light up bristol...

10
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

It was one of those nasty winter evenings that you want to sit in and drink tea but I knew id regret not going down to college green to take some pictures.

I had had a look in on the way back from work and I dont think i've ever seen such a concentration of photographers in one place before. After popping home to pick up my kit I spent a good few hours trying to get something a bit different to the shots id already seen of it on flickr.

I stuck the lens on f8 to get the best from my lens and used exposures ranging from 15 to 30 seconds. The magic of seeing a shot with such vibrant colours is fantastic and really rekindled my love for night photography.

This shot is as we speak one of the most viewed from my flickr account so I thought it was worth a blog posting. The lights in the trees were amazing and were as much of a spectacle as the projections themselves.

I focussed on infinity and tripped the shutter with a remote release to leave the camera untouched. Details as follows:

70mm
f8
20 seconds
iso 200
tripod
raw
d70
remote release

Babe Ruth...

ruth
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

We met my new niece on Saturday and here she is. I've been spending a couple of evenings properly getting to grips with rawshooter and its pretty darn useful. I think from here on in its gonna be raw files all the way so I will be mostly investing in bigger cards and some more backup storage.

Speaking of backups I think its time to back everything to somewhere safe...these guys at databarracks could be useful!

Anyroad, this shot was another in my unplanned series of shallow depth of fielders and although some may argue a touch cliche I really like it. I converted it into black and white in rawshooter as I still dont have a de facto method in photoshop. Im finding myself following the Andy Rouse philosophy of minimising time spent at the pc, thats gotta be a winner. The fact that I can do everything in rawshooter except final crops and levels tweaks is premier league.

Speaking of Andy Rouse he has started a blog on his site...its well worth a read...

traffic lights

traffic lights
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

this shot caught my eye with the three colours of leaves and seemed to definitely have some potential as it reminded me of some sort of autumnal traffic light...

The star of the shot is the Acer again, ive no idea what the species is that make up the yellow and green leaves but i loving the colours.

Another shallow depth of field shot, am now wondering what all leaves would look like sharp but hey ho, theres always next autumn...

f1.8
1/500 sec
iso 200
raw
handheld
nikon d70

backlit leaves...

yellow
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

After mooching around westonbirt with a bit of a cold it was a relief to have a bit of sun in the woods...

I had a great tutorial fresh in my mind and wanted to get some backlit shots to show both the colours in the leaves as well as their veins.

I shot most of the pictures using very shallow depth of field...this was at f1.8..I think I just spot metered from the leaves and went from there...

The weather is rancid now in Bristol im so glad i got down to westonbirt to get these shots! It proves that no matter what, its always worth getting out and amongst it...

f1.8
1/750 sec
handheld
iso 200
d70
raw

yellow glow

yellow glow
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

thats enough sunsets for the time being..

I managed to get to westonbirt before the monsoons started and had a fantastic afternoon in the woods. I think this is an Acer, they were the best value, loads of mad colours.

I seemed to shoot most things at f1.8 to get a bit of sharpness and loads of blurred colour in the background.

details for this one:

f1.8
iso 200
1/40th second
tripod
nikon d70
raw

swirly

swirl
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

well its been a while...

anyroad...more from Clevedon..

This one has seemed to get quite a bit of attention from my flickr set.

Not too much to say about it other than its another with the grey grad filter which allowed me to hold th esky in the shot whilst still getting the detail in the foreground seaweed.

seaweed sunset...

landscape
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

To continue yesterdays theme (as i've got a load of these!) here's another shot from the sunset at Clevedon.

It was a tricky one to meter due to the dark foreground and a bit of strong light in the sunset but the histogram helped out loads. Thank god for digital.

I think it could do with a boat or something in the background to add a bit of interest as the sunset wasn't at its most majestic. The movement in the foreground adds the best elements of the shot for me.

details:
f22
24mm
1.5 secs
iso 200
0.9 grey grad

last chance saloon...

spike
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

After an amazing weekend of early winter weather i took the opportunity to go and shoot a pretty spectacular sunset down at Clevedon.

This was the last shot of the day, mainly because the battery was nearly dead and the card was full....I took three shots and deleted the first two to make space for this...keeping an eye on the histogram to try and get a nice exposure...

