Donnie's 52 2017 - Week 26,27,28 and all added!!!

OK, 10 catchups coming up, please don't feel you have to comment on them all, or indeed any :)

Week 16 - Smoke

Week 16 - Smoke by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Ok, so while the immediate thoughts were either of someone smoking or of something on fire, neither were appealing. One because I don't smoke and the other because I wasn't going to start a fire or hope to see one. So, that pretty much left me with Smoke Art, some of which I've done before ( I really should put a page up about how to do this). All you need is a dark room and background and an incence stick for the smoke, then its just a case of using flash to capture the smoke. Ok there's a bit more to it than that but those are the essentials, once you have done that you either have a single smoke exposure or duplicate exposures or even mirrors.
So, this is the same image but mirrored 4 different ways to create this final image. Every smoke image is very open to interpretation so you will see something individual to you, or maybe only hints of something.

Week 17 - Vivid

Week 17 - Vivid by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

I almost immediately thought of colouring pencils! Unfortunately, almost everyone thinks the same so that sets the challenge of how to try and take a shot that's been done a thousand times.
I decided to bunch the vivid colours and shoot them against a bright background, however I also wanted to be careful that no one point obscured one behind it, therefore I set the colouring pencils in such a way that they were stepped at different heights, to enhance this I also shot them so that they laid diagonally across the image. I shot from directly ahead but lit artificially with one flash from the left which was diffused with a sheet of paper and bounced some light back onto the dark side of the pencil shafts.

Week 18 - Large

Week 18 - Large by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

First thoughts turned to either wildlife or buildings but, given I wasn't near any elephants or hippos, plus today's weather I decided I needed to find something indoors.
Et voila! I was going to get more use out of my lego stormtrooper as well as the colouring pencil from the previous theme! The idea for this just came to me by altering my perspective, I thought that if I don't have anything easily accessible that was actually large for me, what could be large compared to something on a smaller scale? This was shot on my dining room table on some printer paper for background and my flashgun from one side and a reflector on the opposite side so that the shadows weren't too harsh.

Week 19 - Architecture

Week 19 - Architecture by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

The newest nearest architecture to where I live is a new development called Riverside North in Bedford. This area used to be a surface car park but is right on the side of the river Great Ouse that runs right through the town. I forget sometimes how nice Bedford can be, I find when you live somewhere you sort of lose sight of what it's like. To that end I find it useful to explore areas with the eyes of a tourist, certainly makes for an enjoyable time.
So this new development consists of a new Premier Inn, cinema, apartments and several restaurants (which are out of shot in this particular image. This part of the development however was my favourite section when it came to thinking of Architecture.

I saw the black and glass of the Premier Inn and initially tried to get a reflection of the brick and yellow apartments in the windows but there was just no angle that worked properly, so, standing back and looking at the buildings again to reassess, I decided to go wacky and get the fisheye out. This is the result!

So, by using the fisheye I could get a massive amount in the frame and accentuate the bend and perspective of the buildings almost like they were bending toward each other to protect the Vue cinema in the middle! Additionally, the contrast of the dark architecture on the left leads the eye into the sky and above the cinema toward the bright brickwork and yellow balconies on the right. I think it works and had to wait 20 minutes for the right light and for that cloud in the middle to appear and fill the blue expanse.

As a side note, this shot's a great example of breaking a photography rule about shooting in strong sun, this was shot in the middle of a strong sunny day, I seem to have got away with it too!

Week 20 - Broken

Week 20 - Broken by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

I happened across a row of old colourful paraffin lamps in a Bedford pub when out looking for other shots and there was just one of them that had a broken glass. The real problem was how not to just take a snap, but take an image. It would have been all too easy to take a front shot of the row of them, all different colours but I needed the focus on the only broken one.
To do this I decided to go in close at a wide aperture to blur the intact lamp and focus on the glass of the other, then a slight crop on the computer and remove the distraction of the colours, again drawing the eye to the broken glass. I nearly did a straight black and white but thought a hint of sepia would suit the image better.

Week 21 - Transport

Week 21 - Transport by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

It would be all toooooo easy to take yet another shot of my own scooter or to dig out a picture from the Old Warden show a few months ago for this one but instead I decided on this shot I took on a visit to Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
It's a relatively new Vespa PX Disc, a modern classic. It was quite a difficult shot to take due to the strong sunlight but the scooter in full shadow, so balancing the two was difficult but as we can see, not impossible. I opted for a portrait shot keeping the scooter in the left third and leaving room for the interesting buildings in the background. Using black and white added to the classic feel the Vespa deserved as well as removing distraction of the strong colours at this time of day.
 
Week 22 - Minimalistic

Week 22 - Minimalist by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

I wandered lonely as a cloud. OK maybe not but we've had a nice little break in the weather recently and had some lovely skies and I thought that this simple shot of a cloud in a sea of blue fits this weeks theme beautifully!

Week 23 - Progress

Week 23 - Progress by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

This is an image of The Pilgrims Progress in Bedford, UK. This building has been here for approximately 100 years and has been various businesses over the years but most recently a Wetherspoon and is now a hotel too.
As for the image itself? Meh. No really, it's just a bit meh. I can't put my finger on it but it's not one I'm particularly going to point anyone toward, maybe it's the railings, or the darkness at the top left I don't know. I do like that I've got some blue hour sky going on, perhaps if the moon happened to be there too I'd be happier and I'm happy with the light trails which add a different element too. But it's really more of a snap for me.

