Friday 30 December 2011

LIGHT painting





I have been experimenting with light painting surrounding an object and also text lighting


Think I'm getting somewhere with it 


Other than cropping there  has been no Photoshopping of the above images


Not too bad for a second try

Thursday 29 December 2011

LIGHT switch on Part 2

Pretty Girl Rock Perform

Tupele Dorgu  of Corrie fame plays the witch at this years Pavillion panto Snow White

Snow White AKA Amy Thompson

Few more pictures of the festive switch on

Rhyl High Street 

Whoever was responsible for the sound and lighting there I must say did a great job, the event was a pleasure to photograph with no flash needed . There was also some very talented acts performing .

Tuesday 20 December 2011

HUNDREDS of miles apart in the same photo !

 After ruining a reel of film by getting my timings wrong a couple of weeks ago I got a few nice images with this lot . The first pic shown below is a double exposure ( The wind turbine was taken in Scotland and the background was a mural on a wall in Chester almost 250 miles apart )

boats near bridge Garden City Deeside . The Lomography fisheye camera gave it an interesting composition


Wednesday 14 December 2011

DAFT PUNK IS PLAYING AT MY HOUSE




I had a bit of a brainwave about light writing just before walking through my front door today . Might keep the technique under my hat until I have a proper play at it . You can even see the streetlight in the background on some shots

Sunday 11 December 2011

CUTEST helper ever

Had a bit of help from my little nephew putting the Christmas tree up today . He's such a cutie

Friday 9 December 2011

STUPID idea but nice results




As I was in Llangollen today I thought rather than waste fuel on only one job I'd get some stock photos of the castle for archive purposes as it was a nice day and this time of year the sun is low all day 


The four important words from the last sentence "was a nice day " quickly turned into "attack of the gale force driven hail stones, " just before I got to the castle , if it wasn't such a steep climb up I probably would have turned back but I want a reason behind my calves hurting tomorrow


I'm pretty sure I even heard a sheep saying mmmmmeeeidiot meee 


Luckily I think in the 20 minutes or so I was up there I saw all four seasons


Above pics are some of the results , they are also not far from the originals


Next time hot choc and thermals .... actually might wait till summer

Thursday 8 December 2011

CHRISTMAS light switch on Denbigh

I'm really trying to get into the Christmas spirit this year 

So far so good I saw a cow with a Santa hat on yesterday ...... (AMAZING)

This was from last week with some of the cast from Rhyl's Christmas panto help switch on the lights in Denbigh

Saturday 3 December 2011

WHITE wedding




I have got to be honest I don't often do weddings with today being an exception 

 I had a great day , the bride and groom were fantastic fun  and I felt really welcome


Pretty much nobody knew but on exiting the church there was a snow machine organised , quite an inspired move and made for some really interesting photos !

Also I'm all against camera snobbery but I borrowed my friends Canon 7d ( cheers Mel ) and it literally blew my 40d out of the water . 


Thursday 1 December 2011

RHYL Christmas light switch on 2011

RHYL JOURNAL HOMEPAGE



It's amazing how quickly a day goes when you're busy !

I finished the day with the Christmas light switch on in Rhyl
It was fantastic that the weather held out (except for a small shower) and see so many hundreds of people on Rhyl High Street to see the light switch on and special guest acts 


There was some great talented performers and Rhyl should be really proud of itself for the show it put on . The acts performing were Ben Williams , Pretty Girl Rock , Becki Herdman and X Factor contestant Sami Brookes , not to forget some of the cast fron Rhyl Pavillions Panto Snow White


Also from my point of view the lighting was fantastic I had my shutter speed up to 400 ISO 800 , and still got some nice crisp well lit images

Pictures and full report will be in next weeks Journal , also on the website ( Follow Link )

http://www.rhyljournal.co.uk/

I'll post a couple more pics next week after publication.... maybe by then I'll get my hearing back to Normal .....

...............And tomorrow light switch on in Denbigh............

Tuesday 29 November 2011

RAINBOW through trees


It's always hard to get a decent picture of a rainbow , first of all you can only see them from certain angles so moving round to get a better composition you can lose it completely


Got this through the branches of a tree just to concentrate the colours really

Tuesday 22 November 2011

FLINT by night



I had 10 minutes to kill in Flint last night so got a few night shots
( freehand no tripod 1/8 second so hold breath and stand as still as possible )


WYNNE Evans

WYNNE EVANS 


Last week I had the pleasure of being at the launch of the International Eisteddfod that had a special guest Wynne Evans 

If you are from the UK then guaranteed you will know his work even if you don't know his name :  
Wynne Evans VS Jimmy Carr

Yes the "Go Compare" guy 

Short of being annoying like his character he was extremely funny and a very nice person to be around .....although this pic does kinda remind me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining....... "GO COMPARE!"

