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The Starving Artist

~ Still an artist but no longer starving!

The Starving Artist

Tag Archives: winter

Two Cows

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

animals, Arts, camera, Cameras and Camcorders, cows, Digital single-lens reflex camera, nature, opportunities, outdoors, photography, popular point, seasonal, Snow, two cows, weather, wildlife, winter, winter wonderlands

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

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

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Landscapes

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ben Nevis, Dawn, earth, first light, good year, light, love, mountains, nature, peace, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, seasons, solitude, tranquility, weather, winter

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

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Life can change, in an instant

29 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

alternate modelling, dark, Halloween, life, Life Changes, models, photo shoot locations, photography, Vampires, winter

Afternoon

If someone had said to me 12 months ago that I would be out shooting a Vampire in a disused building, in the cold wind and rain, for free – I would have laughed at them. And why not, there I was sat in my nice warm comfortable studio, plenty of coffee, nice sofas and a steady stream of customers walking through the door wanting beautiful studio portraits – it was all too easy.

How could I have foreseen the circumstances that would mean I had to give up my studio. How could I have predicted the fact that people had no money to spend on “beautiful studio portraits” any longer.

Life can change, in an instant.

But that was twelve months ago. 

So there I was, doing my “Social Media” rounds, I do these once or twice a day as time permits, and I saw a Facebook post from a model asking for a Halloween shoot on Sunday as the shoot she had planned fell through. This was Friday. 

Well, I knew I was busy Saturday, but had Sunday free, so I thought, how difficult can a Halloween shoot be, and quickly offered my services.

Then it started to sink in. It was Friday, the shoot was on Sunday, I was out with the family on Saturday. I had no specifics to go with the theme, no location, no idea what I wanted the model to wear – and I also had the equivalent of “writers block”, my mind went totally blank.

On Friday night I was frantically searching Google for ideas along the Halloween theme and decided upon a “Vampire” themed shoot. After speaking with the model, we decided on going with the “Sophisticated Sexy” Vampire look that is shown in many TV shows rather than the more traditional blood & gore look.

But as always, things don’t go quite as planned.

The light in the room was wrong, the light outside was wrong, the cape we bought for some sophistication was wrong, in fact, twenty minutes into the shoot we very nearly gave up and went home, wet cold tired and thoroughly fed up.

Sometimes being a photographer you have to just “step back” and have a look around, it’s ok to change the theme, it’s ok to change your ideas, if something is not working, why persevere.

So we changed it around, we went for the more “traditional Vampire” with a bit of blood & gore, we moved location, I rummaged in my bag and found a small tube of fake blood and it all started to come together.

We started out with a wailing Vampire.

Image

Moved onto a “coming out of a crypt” look, with the model crawling through a hole in the wall which was pretty tricky but we managed it quite well.

Image

And we finished up by utilising a kitchen knife that we had bought along “just in case”. This shot has a very “dark” feel to it and is not to everyones’s taste. But I liked it, quite gritty.

Image

Fangs were added in Photoshop – nice & easy with the warp tool.

So all in all, aside from the cold and the wet apart from a few hiccups it went ok.

Best – Colin

 

 

 

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