Tag Archives: weather

Two Cows

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by in Photography, Wildlife

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Evening

Everyone has a camera these days, ranging from high end through to budget DSLR‘s, the ever popular “point & shoot” or just the plain old camera phone. But even though there are people with cameras everywhere how many people do you see pointing them at things – not very many.

People have cameras, but they don’t take the opportunities for pictures – if you have a camera and carry a camera then what’s the use of it being in your pocket or handbag. Take it out and point it at something and take a picture.

Here in the UK there has been a week or more of pretty bad snow (well, pretty bad for the UK) and I have been out and about in it a fair bit – but I have seen very few people taking pictures. Snow is a beautiful thing, it brings pictures alive, makes landscapes magical winter wonderlands and makes for people wrapping up in colourful scarfs.

I was out walking my two dogs, a regular dog walking area and I glanced up and saw these two cows just looking, it’s just two cows, but the pose and the snow and the look just said it all. Dozens of people walked on by – I didn’t – and now every time I look at this picture I smile

two cows

And putting a smile on a face is what a picture is meant to do – invoke emotion, be it a smile, a grimace, being startled or just going “wow”.

So next time you are out, in the snow rain or sunshine, just take your camera out and have a look around – you never know – you might see something that will make you smile.

 

Best – Colin

Scotland, land of the brave, the tranquil, and the most beautiful light

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Landscapes

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Morning.

I love Scotland. I go there as often as I can. Sometimes three or four times a year in a good year.

Scotland can be the most peaceful tranquil little piece of Earth I know. It’s good to get away and find oneself occasionally and for me, Scotland is the place to be.

Scotland Scotland2 Scotland3

Scotland4

best – Colin

Shooting Bridal on the beach

14 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Bridal Photography, Photography

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Morning

A few days ago a long standing client of mine called out of the blue and asked me if I would shoot her in her wedding dress as she was married more than 9 years ago, but would like some more “fashiony” (her word not mine!) images taken.

I replied that of course I would love to, but as it was coming up to Christmas there were few slots available in my calendar – but after a few minutes discussion we settled on Wednesday 12/12/12 – for no reason other than it was the ONLY free date we both had this side of 2013 – and my client was ADAMANT she wanted the images taken before Christmas.

As a photographer I have a location list I refer to when booking a location based shoot, varying from urban, derelict, woodland and parks and various bodies of water. On this occasion I had only recently scouted out a new location and so decided that – after looking at the weather forecast – we could do some dramatic lighting and give my client something just a little different.

Well, Wednesday morning I woke up to an inch of snow and a temperature of -6, it took me an hour to de-ice the car and I very nearly called my client to cancel, but decided to carry on as I knew she would be more than a little disappointed.

The location I had chosen for the shoot was Weston-Super-Mare beach and when we arrived it was (naturally) deserted as the temperature was around zero degrees, but with wind chill factor it felt much much colder 😦

We spent more than two hours there, in sub zero temps creating these images. The lighting effect was created IN CAMERA and I’ll tell you how that was done on another post!

My client was a real star as she was absolutely shivering between takes – but the end result was worth the pain.

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-10

 

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WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-11

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-15

 

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-16

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Best – Colin

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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The wind CAN be your friend

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Photography

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Hello

Since working more and more on location I have learnt to pay attention to the weather a lot more. I don’t mind working in the rain (so long as it’s not totally lashing down) as that can lead to some good atmospheric images, same goes for fog and snow – but if it’s one thing I hate it’s the wind.

It blows models’ clothes when you don’t want them blown, it means I have to laden down my light stands with heavy sand bags else they take off never to be seen again, along with my flash heads and depending where you are working it blows all sorts of stuff into your eyes and lens.

I was on a beach in November during a sandstorm tossed up by the wind, very expensive trip that was. I was shooting down a dusty lane when a storm crept up on us and there ended up more dust on us than the lane.

But sometimes, just sometimes, wind can work in your favour.

Emma, a model I was shooting a few weeks back was modelling some military uniforms out on location, a bit of a dull day, but pretty calm weather wise. I was trying to get a bit more dynamism into a head & shoulders shot of her,  and was cursing that I didn’t have an extension lead long enough to power my portable wind machine, her hair was pretty lifeless which made the shots themselves rather dull too.

Thinking I was going to be out of luck we were just starting to wind down the shoot, when all of a sudden the weather turned and the wind got up, quite gusty – certainly enough to put some life into Emma’s hair, we quickly scrambled back to the place we were previously shooting and I fired off a couple of quick frames.

That little bit of wind made all the difference to the final image – you don’t need a portable wind machine when you have nature, just wish I could turn it on and off when I needed it !

best – Colin

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