Fototastic 2011

Well, it's the last day of the year again so as usual I've done a quick video recap of the year of 2011 on the fototastic blog.

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you all enjoy seeing in the new year with style ;-)





...See you all in 2012

Getting Creative For Christmas

Hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas. I had an excellent one and am lucky enough to have the whole 2 weeks off work so am enjoying the relaxation.

I always think that it's a nice touch to give something personal and creative for Christmas (or birthdays) and although I have gifted a number of framed pictures, photo mosaics, etc over the years sometimes you can't beat a hand drawn picture.

As it was my good friends baby's first Christmas (featured in a previous post), I decided to create a drawing from one of the photos that I took from when she was 2 weeks old.

A few months back, I dug out and dusted off a drawing pad then set to work using fine liners. A long long time ago, back when I was at school, I created a series of portraits using just dots on paper. This is a very time consuming method but I like the way that you can get the required shading just by increasing the consistency of the dots and you can't really go wrong - Well, that's not strictly true but it is easier to cover any mistakes!

Anyway, 2 pens and thousands of dots later, here is the resulting picture....



As usual, click on the image to enlarge and I think this looks better if you view from slightly further away from the screen ;-)

Christmas 2011

Right folks, it's that time of year again when I post the obligatory photo of the Christmas tree and wonder where the past 12 months have gone!

No where near as large and bushy as last years effort but it was a lot more manageable to put up and cost almost half the price!

Like last year I got bored of the standard shot and started experimenting with movement as you can see in the second shot.





I found some old lights (which only work when they want to), an inexpensive fish bowl vase and some cheap ball balls for this new edition to the Xmas decorations!



Merry Christmas...

Baby's First Christmas

My good friend's baby will be having their first Christmas this year and the grandparents requested a picture of her in festive attire so they could send out some personalised Xmas cards to friends and family.

I volunteered my services and we had some fun last Sunday afternoon rearranging their lounge and setting up some shots then trying to keep the baby amused and looking in (roughly) the right direction!

Here are a few of favourites from the day.







As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

Wireless

Wireless is everywhere these days from tv remotes to keyboards and now even wireless energy transfer.

If you were born around the end of the 1970s or start of the 80s then you, like me will remember when a lot of TV's didn't even have remote controls (or not even colour screens in some cases!). How times have changed!

Fovant Badges

As it is Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, I thought I'd post a picture I recently took of the Fovant Badges which were featured on last weeks BBC's Countryfile programme.

The first badges appeared in 1916 and were created by soldiers garrisoned nearby who were waiting to go to France and fight in the hell of the First World War.

Lest We Forget.

Two Faced

Inspired by Venezuelan artist Jesús González Rodríguez and his project called 1/2 I thought I would have a go and combining a face on portrait with a side profile.

I just took 2 quick snaps, edited them together using Photoshop then added a texture. The whole process took less than 15 minutes.

Lake District Waterfalls

Here are the waterfall pictures promised on my last post from my recent trip to the Lake District.

I have always wanted to have a go at capturing flowing water so that I appears almost mist / fog like. What better place to try this than on the various waterfalls that I came across during my visit to the lakes.

To capture these types of images you need to use slower shutter speeds and smaller apertures (higher f/stop numbers) and have your camera on a tripod or another sturdy surface.

Anyway, here are some of my results whilst attempting this technique.















As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

Lake District Landscapes

I recently travelled up t'north to the Lake District for a few days away.

That area of the UK has stunning scenery so I took my camera gear with with me and in between the seasonal downpours, snapped a few shots.

Here are a few of the landscape shots that I took.















There will be a follow up post entitled, Lake District Waterfalls so watch out for that!


As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

Human Rights

It says......"HEALTH AND SAFETY IS AN INFRINGEMENT OF OUR HUMAN RIGHTS"

Surprised to see something like this on a wall in a lay by in the countryside so I took a quick snap.

Haven't seen too much stencil work around Salisbury since 2008 when I posted this

Digital Age

Digital television, digital radio, digital music and of course digital photographs have all become the norm in my lifetime but I can't help but reminisce about all things analogue. There was something about loading a camera with film or putting on a vinyl record that makes things seem somehow more substantial.

Of course, everything being digital makes things a lot quicker, cheaper and easier so I'm not complaining but I guess it's just an age thing that gives you fond memories of old technology.

I found this roll of 35mm film recently and thought I'd take some shots but then give it a digital twist...



As usual, click on the image to enlarge

Flip Flops Flipped

I have a dark frosted glass computer desk and cleaned it for the first time in a while yesterday and thought "hey, I could get some good reflections in that now it's clean"!!

I looked around the room for something to try it out with and spotted my new North Face flip flops.

Here is the resulting picture...



As usual, click on the image to enlarge

Camping - Back To Basics

I recently went camping with a group of friends down in Swanage. I took my trusty S2 but the rechargeable batteries which I juiced up before the trip appear to have given up the ghost :(

I therefore, had to rely on my iPhone 4! I haven't taken many camera phone pictures recently as I had an iPhone 3G for 2 years and the camera was really awful so got out the habit of taking quick snaps with the phone. The iPhone 4 is OK during the day and the HD video is pretty good but the camera does struggle in low light and the flash isn't anything to write home about.

