A new video where I’m talking to you I’ve been trying to work up to this and I finally did a new video where I’m talking to you. I have revealed myself, so to speak, or my face at least. Perhaps it was time, I don’t know. It was scary to do though. Making a video of myself Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching videos on how to make videos. It is an interesting thing. I really like…
Have a great Christmas and a better New Year. » Gale Photography It has to be said that this year has been one of the strangest and hardest I’ve lived through, but next week is Christmas, so it’s a chance to relax. Lockdown did give me the chance to improve my own skills though, and I’m pleased with that. Over the Christmas period and the soon-to-come New Year you can also try out new photographic ideas, especially if you have…
They call me mellow yellow*. » Gale Photography Even in these long, greyer winter days the world around us is full of colour – a lot of colour. Sometimes there is too much colour, and it’s worth simplifying your images by selecting things that have just one major colour. Here I have chosen yellow. This abstract image is a macro shot of a failed LED filament light bulb. I’ve carefully placed the main, in focus, line on the diagonal and…
Autumn Aspen Leaves Cluster | G Dan Mitchell Photography A cluster of Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves in full autumn color.Autumn Aspen Leaves Cluster. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.A cluster of Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves in full autumn color.Here is is — finally — the photograph that should be the final one from this year’s autumn aspen color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Like several of the others, I made this one while wandering about…
A fungi to be with (part 2) » Gale Photography After my last blog post about fungi in Savernake Forest, I went back a week later and had another fungi-spotting wander with a friend. We were walking back to our cars when my friend spotted this delicate little clump of Mycena fungi amongst the fallen beech leaves. I immediately got my bin liner out again so I could lie on the ground and get the right viewpoint. Flip out screens…
Backlit Aspen Leaves | G Dan Mitchell Photography Eastern Sierra autumn aspen leaves against a splash of background color.Backlit Aspen Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.Eastern Sierra autumn aspen leaves against a splash of background color.At this point I now appear to be down to just four more of my 2020 autumn aspen color photographs from the Eastern Sierra Nevada, and all of them are up-close photographs of just a few leaves like this one.…
No “fungi to be with” jokes here… » Gale Photography Yesterday I went to the wonderful Savernake Forest in Wiltshire. It started out as a socially-distanced lockdown autumn colours walk with a friend, but ended up being a fungal foray photography fest! I was hoping we would see some fungi, so I prepared for it. I took my Olympus E-MD5 MkIII fitted with the superb Olympus 60mm macro lens. It’s a lovely light combination with excellent image quality. The other…
Aspen Leaves, Autumn Color | G Dan Mitchell Photography Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves at their peak of fall color.Aspen Leaves, Autumn Color. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves at their peak of fall color.Most of the time I tend to treat aspen trees as part of the larger landscape, perhaps with a grove or a few trees as the subject, or even including some trees of a larger scene. But every…
Springtime in my garden – LEANNE COLE The last few days I’ve been out in my garden weeding, so too tired, but here is a touch of springtime. The flowers are starting to come out. It feels like forever since I did a post like this. My garden has been coming along and sometimes I think there aren’t that many flowers out there, but when I go looking, there are more than I think. Springtime here This isn’t the…
This is turning into a natural history website! » Gale Photography Lockdown has given me lots of extra time to examine my Oxfordshire* garden and its wildlife, more specifically the life that feeds or lives/dies, on my eryngiums. * Yes, I know I have a Wiltshire postal address, but that’s a quirk of Royal Mail’s systems. I’ve also had a chance to try out my Olympus’s “Pro Capture” mode for getting just the right shot of a moving subject. It…
Heading towards unlockdown » Gale Photography In the UK we are still in lockdown, though we are now heading towards July 4th. On that day we can do some things that we haven’t done for ages, such as stay overnight at someone’s house, or go to the pub. We still have to observe “social distancing”, though the rules are getting very confusing and blurred. What hasn’t changed is the need to get exercise, so lockdown walks are the order of…
Monochrome Madness – A still lily Yes, I think I will keep doing Monochrome Madness and today I have a still lily for you. I took it the other day while I still had the macro lens from Fujifilm. Is it just me, but I always think of Robert Mapplethorpe when I do images like this. His are better, but I do love to try. A still lily One of the things I’ve been doing a lot is setting everything…
By way of contrast, it’s black and white. » Gale Photography Sometimes an image works in black and white. When we say that, most of the time we are really talking about an image with many shades of grey rather than just black and white. This post is about images with just those two tones. I’ve used Photoshop with all these images to take away the colour, reduce the range of tones, and give a huge jump in contrast. I…
Fancy a remote talk for your club? » Gale Photography Thursday, June 4, 2020 Posted in Composition,Creative Photography,Equipment tips,Light Painting,Macro,Movement,Photo Tips,Photographic Training,Photographic workshops I’m doing my first remote talk to a camera club soon. I’m using GoToMeeting for that one, but I’m happy to work with other conference systems, such as Zoom. I charge my usual fee, but there’s no travel costs, so your club could be anywhere in the country, or even further afield. Current talks: “Movement in Photography”…
No lockdown for wildlife. » Gale Photography So here we are still in lockdown. It is admittedly a bit looser than a few weeks ago, but there are still many restrictions. Lockdown does give me plenty of time to watch, and photograph, the wildlife in the garden. We have a good-sized garden pond and it has lots of critters in it; newts, frogs, damselflies, dragonflies, snails, etc. Sometimes they decide that they want to leave the pond, and that’s the…
What do do in lockdown » Gale Photography So here we are still in lockdown. While the rules do allow us to drive to a place for exercise, photography might not be considered as exercise. Given that, it’s probably better to stay in the house and garden if you are concentrating on photography. We have been blessed with some gorgeous sunny days recently, with plain blue skies. The plain sky makes it easier to take simpler images. I popped my…
Macro lens + mobile means you can stay at home! » Gale Photography The cameras on mobile phones continue to get more and more accomplished, with AI and computational photography coming to the fore. My Huawei Mate 10 Pro has both those features but I also have a nice low tech device that helps me make images. It’s a clip-on macro lens made by Bauhn. I got it as a Special Buy from Aldi for just £4.99. I think it’s…
Watch what you are doing! » Gale Photography If you sell things on eBay how do you make your adverts stand out and sell quickly or for more money? Well, one way is to make sure your photography is as good as it can be. I have seen many examples of photography on eBay where a little thought would have made the images much better. Here’s a watch I bought cheaply on eBay. It’s a Kered, and the sharp eyed…
The Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO Review – jonasrask|photography Today Laowa released their newest offering for mirrorless camera systems. The Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO. I was so fortunate to be sent a copy late November 2019 to test out a bit and give my thoughts on.Now, I’m NOT a macro photographer. I don’t do that kind of photography much. I don’t have the fancy ring lights, I don’t have fancy turn-around-lenses-and-mount-them rigs. I don’t particularly…
The Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO Review – jonasrask|photography Today Laowa released their newest offering for mirrorless camera systems. The Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO. I was so fortunate to be sent a copy late November 2019 to test out a bit and give my thoughts on.Now, I’m NOT a macro photographer. I don’t do that kind of photography much. I don’t have the fancy ring lights, I don’t have fancy turn-around-lenses-and-mount-them rigs. I don’t particularly…
Floral Friday – First Dahlia My garden has it’s first dahlia flowering and I thought I would share it with you for Floral Friday. I am really looking forward to seeing more in the months to come. Over the last couple of years, I haven’t had a lot of luck with my dahlias. There are about 10 different ones here and initially, only a couple of them flowered. When I learned that I needed to feed them, well that…
Floral Friday – the garden today Floral Friday is hard to do at the moment as the weather has played havoc, but I thought I would try and show the garden today. Some things are looking very sad after all that heat we had a couple of weeks ago. My hydrangeas really suffered. Two of them more than the other. Summer is always hard for flowers, but this year it seems even harder. There were quite a few plants…
Some videos to give you ideas It is summer here and winter in the Northern Hemisphere and so today I thought it would be good to show some videos to give you ideas on what you can shoot at this time of the year. When I was trying to find some videos for you today, I was going to go in a completely different direction. However, I’m going to be doing a lot of macro over the next couple…
Good Things Come in Small Packages – a Guide to Macro Photography This post is intended to be a gateway to different aspects of macro photography. There are many links; each leading to posts or tutorials that will explain more about the subject. Please feel free to click away! Tiny critters are one of the most intriguing aspects of scuba diving. They are sometimes weird, often beautiful, and even a little creepy. Sometimes they defy description and it is because…
Each week, members of the 500px team curate eye-catching photography from our talented and diverse community in Editors’ Choice. This week’s curation highlights water in motion, summer love, and starry nights. Check out this week’s roundup of some of the most intriguing photography on 500px, handpicked by our Editors. Check out which photos are catching our Editors’ eyes today in Editors’ Choice! Not on 500px yet? Sign up here to explore more impactful photography. Related … This is only a…
[vimeo 345393485] In honor of The International Year of the Periodic Table, the scientists behind the Beauty of Science project set out to capture the 11 chemical elements that make up 99% of your body in the most artistic way possible. Using a Panasonic GH5 with an Atomos Ninja V for the cleanest possible footage, the new Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro lens to get as close as possible, and Edelkrone products for artistic camera movement, they were able…
Macro photographers learn over time that this genre of photography can break rules you’d always follow in other areas like landscape or portrait photography. It’s a different world to explore, and taking a different approach is an asset when mixing science with art. As a landscape photographer, having a horizon line two degrees off is an annoyance, but for small-scale subjects where no horizon exists, it can be creatively freeing to rotate the camera arbitrarily to allow for the lines,…
Like tiny crystal balls, water droplets can add a magical element to macro photographs. There are a number of moving parts to consider, but the basic concept is simple: a spherical droplet can act like a lens, refracting light from whatever is behind it. Getting good droplets can be problematic, as most surfaces will cause water to spread out rather than to bead up nicely. Using just plain water (no glycerine or other additives), one of the easiest foreground objects…
Photo Mystery | Tim’s Reflection Connection This photo was shot with the iPhone X using the Moment 10mm Macro Lens1 . So, the million dollar question is: What is it? What is it? Here are some hints: It can and does get very cold when it is in use.It was a successfully funded a Kickstarter project.It has four different parts–well, maybe five.Each part has a specific function.Everyone should have and use one.I really enjoy mine, which is pictured above.It’s practical…
George Wheelhouse | Fine Art Nature Photography My photo “Bald Eagle – Black, White, and Yellow” has been used by Digital Photographer this month, for their magazine cover photo… It was chosen to represent an article about retaining sharpness when taking detailed wildlife close-ups, which is hugely flattering. It’s also used inside, covering a double page spread to illustrate the concept. I’m really chuffed as this came quite out of the blue, and…