Week 1 Self portrait

I had a few ideas this week and had an image ready on the first day, but thought I might come up with something different as the week went by. It took me right to the wire in the end, and I finally got this image with just a couple of hours to go. I used a single flash with a snoot and grid to achieve the lighting effect I have here and used a cord trigger to actually take the shot. I edited in Lightroom then added a frame and signature in Photoshop

Week 2 Rule of thirds

I had a good idea for a subject, but was let down by tide times and weather, I would have preferred a high tide instead of a low tide and would have liked less cloud as I had hoped to capture a golden hour image. We have to work with what we have though. So this was taken about 30 minutes before sun rise looking out at the remains of a pier that went a mile out to sea, there is a short pier now, but the "end of the pier" is isolated in the distance.

Week 3 Hello from.

This is an image showing the old Westgate towers, the largest mediaeval gate in the UK, it is from about 1380 and formed part of the Cities old fortifications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate,_Canterbury The building with the red lights was the city goal and these were the cells. Although not visible in the image, there is also a river between the grass and the wall that formed part of the defences. Canterbury is in the South East of England and most famous for St Augustine's Cathedral which dominates the city. This is a 15 second exposure

Week 4 Macro

This was my first ever attempt at image stacking, although I liked the results, I am sure given more practice I should achieve better results. I adjusted the focus of 25 images to get front to rear focus, but think I may have needed to take 4 or 5 times more to get a really clear image, I used manual everything including my ring flash set on 1/64th power

Week 5 Dirty

I have seen some fantastic graffiti over my lifetime, some artistic and some making political statements, Banksy is famous for political graffiti. But what we have around our City is mainly just scrawling tags which are not nice and do nothing for our environment and to me it is just mindless vandalism.

Week 6 Your Desk

I was going to post an image of my whole desk setup which I built myself, but decided to go with something which is quite unique to me. Being left handed it is hard to find anything other than conventional a mouse which causes my wrist to ache after continued use, so after a lot of searching I got an upright mouse which is far more natural to hold and causes less strain, plus it is also more precise in its movement. Where possible I use a tablet and pen, (I just upgraded to a Huion Kamvas gt-191 v2) but when I do use a mouse, this is the one for me. I will add an image of my actual desk in the comments.

Week 7 City at night

After trying to find a view of Canterbury that I hadn't done before, I decided to go along to a near by coastal town where there are views from the surrounding hills. This is looking down onto Folkestone and into the English Channel, surprisingly there is only the lights of one ship visible, this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The two tones in the sky show a weather front coming in although it is not a storm front, so no drama. This image qualifies for the extra credit with a 25 second exposure.

Week 8 Uncommon

This is one of the smallest chapels in the world, a converted Dove cote on the former Hales family estate in Canterbury, this building was converted into a Jesuit chapel in the 1800's. Apart from the size, this chapel has another uncommon feature, animal bones were used in its construction and are clearly visible on the outside of the building. The chapel is only opened one day a year now and has a feeling of neglect about it which is a bit sad. I was lucky with the weather this week, I knew we were likely to get some fog in the mornings from Friday, so held my nerve and went out early in the hope of getting the image with the right atmosphere. Edited in Lightroom and Exposure X4 then minor touching up in Photoshop. This was shot 15 minutes before sunrise with a 6 second exposure.

Week 9 Negative space

I had gone to the coast with an idea of a seascape hopefully with a boat or ship as the focal point, but there was far too much haze, so not wanting to have wasted my journey, I took advantage of the day and just looked for interesting things to photograph with an idea of coming back another time to try and get my ship, but then I saw this footprint, and it reminded me of an old saying. "Take nothing but memories, and leave nothing but footprints" I was quite pleased about the way it came out and decided this would fit this weeks theme perfectly.

Week 10 Symmetry

These cameras were one of the first ever compact cameras, widely used in WW1 by both American and British troops in the trenches, so much so that nearly every image from the front would have been taken by someone using one of these. My set up for this shot was pretty basic, I used a torch from above to light the image so I could avoid any light spreading to the background, the camera was sitting on a black tile. Although using spot metering I still had to use -1.7 exposure compensation to get the light right. I turned the image B&W although there really wasn't much colour in the image in the first place just to give a slightly cleaner look.

Week 11 Experimental Photography

I had intended doing wire wool spinning, but the wind was a bit too strong and I didn't want to start a fire, so changed over to using some Christmas lights. I used the same sort of set up, a 30 second exposure with the camera on a tripod and although there were no sparks flying I was quite pleased with how the image turned out. When the weather is a bit better I will try again but with wire wool.

Week 12 Old

Living in a small City with history going back to the Roman times, I had a massive choice of subjects for this weeks challenge, but chose to go with something that is living, this is a "Plane Tree" it is in the beautiful West Gate Gardens and is a visitor attraction all by itself. We have several of these in Canterbury, but they are not native to the UK. This link tells a little about the tree which some of you may find interesting. https://www.westgateparks.co.uk/visit/what-to-see/planetree/ I make this picture from 5 images merged into an HDR which helped bring out some detail in the sky

Week 13 New

The first leaves of the year breaking through on a rose bush. This is by far my favourite time of the year, everything is just starting to wake up after the long dark nights of winter, the days are getting longer and there is a growing expectation of a glorious summer to come. We are just starting to prepare for the abundance of growth in our garden ,and are hearing the songs of the hatchlings living in our hedgerow.