Anyway, here is a quick compilation all my iPhone pictures and videos from the weekend.

Night Light Fun

I went out yesterday evening to do some night photography with Jez from jezwhitworth.co.uk. We had planned to do some night sky / lunar photography but as usual the British weather was a let down and it was over cast.

But, not ones to be beaten we still headed out with our kit to the Clarendon Palace Ruins just outside Salisbury.

Had a really enjoyable evening playing around with cameras, flashguns, torches and LED rings. We did most of the shots on Jez's camera so look forward to seeing how they turned out but here are a few that I did take.

This is me on the DIY LED ring and Jez light painting the flowers


Another shot with the DIY LED ring


A quick shot of the Cathedral captured from the lookout on the way back home


As usual, click on the images to enlarge

Sea Sunday

A couple of photos taken on a recent Sunday walk along the beach down at Hengistbury Head.

Light Painting - Behind The Scenes

I said back in my LED Lamp post that I would knock up a quick guide on how to create those types of images and as promised, here we are!

Before we get started, here are a few things that you'll need:-

-Camera :)

-Tripod - Not essential but if you haven't got one then you'll need to put the camera on a firm surface and make sure that it does not move between shots

-Subject matter (for this purposes of this guide, I used a Champagne bottle

-Torch or other light source

Right, now we can get started

1. Set up your shot with the elements that you want to include. I just went for the bottle with a plain black background.

2. With the room lights on, focus on your image (I just used auto focus). Once focused switch the lens to manual focus - This will stop it trying to focus once the lights are out.
Switch the camera to a long exposure mode. I used the camera in manual (M) and set it to bulb mode with the largest aperture.

3. Switch off the lights and take some shots while illuminating the subject matter with with your light source. I used a home made UV light as seen below.



Here is my image of the Champagne bottle lit by the UV light


(3 second exposure at f/4.5)

4. Right, with that shot in the bag you now can now take the light painting arty shot. I swirled my light around the bottle but you can do anything that you fancy.

Here is my image of the UV pointer swirling around the bottle


(2 second exposure at f/4.5)

5. You now have to combine the 2 images using your image editing software. There are various ways that you can do this but I followed the simple steps below...

-Open both the images in your preferred image editing software

-Copy the second image that was created (light painting one)

-Paste this as a new layer in the first image that was created

-Set the layer blending mode to Screen

This is basically it - You may want to make many other adjustments to the image but this is a simple guide to the fundamentals of creating this sort of merged light painting image.

Here is my final image



I hope I have been fairly clear in this tutorial and it all makes sense! If there are any glaring mistakes or you're having trouble following the steps then please comment and I will rectify / give you some pointers.

Cherry Picking

No particular theme to this picture. Was just enjoying some black cherries the other day and had the camera to hand so took a few pictures.



As usual, click on the image to enlarge

LED Lamp

Merging an old light source with a modern LED.

I created this image using a home made UV LED pointer and merging a couple of photos.



These types of shots are very quick and easy to do. I will post a quick guide on how to create these sort of images soon.

As usual, click on the image to enlarge (It looks a bit better too!).

Light Painting & Out Takes

I enjoy a bit of light painting and within this age of digital photography you can take shot after shot without worrying about the cost of developing etc

Here is a video containing a few light painting and long exposure photographs that I have taken and the large number of out takes created whilst shooting them!

Light Painting & Out Takes from Steve Murrell on Vimeo.

Quackers

A family of ducks enjoying the sunshine.

Taken recently in my local park using the telephoto

Oil Painting

Had an idea for a photo whilst cooking dinner last night....Mix some water with oil and see what patterns you can make.

I had some chilli oil laying around (as you do) so put some in to a glass and here are a few of the resulting pictures.





As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

Spring Is Here

A bit lacking on posts recently as I have been busy and haven't had much time to get out and about with the camera.

Well, the clocks have changed and the weather has taken a turn for the better (although I hear it's going to start to get worse again now!!) and spring is definitely here as my body has informed me with the sneezing and runny nose - how I love hay fever!!

Here are a couple of spring time photos that I managed to catch in between the sneezes!!





As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

Light A Candle, Say A Prayer

With the earthquake in New Zealand and then more recently in Japan and the devastation caused by the ensuing tsunami and nuclear power station problems, not to mention the virtual civil war in Libya and other civil struggles throughout north Africa, it really does make you sit back sometimes and see how well off we are.

A friend recently summed it up in one of their status updates on Facebook....."my god we are so lucky to live where we do. god bless all you who are going through tsunamis, earthquakes, civil war and starvation. and we worry about the fuel costs"

Mirror Me

Been taking a few more black and white photographs recently as I really like the strong contrast between highlights and shadows.

Have been thinking of some subjects for this monochrome photography but in the meantime, here is a self portrait of me taken in a mirror.



As usual, click on the image to enlarge.

Light Installation

I went along to the last viewing of Bruce Munro's light installation at Salisbury Cathedral.

This installation, made from 16,000 recycled bottles featured in the Cathedral's Cloisters. Each water-tower of bottles changed colour to choral music - Very soothing :)

Not too bad considering they were all taken hand held.











As usual, click the images to enlarge