Monday 21 November 2011

LIQUID Highlights #2





LIQUID Highlights #1

Damien Tryfano , Fighter Mark Sutton ,
Gaz Oates , Rod Summers Jones 
Jarek Babala , Matt Williams

FIGHT night Liquid Wrexham November 20th 2011 fight card




Fight Card Liquid 20th November 2011

1 :(W) Liam Good ( Brian Nelson's Lau Gar) Vs Damien Tryfanow ( Russ Williams Gym)
2 : (W) Gaz Oates( Alex Gym Mold) Vs Rod Summers Jones ( Williams/Killow Gym Caerwys)
3: Jarek Babala (Russ Williams) Vs (W) Matt Williams ( Russ Williams)
4:(W) Paul Evans ( Ac Muai Thai) Vs Marc Evans ( Russ Williams Gym)
5 :DEMO BOUT Eugine Valerio Vs Ken Burley
6:  MMA >Vitaliijus Gelzinis ( Antonio's Gym Lithuania)Vs (W) Mark Sutton ( Next Level Gym)
7:Alan Davies( Taz Muay thai ) Vs (W) Arwel Morris ( Class Kicks Buckley / Ruthin)
8:James Sumner (Ac Muai Thai Chester) Vs (W ) Andrew Groves ( Thomas Thai ) 
***This is an amended fight card listing the bouts that went ahead on the evening *** 
(W) in front of name signals win

Another very good turnout for the Dragon fight night at Liquid . Above is the fight card for the event 
( Please inbox me if there are any corrections / errors ) 


As the majority of bouts were kickboxing and Thai rather than MMA the cage was replaced with a ring  


While having a rope ring solved some problems of shooting through a cage it also threw up its own testing issues that took a little time to get used to , but fun non the less

Wednesday 9 November 2011

FIRE dancer

Bonfire night entertainment 

Entertainer playing with fire at bonfire night event 

I think if the Health and Safety squad got involved this guy would be out of a job or wearing fire proof clothing / face mask / behind reinforced glass / steel toecap shoes / using torches attached rather than flames 

To get this shot I think the camera was about "0.3 seconds and with flash on 2nd curtain ( Low ISO )

I could have done with a tripod but really other than steam railway enthusiasts , nobody really carries them round ...... (That's not a criticism just an observation)


Saturday 5 November 2011

DOG walker

Of all the pics of  an 8 - 0 victory this one stands out because of the guy in the background


Never really noticed him really till I came to process the pictures


It just says everything to me about grassroots footie


I also noticed some people had scaled a cliff face to avoid the turnstile fee

DIWALI parade Chester



Happy Diwali

........Although I'm not too well informed with this festival it was great to see so many participants enjoying the festival and smiling throughout . The parade went from the town hall to the town center and back 


More pics will be  in " The Leader " next week

Monday 31 October 2011

BEACH Halloween Crow / Raven

This bird followed me for a while along the beach then sat on the fence post . I don't normally ( Actually never ) put 3 similar pictures together but I like the flow of these images  

Images are as shot , only shrunk to size no colour/ contrast adjust or cropping

Sunday 30 October 2011

HAPPY Halloween




Few creepy pics to celebrate HALLOWEEN

First pic is lit with a mobile phone on the other side of the door . Other pics are long exposures and a remote flash to get a multi exposed image

( The room was pitch black to acheive this effect )

Bit of grain added in Photoshop  for ambience

Friday 28 October 2011

FORYD Bridge



Arriva bus crosses Foryd harbour bridge in Rhyl North Wales

The harbour looking extremely calm , must be this time of year 

Come to think of it just over a year ago I was photographing slabs of ice floating down river and into this harbour . Lets hope for a slightly more mild winter this time round

It's pretty amazing how one landmark can look so different if you catch it at the right time

Wednesday 26 October 2011

SMALLEST owl in the UK

Bumped into this little guy today . He is a rescue owl and the smallest breed of owl that exists in the UK

Not sure if he wanted to leave his comfy perch at the time as he did a 'dirty protest' immediately after leaving his cage

Monday 24 October 2011

BOGGLE eyed tenner

Just bought some boggle eyes from a craft center in Chester 

£10 note Charles Darwin and HRH The Queen have so far got the treatment

I'm gonna have fun with these eyes 

Shame they are not self adhesive ! I have banged the images through a couple of filters so nobody can accuse me of taking photos and copying money

Wednesday 19 October 2011

EXTENSION tube macro ring

You lookin' at my eye ?.. ( cannibal the musical reference ) 

Matches that I still have from The Viking Lounge in Juneau Alaska ( Happy Days )
Just had an hour or so Play with a Extension tube macro ring . After initially nearly having a heart attack thinking I had ruined a decent lens by clamping this on I was relieved when I managed to suss it out and have a go with it . I will be experimenting and will give a bit of a review soon .......