fingernail on your pinky/little finger)

I love the soft, almost dream-like, look of this image, and the fine details visible in the shell.

Red sky at night

I've been nagged recently (you know who you are...)  about a lack of updates to the blog and so I thought I'd post a recent sunset picture.  This was taken a couple of months ago in Canberra, Australia.

The shot was deliberately exposed to bring out the details in the clouds, yet hide (almost) the lights of the city below.  To me it suggests a quite a tranquil scene.

Painted with light

I really like the watercolour-like tones in this image.  By happy coincidence this is another phone-camera shot (HTC Desire S this time) and was taken very recently.  It was a case of happening to be in the right place at the right time and again a case of the best camera being the one I had with me.

Peace on Earth (og Glædelig Jul)

I've always liked this sunset shot, taken several years ago now on a pretty low resolution Samsung D500 camera phone.  From memory, it was around 1.3 mega-pixels.  Positively primitive by today's standards, but again a case of 'making do' with the camera I had with me.

The scene is a Danish country church, taken just on sunset on a Christmas Eve  (hence the title of today's post).

A hollow victory

This is one of those pure chance shots, and again a case of  'the one you have' in terms of gear.
I was out walking and only had my Olympus TG310 with me;  a moderately basic compact camera. 

Apologies (again) for the eight legs, but in this case it's not actually a spider  but the spider's skin.  Similar to snakes (in a way), spiders outgrow their skins (or carapace, if you prefer) and have to shed it on a regular basis.  What we're seeing here is the empty skin of an Australian Huntsmen (Sparassidae family), nicely lit by the midday sun.

To the stars!

Another long exposure (roughly 25 seconds);  if you look closely you can see the 'star trails as the stars appear to move across the sky (also known as sidereal motion).  This shot was taken in country New South Wales, Australia.   I really like the contrast between the stars and trees and water tank.

Also, very much in the spirit of 'the one you have'   this shot was taken with a 50mm macro lens which happened to be the only lens that I had with me.

Slowing it down some more...

I've always liked this rather scenic (almost postcard like) shot of the London Eye, looking through the cherry blossoms.  I also like the framing, in that we don't see all of a fairly well-known tourist attraction, but enough of it to be familiar.
This picture has a lot in common with Slowing it down, in that it I made use of an improvised camera support (a concrete bollard, from memory) and a longer exposure in order to make the use of what little light there was.

Silhouettes

Here's something a little different today;  a picture taken only an hour or so ago (at the time of posting).  I happened to be in the right place at the right time, just after sunset, and managed to capture this interesting image of the hills in the area, nicely silhouetted against the sky.  I like how the indirect lighting has taken out a lot of the detail; we're left with not much more than tones.  This one would probably work nicely in black and white as well.

And now for something completely different...

I was digging through my archives today and came across a couple of experiments in artificial 'tilt-shift.'  Tilt-shift is a classic technique (Tilt-Shift) in large and medium-format photography that gives a forced perspective (or focus) to an image.  Luckily, it's also very simple to do with digital photography and a 'regular' camera. There are lots of tutorials, for example:  http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

The end result, when used in landscapes, or street scenes, makes the scene look like a model:

This is somewhat of a departure for me; I tend to do everything on the camera and very little (if any) manipulation afterwards.

Slowing it down

There's something 'other worldly' about long exposures.  People become ghosts, waves and clouds get blurred and smoothed.  The 'secret' (if you can call it that) to success is to find something really solid to rest the camera on.  A good tripod will definitely help, as it gives you lots of flexibility in terms of how you position the camera and will be fairly rigid.

Alternatively, you can do it the budget way, like today's post, and make use of a concrete rubbish bin. I suspect the lump of cast concrete was more solid than any tripod but admittedly nowhere near as portable.

The end result was this 30-second exposure, taken in Saltburn on the north-east coast of England:

The end of the ladybird

Following on from an earlier post (4 legs best) I thought I'd post another example of a more abstract picture.  (I'm still not sure if "abstract" is the right term here.  Can anyone suggest something better?  Your thoughts would be appreciated)
I really like this shot of the ladybird*; very little of her (him?) is actually in focus and yet the scene is still quite recognisable.  When I first viewed this image (after downloading from the camera) I was amazed at the detail that was captured;  especially the fine 'hairs' on the blade of grass.

(*This shot was taken in the UK, and the question is, which of the 26 species of ladybird is it?  Ladybird Species List)

The one you have

There's an old saying in photography:  "The best camera is the one you have with you at the time".  People often worry about having the 'right' lens, the 'right' camera body and so on.  Far more important is making the most of what you've got!

One of my favourite city shots is this one that I took on a winter evening in Edinburgh a couple of years ago.   The camera in this case was a 1.3 megapixel phone-camera - positively primitive by today's standards.  But one of the great things about a simple camera is that you don't (and can't) worry about fine-tuning and adjusting focus, shutter-speed and aperture.

An earlier post on the same theme: Inspired by...Rockwell

4 legs best

Couldn't resist continuing with the legs title theme.  Although, strictly speaking, this is 12 legs, but anyway...
I really liked how 'abstract ' (impressionist?  Is there name for this style of image? ) this picture appears;  the shapes are obviously dogs but are wonderfully blurred and reduced at the same time.

...6 legs better

(With apologies to George Orwell)
Continuing from yesterday's macro theme, another favourite of mine, but this time with only 6 legs;  the Green Long-legged Fly (Austrosciapus connexus) is fairly common in SE Australia and well as being beautiful close-up (and having a wonderfully imaginative name), is also a good creature to have in the garden, eating pests such as aphids.  This guy (girl?) posed very nicely for me, and kept returning to the same sunny spot:

Eight legs good

For as long as I can remember I've been terrified of spiders, but after buying a macro lens (almost on a whim) a couple of years ago I've slowly become fascinated with them.  They're surprisingly photogenic and will often pose nicely.  Case in point, an Australian wolf-spider (probably Lycosa bicolor):

Apologies to any arachnophobes!
Macro is major 'obsession' for me and I'll post more (not all eight-legged) as I go.

Inspired by...Rockwell

More philosophical than visual (perhaps) but for a long time I found Ken Rockwell's article "Your camera doesn't matter" summed up my thinking on photography;  a camera is just a tool and it's the visualisation and composition of an image that really matters.
I have some interesting (to me at least) images taken with simple phone cameras. Hopefully they go some way to demonstrating Rockwell's thinking:

I hope that this image (taken in a public park in North Sydney, Australia) shows the idea nicely.

Inspired by...Turner

Following a recent discussion with co-conspirator on inspiration versus imitation in photography, I started thinking about images that could be inspired by well known artists.  The first of these was purely by accident and reminded me a lot of JMW Turner's sunsets: