Category Archives: Photography
Shoot Only Puffins, Leave Only Footprints

I was ready for a quiet day of mainly driving on Sunday. I was also ready to report a total of about 1800 shots taken, which is a bit lower than for the Cuba trip, not unreasonable given the slightly … Continue reading
A Day of Travails

You don’t realise quite how empty the interior of Iceland is, or just how much time you’re going to spend bouncing over unmade roads through deserts of rock and mud. It’s not surprising that NASA test their extra-terrestrial rovers here. … Continue reading
Don’t Rush to Judgement

As soon as I’ve downloaded a shoot from my cameras, I do a quick scan of the in-camera JPEG files, and usually mark about half of the images for deletion. Those which are irrecoverable go straight to the wastebasket, the … Continue reading
Seeing in Black and White – Follow Up
From the Ministry of Odd Coincidences… This evening I watched this week’s Horizon, which, by remarkable assonance with my blog, was on the topic of the perception of colour. The programme made it clear that colour perception varies widely and … Continue reading
Seeing in Black and White

Some experienced photographers, particularly those with a background in traditional film photography, claim to be able to “see” a scene in black and white, visualising how a monochrome version might work. This focuses on the tonality, and ignores the colours … Continue reading
The Challenge of Serenity

Notes on visiting Masstricht, a great concert, and the challenges of photographing a candlelit chapel Continue reading
Image Stabilisation – Know Your Limits?

I’ve blogged previously on the other merits of Canon’s wonderful EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, but not really its image stabilisation characteristics. This shot from Cuba shows how good the lens is in that respect. The above is an … Continue reading
Low Cost Geotagging Using Bibble
I decided a while ago that it would be useful to “geotag” my photographs, i.e. to automatically record the location from which each is taken and add that to each images’s metadata. As my next photographic trip is to Iceland … Continue reading
Don’t Stand So Close
As a general rule, it’s good for an action photographer to get close to said action, but I’ve recently seen a few films that demonstrate there’s a limit. One key example was “The Eagle”. It’s a stirring tale, full of … Continue reading
Watching The Wall Go Up

Thanks to some generous colleagues and the last minute availability of a spare “hospitality” ticket, I was lucky enough to get into a sold-out Roger Waters concert based on Pink Floyd’s The Wall this week. It was a really great … Continue reading
Spring is Here!

One of my birthday presents was a dance photography masterclass, hosted at the Victoria and Albert museum and led by renowned dance photographer Chris Nash. This was a bit of a departure for my photography, although followers of my blog … Continue reading
Compact Camera Alienation?
Are compact and cellphone cameras fundamentally unsuited to a significant subset of the population? I am short sighted. With an SLR I look through the viewfinder at an image focused at the optical equivalent of about 1m, maybe a bit … Continue reading