I took a spot reading from the sky and dialled that into the camera in manual mode. After checking the focus, I slid a 0.9 grad filter to the horizon....got a boot full of water then tripped the shutter....checked the histogram then legged it up the beach/ rocks!

shutter - 6 secs
aperture - f22
filter - 0.9 grad
tripod
lens at 22mm
raw

I'm well chuffed with it...

wedding break' off

36
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I took some pics at my mates wedding at the weekend. An unexpected breakdancing competition presented an ideal opportunity to try out my new flash.

I think these guys had previous as they were pretty good dancers with some windmills and headstands making an appearance. I got these shots by dialling the shutter down to 1/10th and shifting the flash to rear curtain...

light trails at the arc de triumph

arc_trails3
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

ok so a break from the macro, one from the archives showing that if you are prepared to duel with the Paris traffic you can get some great shots.

This was one of many of my shots that I wouldnt have got without a small pocket triopod which in this case was balanced on a traffic beacon. I set it ti f22 and let it work out the rest....probably using a timer as cable releases keep getting taken off me in airports!

This was taken on Ilford black and white film..back in them old days when you had to take 24 consecutive shots in b&w...well not strickly true but you catch my drift...

lily macro...

lily
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

yep, more of the macro with the new extension tubes. After playing around with various compositions and depths of field this was one of my favourites.

I've just bought Ross Hoddinott's digital macro book which looks pretty good after an initial flick through. In addition to this check out the following for great macro resources and stuff on using flash.

Ross Hoddinott's website
Digital macro book by Ross Hoddinott
Ken Rockwell on Nikon flash

mellow yellow

yellow
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Another macro from the weekend which when i saw it in for the first time I nearly wet myself as it looked so much better on the laptop than it did on the camera.

I like the petals off to the right of the shot...a vertical crop would make an interesting abstract..

One thing I did notice was the difference it makes when you get the exposure and white balance spot on by using a grey card. The custom white balance in the d70 worked brilliantly for these and using the histogram you cant fail to get the exposure nailed.

macro

full_flower
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

After reading about this macro lighting set-up at strobist I was inspired to have a go and see what i could get...

This macro lark is amazing and opens up a whole new world of opportunities. I took 6 or so shots at a variety of f-stops whilst experimenting with different combinations of extension tubes...

Its fantastic that for about 20 quid you can set yourself up with the kit to both take and light some great macro shots...

This is my favourite of the many that I took. I love the depth of field and the purity of the shot...

new toys...

_DSC0075
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

after a couple of hours of discovery i finally managed to get some half-decent shots using my new new extension tubes.

the first obstacle was realising that i had absolutely no idea what the exposure should be, but thankfully histograms help and that was fairly quickly solved.

the next game was working out how to get any sort of sharpness whatsoever as the depth of field was so small.

it was a bit of a voyage of discovery but has opened up a whole new world of photography..

in case you were wondering the tubes were 12 quid off ebay...

limpet

limpet
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

a day on the beach at Clevedon a while back didn't yield too many images but this is one that I keep coming back to...

Its fairly simple and straightforward and isthe closest im going to get to a detail shot until i inevitably shell out on a macro lens...

i managed to get this shot just before a freak wave almost rendered all of my kit as useless, as well as drenching the subject!

Barbed silhouette

window
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I was in a changing room the other day and happened to lok up and see this skylight. The shadow of the barbed wire looked pretty cool and worthy of a picture so here it is!

Subway

51
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Not only was the subway the best way to get around New York but it also provided some great photo opportunities.

I had slowed the shutter speed to 1/15, and took a few frames before we got on the train and headed downtown. By holding dead still and pulling against the strap around your neck you can keep everything else pretty sharp...

Banksy

banksy
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I read an interesting article on the bbc today about Banksy's latest skull duggery so it seems appropriate to post a shot I took a couple of weeks back.

There's divided opinion about taking pictures of other peoples art. I thinks its pretty lazy unless you try and use the graffiti in the composition in an interesting way.

I wanted to get the banksy tag in the shot and this composition gave a different view to the millions of other pics that i've seen of this already.

check out the video of the paris hilton stunt on youtube...

Pipes

pipes
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

These caught my eye over the bank holiday weekend and came out better than I had imagined, mainly due to the very shallow band of focus and the colours on the pipes...

The shallow depth of field effect is excellent and is one that im going to use more often, particularly when shooting portraits..

It was shot in Bristol Cathedral btw...

I dont understand it either

swimming_kit
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

One of the great thigs about living in a city is that you are almost guaranteed some random action on pretty much a daily basis.

