Many of my photographs are here:
Details of my photography equipment are here.
I took this photo on my first day out to play with my S602 (ISO 200, f2.8, 1/680 s). This was taken at the Edinburgh festival on 25 August 2002 and I was sufficiently pleased with it to submit it to the Frames of Fame competition of Digital Photo User magazine. To my pleasant surprise I received a prize (64Mb CF card) for this but have yet to see it in the magazine to see what their comments were... but at the very least it seems to have passed the requirement of "An outstanding photograph taken on a digital camera, that has been subtly tweaked with a modicum of post-processing". Not bad for a beginner?
I was impressed with the image quality possible from my new camera, not least because I was some distance away from the performer. The only post-processing I did was a crop to remove the heads of people in the audience and focus in on the subject.
Camera club judge's comments: It was a shame that the unicycle couldn't be included in the shot (I agree, but this was obscured by the crowds of people in front of me) 15/20.
I was subsequently contacted by a reader who noticed the appearance of a face in the flames. He was right! I hadn't noticed it until he mentioned it.
Taken on 9 September 2004 in Livingston using Fuji S602 in Super Macro mode, ISO 160, f3.1, 1/180s, cropped. Camera club judge's comments: Good photo since butterflies are difficult to photograph (they don't keep still or fly away), butterfly is in pin-sharp focus, he liked the angle of the butterfly too, but thought that the out of focus bars of light in the background were somewhat distracting. 16/20.
This photo across Loch Fyne was taken on the return from Bute. I think it is from near St. Catharines across towards Inveraray. Apart from cropping and the infra-red images, I don't usually do much digital processing of my images. However, with this image I have tweaked the colours a bit, mainly an increase in saturation. Camera club judge's comments: The highlight of the Sun in the sky is burnt out (true) and he would have preferred more foreground silhouette matter. 14/20. (I may try re-cropping and tweaking this image at some stage).
Image taken at Hampden Park, Glasgow during a Scottish Claymores game. Camera club judge's comments: He liked the positioning of the bear (He's called "Shuggy") and the cheerleader but would have preferred to have seen more of the cheerleader (I cropped out another cheerleader who was bending down in front of her) and disliked the distraction of the running track (which I could probably clone out with more grass). 14/20.
[previously named Espaņola Voladora (The Flying Spaniard) but I realised they are both from BA, like Mara]
Taken on 21 August 2004 in Edinburgh using Fuji S602, ISO 400, f4.0, 1/320s, cropped and modified in Photoshop Elements to further blur background. Camera club judge's comments: He liked the image but would have preferred the image to have been sharper. 16/20. (Considering the print that he saw he had a good point but this doesn't relate to the sharpness of the original image and I also realised that the processed image had de-saturated the reds of the dancer's clothes somewhat and I was never 100% happy with the colours in the print compared to the on-screen image. I found that the judge's comments to be very constructive criticism and I know that I have scope to further improve this image by playing in Elements to restore the red colours in the original image and improve the sharpness of the dancers. I also need to calibrate my monitor and printer).
Taken 31 Aug 2002 in Edinburgh with Fuji S602 with wide angle adaptor, ISO 200, f8, 1/1.1s. Camera club judge's comments: Sky too black (beyond my control), fireworks over exposed and too white (also beyond my control), 10/20. He presumably has never taken fireworks shots and doesn't appreciate how difficult it is to time things to get the full sequence of the firework launch. I also thought that the feathering effect due to the slight breeze was captured well.
More images of Edinburgh fireworks are here.
Taken on 29 September 2004 using Fuji S602 with Hoya R72 filter, ISO 160, f7.1, 10s (no tripod-the camera was placed on a convenient wall and 2s timer used), cropped and converted to black and white. Camera club judge's comments: Nice sky, slightly soft. He criticised it for being a conventional shot of the bridge, he would have preferred some sort of new angle (he obviously didn't realise that it was an infra-red image), 12/20.
Digital cameras have made infra-red photography relatively easy with no requirements for special films or handling. All that is required is a digital camera that is sensitive to IR (this can be easily checked using a remote control), an infra-red filter (I use a Hoya R72), a tripod (the exposures are several seconds long) and, ideally, a bright sunny day. These are some of my first attempts at IR photography with my S602.
More images of Scotland are here.
The idea of doing photography projects was suggested by a speaker at a camera club meeting as a way of causing the photographer to think in a different way while choosing shots to take.
My "Shadows" project was started when I noticed the shadows cast by the
Forth bridge on the water of the Firth in April 2005. The plan is to aim to
capture interesting/unusual images involving shadows during my photography
sessions so this collection should be added to over time.
The aim is to start a few other photography projects at some stage...
My favourite photographic subject.
* Infra-red