High Key Photography

Week 11 of the 2014 challenge ran from the 9/3/14 till the 15/3/14.

The theme was High Key Photography.

This week was about learning and developing a new technique, high key photography, which is about the use of light. For me, it also meant using my camera in full manual for the first time. As I do not have a suitable light source for this technique, I used the natural light, usually in the morning, to take my shots in. Luckily, it has been generally a beautiful week for weather. One of the girls in the group gave us a rough idea of what settings to use as well, so after a bit of playing around, I finally got the first shot and stuck with the settings the rest of the week.

Using the natural light and either a piece of white card as a back drop or my homemade lightbox, the settings on my camera used to take the shot were as followed:

• Format: RAW
• White Balance: Cool White Fl. Preset
• ISO: 200
• Auto Focus
• Auto Area
• Spot Metering
• Exposure: Ranged between +3.3 and +5.
• Aperture: F10
• Shutter Speed: 1/10
• Flash was used all shots but the first one.
• All shots were sharpened and had other minor edits where needed.

I have to say I really enjoyed this week and it seems I picked up this technique very easily. It is definitely something I plan to use more of in the future and I am now even more determined to learn how to use my manual settings on my camera. Though that may take time, but I will note the settings if used.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Architectural Perspective

Week 10 of the 2014 challenge ran from the 2/3/14 till the 8/3/14.

The theme was Architectural Perspective.

And it was my brief! I have to say I think most people broke the brief throughout the week, ignoring what I had asked of them. But what I wanted was, simply put, an exterior partial shot of the architecture of a building. The point of the brief was to find the detail in the architecture usually lost in full long shot of a building. As I had been on a train to Cardiff at the time the brief is usually posted, it was posted on my behalf by Rilly, who I felt did a good job writing up what I wanted, and posted a partial shot I had taken of the Eiffel Tower back in December. I obviously enjoyed this week, as this is my style of photography and besides one photo, which was quickly taken due to bad weather, I am really happy with my shots this week.

Day 1 - Cardiff Castle

 Day 2 - My House

 Day 3 - East Croydon Train Station

 Day 4 - St Alban the Matyr, South Norwood

Day 5 - Croydon Clocktower

 Day 6 - Chimney

Day 7 - Chimneys

Nature vs. Man

Week 9 of the 2014 challenge ran from 23/2/14 till the 1/3/14.

The theme was Nature vs. Man.

Very happy I was able to get back outside for photos this week. Admittedly I don't think I stuck to the brief all that well though. Theme was off the back of recent bad weather the UK has had. Did my best as there had been no flooding where I live or any other damage!

Day 1

Day 2

 Day 3

Day 4

 Day 5

 Day 6

 Day 7