Week 14 Food

This was one of those images that was harder than I had expected, getting the light right was one challenge, setting things up another, and picking a suitable framing yet another, all were not what I expected them to be. I enjoyed this challenge, I got to eat a nice bowl of soup afterwards and also learned a few things about a genre I have never really tried before. It tasted great by the way :-)

Week 15 Blue Hour

I went out to capture the Reculver Tower just before sunset and was pleased to see that the clouds were slowly rolling in to give some interest to the sky, and waited until the sun dipped below the horizon before starting to take pictures as the night fell, the reds in the clouds were an added feature because the height of the clouds meant they were still capturing some of the glow from the sun. I shot this with my white balance set to 5000k which gave a true representation of the colours I could see in the scene. I did do a little dodging and burning and lens correction in Lightroom as well as making very minor colour adjustments. I also have my EV set at -2/3 to get the exposure right. Reculver Towers are an ancient Roman fort and is open to the public https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/reculver-towers-and-roman-fort/

Week 16 Nature

These birds were captured at Dungeness National Nature reserve in Kent. These are a favourite area for birds and other wildlife including many rare insects. I had hoped to capture some birds in flight but in the end settled for this image as the scenery felt more in tune with nature.

Week 17 Upside Down

I was really short of time this week, but thought I would try something new (to me) in Photoshop. I have used my clowns before so went for a different look this time using "Out of Bounds" as my technique. I'm sure I could improve given more time, but am reasonably happy with the result I have achieved. I added noise to the background as I was getting banding and couldn't remove it any other way I tried.

Week 18 Dark Side

I had originally planned to take a picture from under the pier, but the tide was against me as there was 4 feet of water where I wanted to stand, so I went along the beach a little to find a different vantage point, I used a 10 stop filter to try to get some movement in the clouds and flatten the water, but it was just too bright. The pier in the picture was originally 3,787 feet long, but most of it got destroyed in a storm in 1978. I have featured the pier head in another challenge (week 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herne_Bay_Pier

Week 19 Texture

I had great plans for this week, but other events kept getting in my way, so this is an unplanned image. I do like the textures in the wood, this side table lives in the garden through all weathers, and shows it's age, but that is it's attraction I took this using my iPhone but edited in Color efex pro 4

Week 20 Lying down

As I really struggle with getting up, I decided to take a picture of others lying down instead of me taking one from lying down. These two ladies are called the Alluvia ladies and were presented to our City by Jason deCaires Taylor who is a renowned sculptor who specialises in underwater exhibits (see link) and is originally from our area. I had to use a polarizing filter to remove the glare from the waters surface, I have owned one for a long time, but hardly get to use it. https://www.underwatersculpture.com/projects/alluvia-canterbury/

Week 21 Favorite Song Lyrics. (Wherever I lay my hat)

Having spent many years driving trucks across Europe and beyond, every night I would find myself in a new place, although these lyrics may have meant something slightly different, the message applies to most long haul truck drivers. This image was taken on a Motorway service area where each night there are a large number of trucks from all over Europe parked for a night or weekend rest, so this is their home for a while at least. The lyrics from the song that apply to the picture are :- "For I'm the type of boy who is always on the roam. Wherever I lay my hat that's my home" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLaBAfMPiTc The light trail was a bonus as not many cars drive through this part of the car park. this was a 30 second exposure

Week 22 Black and White

Week 22 B&W I chose to merge two images together after not being able to pick which one I liked best, the conversion to B&W was easy to see in my mind as the rooms decor is basically shades of grey anyway so the only colours were in the model and some wooden furniture plus through the colour cast of the lighting. As I didn't want to interfere with the light effects (pattern) on the wall, I chose not to add any lighting or flash which meant I needed a slow shutter speed of 1.3 seconds, but my subject is a master of staying still.

Week 23 Stairs

These are the main steps leading up to the quire in Canterbury Cathedral, just to my right is where in 1170 Thomas Becket was murdered in an area known as the Martyrdom. These stairs have been worn down by over 900 years of people walking up and down in their worship of the Protestant God. The importance of our Cathedral is shown because One of the original copies of the Magna Carta was made for Canterbury Cathedral and Archbishop Langdon was involved in drawing up the document. The link takes you to where the image was captured. https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/virtual-tour/ The lady in the image is one of the few women in a position of power in the Church today, one of few Lady Bishops which caused a stir in the protestant faith across the world.

Week 24 Fast Shutter Speed

This is really a consistency image this week as normally I would have used a far slower shutter speed for this scene. I prefer to get a sense of movement in vehicles to add a realistic feel to my images. The only time I ever really try to freeze the action is when photographing water drops is involved, but then I would use a much slower shutter speed of 1/250 and a very fast flash to actually freeze the water.