Weekend Images

Here are the Project 365 images from this weekend:

I used to do target recurve archery on a regular basis, but my current job made it difficult to get to the shooting range in time for the sessions.  In the summer, by the time I got there, there wasn’t much light left. I’ve got a layered foam target for use at home, but I’ve not set it up since we moved house.

This is a picture of my riser, the middle bit of the bow, which is a Hoyt Eclipse. It’s a good beginner to intermediate riser and really easy to shoot with.

I tried to get an angle that emphasised the curves and used a soft light to minimise the shadows. I positioned the light to avoid too many harsh highlights and reflections.

I had been meaning to get a shot of these Willow Tree figures for a while but was trying to think of a way to shoot it. I had a play around with a few different compositions and styles but, in the end, I went for this one.

I positioned one figure further forward and used a shallow focus to add some depth to the image. The front figure is on the left because it looks as though it is turning away from the figure behind, which works for the concept of the image. The front figure holding out a heart and the back figure holding their arms across themselves suggested the theme before I shot it.

On Sunday, we went to a nearby pond to feed the geese and ducks. I took my camera along to see if I could get any shots I could use.

The weather was really windy so it was tricky to keep the camera still to get any sharp images with my long lens. The wind was really cold too, I could barely feel my fingers by the time we left. I think I will have to invest in some gloves I can use with the camera.

The geese were quite timid at first, but were soon coming right up to us as eating out of our hands. This made it a bit easier to get a closer shot of one of them. This was my favourite shot of the ones I took, I like the eye contact with the goose in the foreground as if it was saying, “Hello”.  I also liked that the background was packed with other geese, it makes it a more interesting shot than just a plain background. This shot makes me smile every time I see it

A Bit of a Catch-Up

I wanted to do a bit of a catch-up and go through my recent Project 365 images. I’ll go through them in order starting with…

We’ve been looking at wedding venues recently and Wirral Town Hall was one of the places we had been considering. Becky organised a visit so we went along to take a look (and naturally, my camera came too!)

There were some impressive rooms upstairs, but not sure if the venue is right for what we want.  The grand staircase in the photo greets you as you walk up the main hall from the front entrance.

There was a mix of lighting in the room, but a lot of it was fairly low level. I didn’t have my tripod so had to bump the ISO up a bit to get a shot. I played around with the white balance a bit to get a warmth that I liked.  I wanted to capture the symmetry of the staircase and framed the shot with those lines in mind.

On Saturday, it was a bit of a last minute effort to grab a shot. Got up fairly late and then went shopping in the afternoon. In the evening we were out with friends and didn’t get home until really late. I needed something that I could shoot quickly before I went to bed.

Becky had bought some beads whilst we were out shopping, to wear at the christening we were going to the next day. I grabbed those and put them on a white background - I’ve got the background and a light stand set up in the spare bedroom for this sort of shot.

I tried positioning the beads to make them look a bit more interesting and liked this wavy pattern the best. It was lit with a low umbrella from the side because a single light point on beads or pearls helps them to look more rounded. A macro lens would have been ideal for a shot like this but, since I don’t have one, I used my wide lens as it has a fairly short focus distance. If you look closely at the beads, you can see me in them.

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