I enjoyed said random action on the way to town on Saturday when I noticed a swimming cap and goggles carefully placed on a wall outside a church on whiteladies road.

I suspect that they were part of some late night drunken antics, but would like to imagine that someone is strolling about in some speedos somewhere in Clifton...

John Terry

john_terry
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This was taken from the uper tiers of Old Traffords south stand at last weeks international against Greece.

It's amazing how dark it actually is at the games and you can understand why the pro's need such fast lenses to freeze the action.

This photo captures a moment. It was the first time that John Terry has led his team out as captain. He had a good game, scoring early doors and looked impressive throughout.

Clevedon shoreline

rusted
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Clevedon is just down the road from me and is a great place to take a variety of pictures.

This was definitely a chromasia inspired shot. It's shot in a style that i seemed to pick up a while ago where you combine objects in the foreground with more recognisable detail in the background (or vica versa). I like the idea of ignoring the obvious shot and sticking something else in there.

Model bristol

Model bristol
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This shot was my entry to a recent photo comp in the Bristol Evening Post. The deal was that you had to submit a shot that related to a category in the Yellow pages and if they liked it you won a shedload of cash., well enough for some new lenses anyway...

I have recently discovered this fantastic tilt/ shift tutorial which makes the image look like a model of the real scene. This panoramic was shot from Cabot tower in Bristol lateish one Sunday night as amazing light hit the city which presented a perfect shot for the effect.

I decided to enter it under the "Models - architectural and engineering" category and sat back waiting for the cheque to fall on the mat....

Imagine my surprise when the winners were announced. The winning shot was of a statue with tenners stuck on it......ho hum... ; )

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Rev mod..

mod_vicar
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This chap conducted the ceremony at my mates wedding over the weekend. He was by far the coolest vicar I think I have ever met and a very nice chap to boot.

His Vespa was amazing, especially the badge which had been replaced with one that read "Vicar", a lovely touch.

I now want a scooter.

rope reflections...

mirror_ball
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Another take on my last post, the woman was performing in front of the big mirror ball in Bristol Millenium square, the star of many a bristolian photo opportunity.

I think its one of those shots that if you know Bristol you'll think yeah whatever, but if its all new to you you might find it more interesting...

Rope climber

rope
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Last weekend saw the annual harbour festival in Brizzol. Still reeling from not having my camera with me when I witnessed the legend that is DJ derek I made sure I had it with me for the Saturday.

I managed to get behind this performers stage and thus had a nice clean background to shoot against as opposed to the crazy mirrored planetarium.

After converting it to black and white (as there wasnt much colour in the shot) I thought id rotate it to add a bit more interest, what the hell eh....

Liberty from the Ferry

42
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

The more observant of you will notice that it is indeed the fair lady liberty herself that you can see through the window of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island ferry.

This was as close as I got to a "different" shot of the statue, as the remaining from the trip are all the classics. The light was very midday and I only had a wide angle with me so options were a bit limited.

OK, so she's tiny in the frame but I like the way that she's framed by the open window...

Willow buckle

_DSC0056flickr
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This was an attempt at a classic shallow depth of field/ repeating pattern shot that you see a fair bit of here and there. The leather buckles on my mums baskets make a nice focal point with the repeating patterns filling the frame nicely.

I've just realised that I never got round to post processing any of these basket images, I just dumped them up here. Its actually quite refreshing to not spend ages correcting/ sharpening/ flattening etc, tasks that we never thought about before the digital revolution!

Willow dragonfly

_DSC0007flickr
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

My mum spends a lot of her time these days making stuff out of willow, from baskets to hedges and living willow structures for peoples gardens.

This is one of her more recent projects, a dragonfly which sits next to the pond at home. They look great as they blend in brilliantly with plants but are still boldenough to make a bit of a feature in the garden.

This shot is going to be used for some promotional material for her courses.

New York Stock Exchange

47
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I noticed this woman in red approaching the live feed of market data in front of the NYSE and thought it'd make a good shot, particularly if I slowed the shutter down a bit.

I'd have liked a bit less detail in the woman and a bit more dynamism and blur but I think this shot gets that across ok.

Shallots

shallots
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I've been thinking about getting a macro lens for ages. It occured to me the other night that I could use the macro on my girlfiends compact and this is the result.

The sharpness is amazing straight from the camera. I'd have liked less depth of field but after playing around with the lens filter in photoshop the original looked better.

