Tag Archives: sunset

The Halcyon days of Summer

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in General, Landscapes

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Morning.

It’s cold, dark, wet and very grey as I look out of my window just now – I also overslept this morning and so the day really is not going very well. Drinking plenty of coffee and trying to concentrate on my editing planned for the day, I can’t stop looking out of the window at the dull and dreary weather.

Summer has passed into Autumn – there will be lots of planned photo shoot cancellations due to the weather, those shoots that do go ahead will have to be shot between limited hours as here in the UK it gets dark at 4pm during the Winter months and I’m feeling just a little sad about it.

This time of the year is tough for a lot of photographers, due to the weather and limited light availability, some will “just get on with it” and shoot in all weathers, some will go and hibernate for the Winter and re-emerge in Spring rejuvenated, and some, like me, will use the time to go back through their back catalogue of images, see if there are any “gems” that have been missed, weed out any “duffs” that have been kept for no other reason than they have and generally tidy up the old hard drives and make sure everything is in good working order.

It was while going through my archives that I came across this picture, it’s titled, “The Halcyon Days of Summer” and is one of my favourites – it actually came second and highly commended in the SWPP’s annual awards in 2010 (20k entries) and it was also the first ever shot I took with my 14-24mm lens.

The location is Cherhill downs, about 15 minutes from me, and I remember it well, I always knew that from the top of these Downs there would be spectacular sunsets, but circumstance would just not fall for me, I was either never at home when it was sunset time, or it just wasn’t a good day for it. However, on this particular day I remember coming home in the evening, finding my new 14-24 lens, looking up at the sky and saying, YES!

I jumped in the car, raced over to Cherhill, sprinted (as best I could) up the Downs and set up. By this time the sun had almost set and I managed to get off a few frames before the light went. I got back home, uploaded the images and was mightily pleased with what I had captured. And as I say, this image went on to be published in a number of publications 🙂

It’s still cold, dark, wet and very grey as I look out of my window again, but I’m a little happier now thinking back to that day in 2010 

Best – Colin

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Do you carry a camera everywhere

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in General, Landscapes, Photography

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Morning

No, I don’t mean an iPhone (or other Smartphone cameras) – even though they can produce some pretty good images, my particular model is an 8 MP camera – wow – only a few years ago that was high end in a DSLR – how technology moves on. I mean do you carry around a DSLR all the time?

I don’t

And I don’t, because my D3/D4 are just too darn heavy and cumbersome to carry around everywhere. But what I used to find was I would come across a scene, probably walking the dog (I do that a lot – walk the dogs) and I’d either walk on by, or snap away with the iPhone. But getting home and downloading the image to a big monitor I would invariably be a little disappointed

Then along came the Fuji x100.

I was never really into “rangefinder” type cameras, although I did have an old Russian Kiev rangefinder when I was a boy. But after reading all the reviews and handling one down at the local Jessops, I persuaded the wife to buy me one. Now I’m not going to going into writing a review of the X100, there are plenty of reviews out there on the web, written much better than I ever could, but, if you have never used one, just go and have a look in your local camera store – they are immense!

The x100 has totally changed the way I go about photography (my personal stuff, not my bread and butter paying the bills work – I still have a D4 for that!!). The little camera (and it is little) is never left at home now, not even when I go on dog walks and I love it. It produces images that no Smartphone can better and it produces images that several higher end DSLR’s will struggle to produce and it just looks the business – a nice little retro camera that fits in the hand.

I was walking the dogs last night, walked over the canal just as the sun was going down and catching the sides of the narrow boats, the iPhone could never have reproduced this!

best – Colin