Fototastic 2012

As usual I've done a quick recap of 2012 on the fotastastic blog. As you may have noticed, my posts tailed off towards the end of the year. Hoping to find more photo blogging time during 2013!!

Happy belated 2013...

Strongman Takes Up Photography

Continuing the Strongman series.

This week, Strongman takes up photography!



For all the Strongman series posts, please click Here

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

Sea Sunday

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

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

This Season I Shall Mostly Be Using My 50mm

Have been using the Nifty Fifty a lot recently. It has been used for the majority of pictures featured on the blog so far this year.

I really love it's low light and shallow depth of field capabilities and the fact that it's a 50mm prime lens means that you have to move around a lot more to get the shot that you want. All this for under £100 - In my view, a must for any amateur photographer.

Here are a couple of quick examples of the shallow depth of field that can be achieved using this lens.





As usual, click the images to enlarge

Let There Be Light

I am currently giving my bathroom a new lease of life as it's one of the few rooms that I have never done anything with since buying the house. So far this project has included putting in a new (and much bigger) shower and enclosure, re-plastering and decoration.

Today was the day when the new lighting was put in. The old ceiling rose (and bare bulb) was removed to make way for some new down lights.

With lighting on the mind I thought the other day that I'd never taken a picture of a naked bulb so thought I'd give it a quick go! Here's how it turned out.



As usual, click the image to enlarge

I Love Cake

It was my birthday last week and I went out with some friends for a meal and some drinks to celebrate the occasion.

Two good friends got me a lovely Belgian chocolate cake and it was so nice I thought I'd capture it in a photo before I polished it all off!

The picture is actually made up of 3 photographs merged together within Photoshop.



As usual, click the image to enlarge

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz!

Driving back through the fog in to Salisbury the other night I made a quick pit stop at the Mercedes Benz garage to take a couple of quick snaps.

With the fog, it was quite an eriee night and I was trying to capture that in photos. That didn't really work but here are a few of the shots anyway!







Looks like their fancy lights need a bit of a clean!

As usual, click the images to enlarge

Tunnel Through The Trees

This tunnel through the trees is located on the road to Grately.

I drove down there a few times recently and thought it would make a good photograph as the road is really straight, it seems to go on forever and the trees really do resemble a tunnel when driving through.



As usual, click the image to enlarge

Facebook Photo Merge

A few months back, I read online (can't remember the site at the moment) about taking long exposure photographs of your computer monitor whilst scrolling through a series of photos within a Facebook album. Guess the idea is to somehow merge a few photos to give you the general theme of the album within one image.

Thought it was an interesting idea so had a quick go to see how it would turn out.

Here are some of my test shots. They are all made up of 2-3 photographs from the same Facebook album.









As usual, click the images to enlarge

Fototastic 2010

Well, it's nearly Christmas and another year gone by in a flash.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all and many thanks for your support over the past 12 months. I hope you all enjoy the festive period and look forward to seeing you here again next year.

Like last year I have compiled all of my 2010 posts in to quick video recap.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree!

So here we are again...Christmas time. Thought I'd better take the mandatory shot of the Christmas tree as I do every year! It's a big one this year - I swear it looked smaller when I bought it!

Just for a change, I took another shot with the camera still on the tripod and zoomed out during the exposure - It created a nice little effect.





As usual, click the images to enlarge

Malta Wedding

Here is a video compilation of the wedding pictures taken in Malta. They are a mixture of the photos I took and the ones from the professional photographer

More Malta Moments

A few more pictures from my recent visit to Malta. See previous post here.









As usual, click the images to enlarge.

Vimeo Video Awards

Received an email from Vimeo with a link to their recent awards.

I especially liked the one below which won the Narrative category, It gives a little insight in to the way we treat modern digital photography and depicts "An entire relationship told through photos in four minutes"

Enjoy...

Thrush from Gabriel Bisset-Smith on Vimeo.

Remembrance Day 2010

A quick post to show my support for Remembrance Day.

Lest we forget

The Darkness Descends

The nights are really starting to draw in now and will soon be dark when I go and come back from work (even after the clocks change).

Still, autumn is not all doom and gloom - with all the leaves falling from the trees the streets really are paved with gold (and brown, green, etc!)

Messing around the other night, I took some shots of these leaves which had landed on my decking covering some of the lights. Thought it was a bit different from the usual shots of autumn leaves.





As usual, click the images to enlarge.