All of this food photography was inspired by the photography in the Jamie Oliver books. The guy who shot the books (Chris Terry) has got a site, check it out...

Rain at the Louvre

Louvre
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This shot was taken during a downpour at the Louvre, I liked the way the path leads you to the umbrella which leads you to the pyriamid...a grab shot but I think it works in black and white...

Hot dogs

5
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I sat eating lunch in a deli on 5th avenue, as you do, and noticed how cool the sides of the hot dog vendors carts looked so I went over and got this shot...

Thinking about it now I dont think i actually bought a dog off the guy which i finding pretty hard to believe as i love those things...

Its a straightforward shot but the colour and composition add interest for me..

Sauf Riverains

Street sign
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Its funny. You go to Paris, see a cool looking sign and take a photo of it.

You get home, look it up in a dictionary and find out that it means "except residents".....its definitely seemed more exotic when I didnt know the translation..

Makes me wonder how many French photographers have taken pictures of english "give way" and "adverse camber" signs and have them proudly displayed on the walls of their gites...

I still like this picture...very Parisienne

Blokes Hobbies....

Hobbies....
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I came across these guys whilst having a stroll with my camera last autumn. The amount of kit they have to run their remote controlled boats is amazing.

The set up seemed to be bloke with hobby and related kit + bored wife with a magazine. A classic scene across the UK at the weekend.......and also possibly a subject worth of a Martin Parr style project similar to his brilliant bored couples study.......

looking uptown...

2
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This was a grab shot really that has since really stood out amongst the hundreds of photos that I took during a recent trip to NYC. I think iots the V shape in the road that does it for me.......

Cammel Laird across the Mersey

The mersey
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I took this shot about 5 Years ago using an old fully manual slr and a roll of ilford film. The cranes across the Mersey are long gone, Ive no idea if the ship builders is still actually there.

Its probably one of my very earliest black and white pictures but is definitely one of my favourites. The shapes and structures in the sand/ mud at low tide were amazing and ever changing. I was lucky with this one that I found an inlet that gave a nice lead in to the ship builders, a nice piece of liverpool history.

David Blaine street magic

53
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

There I was walking through Washington State park and there he was just doing a few card tricks in front of a load of NYU students.

Within seconds he was surrounded, he did a few tricks then seemed to melt away into the crowd leaving his subject looking bemused.

This was the week before he was did his "drowned alive" stunt at the Lincoln centre, i didnt notice3 whether he waspracticing holding his breath or not...

Rooney puts a cross in...

rooney_cross
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

To continue the footballing theme heres a shot of Wayne Rooney delivering a powerful cross into the box during the England Uruaguay friendly.

Rooney was impressive on the pitch. His pace and determination were incredible, he ran all game long. Having seen this game I can understand what happened on Saturday a little better. You could see how frustrated he was getting at not having any clear chances but for him to kick off was surprising as we havent seen a reaction like that from him for a while now..

Again this shot would have been taken wide open at f1.8 with a 50mm lens stuck on the end of a Nikon D70..

Beckham free kick

bex_freekick
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

This shot is from the England v Uruguay friendly up at Anfield earlier this year. It seemed a pretty appropriate post given his resignation after yesterdays defeat against Portugal.

Beckhams free kick style is unique, it as always amazed me how he doesnt injure his left foot as he comes right over on it after whipping through the ball.

It was pretty dim under the floodlights so I opened up the lens as far as it would go and hoped for the best.......

Metro at the Pompidou

Metro
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

A pretty straightforward shot really this one. The metro signs in Paris are amazing and I liked the unique Pompidou as a background so it seems the perfect combination!

Interlocking spurs

Interlocking spurs
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I took this one a good few years back whilst on a week long holiday at Lakeland photo holidays.

I like the movement in the grasses in the foreground and the colours throught the scene.

It was taken on a very basic and fully manual SLR using trusty Velvia, aperture priority on f22...

The view is up to a mountain which I reckon is called "Wandope", its up the back of Buttermere just across from the newlands valley.

Inside the Louvre

louvre_slow
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

I took this a few years back whilst on a cheeky little mini-break to Paris. I sat the camera on a mini tripod and set the shutter to 1.5 seconds and got this shot.

Flat iron building

27
Originally uploaded by Nevoir.

Definitely one of my favourites from a recent trip to New York. I was trying to get a slightly different shot of this classic skyscraper not the typical straight shot that you see everywhere.