Week 24 - Pleasure(able)

Week 24 - Pleasure by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Our Border Collie, Finn. Well, he does bring some pain being only 4 months old and acts like a frog on a spring, but just look at him. How can that not bring some pleasure?

Week 25 - Tiny

Week 25 - Tiny by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Here I was kind of stuck, a macro shot would be the easy shot but then I started to think of the perspective of something tiny looking at something so much larger and so it was that my little lego Stormtrooper made yet another appearance!
This was shot in my back garden using the 7.5mm Samyang fisheye lens and took a little bit of fiddling. In the end I needed to shoot several shots with exposure compensation due to the sky (even overcast) trying to overpower the rest of the image. Therefore 2.3 stops of overexposure were necessary to get detail in the Stormtrooper and me as the giant about to stomp on him.

Once I'd figured the exposure I just needed to balance the Stormtrooper on the edge of the lens, lay the camera facing up in the grass of the garden while dodging showers, then take some shots with my foot in various positions until I found a composition I was happy with, et voila!
 
A super catch up Paul, and some real nice images, sorry lacking time so just a quick catch up from me...

I love your smoke image with such a good background and a wide crop - Minimalist works very well too, a very cool idea and really like the low down placement of the cloud - A super image for Pleasure and a clever and original idea for Tiny, very effective indeed, all in all a good set of images (y)
 
Good catch up.
Transport
I like it. It sits well in the foreground.
Tiny
Great pov and a good idea
 
first-rate stuff Paul ... Smoke Art, Table Top, effective use of Fisheye and Long Exposure. :clap:
 
Wow. I have really enjoyed looking through your thread from the start, Paul! You have a strong style and a nice hint of humour creeps into some of the images, too.

Smooth, Above and Hold are two favourites from your earlier images, while Smoke is a real beauty and holds the eye for some time, Transport is a favourite too; not only for the low POV and composition but because I made many trips into Hitchin as a youngster and recognised the location, and Pleasure is a good idea for the theme and easy viewing for this Border Collie lover :)

Well done on such a mega catch-up and I look forward to seeing more of your images (y)
 
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Hi Paul.
Mucho catchieupio.

Smoke - Crisp, sharp, lovely blue colour against the black background. (y)

Vivid - I like the thought you've put into this. Appreciate you're being different to others, but the broken tip does grate a bit :/

Large - haha, very good. I'm rubbish at ocf, so I can't really comment, but could anything have been done to reduce the falloff of the light top right?

Architecture - That's the one fisheye you're allowed for the year ;)
Seriously though, I think that works nicely. Love the vivid colours and the way using the fisheye makes it look like there are no people around (you have to look closely to see the few that are there).

Broken - Again,, nice bit of thought put into taking the shot. Great detail and he angle and DoF works. Nicely done (y)

Transport - Not for me this one, sorry. The processing doesn't work for me (lack of contrast in (in focus) the background), verticals are off and you have a clock growing out of the vespa. Appreciate the work put into it though.

Minimalistic - Can't beat a bit of fluffy white against the strong blue sky.
Liking that one a lot :)

Progress - My initial thoughts were clever idea of light trails for (making) progress.
I would crop the left and top in a bit, I think the darkness of the left is what's making yuou think 'meh'.

Pleasure(able) - Nice looking pooch. A bit of eye contact would improve it perhaps?

Tiny - I can see a lot of work put into that. Good on you for persevering, I think you got a good one there.
Liking the rim lighting on the shoe.
Only slight critique would be the CA on left hand arm of the storm trooper.
 
thanks guys for the feedback and putting up with me :-/ Lots to think about there and great input from LC2, makes me look again at the images, totally missed the CA on that stormtrooper!

So, four more which only covers July :-/ I've written a little about eaach photo on the flickr description if you want to click through rather than replicate it here.

Week 26 - Face
Week 26 - Face by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Week 27 - Agriculture
Week 27 - Agriculture by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Week 28 - Graceful
Week 28 - Graceful by Donnie Canning, on Flickr

Week 29 - Fruit (of my labour) First go at Milky Way.
Week 29 - Fruit by Donnie Canning, on Flickr
 
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Good catch-up, fruit is maybe a bit of a shoe horn but perfectly understabdable. Face is an interesting crop and I liek the way you have processed it.
 
Good work Paul.

Liking the gritty eagle eye shot, and the extraordinary swan reflection. (y)
 
Hi Paul,

Face - Very sharp, and I think a selfie judging by the reflection in the eye. (y)

Agriculture - Great imagery captured there. With the exception of the lady in blue, that could be a chocolate box cover.

Graceful - I may have cropped this to remove the object in the foreground, not sure. Did you have a go at both option?
It would be interesting to put them side by side to see.

Fruit - I really really like that. Not only have you captured a great sky, you've added interest with windmill and the glow.
 
Cheers mate, on the swan one, I did think about cropping out the reeds in front but wanted some foreground interest so it wasn't "just another swan" if you see what I mean.

As for the lady in blue, yeah, it was really hard that day to try and get anything that didnt also have something somewhere modern in it, a real shame. I did think about trying to desaturate it, but its still obviously a shot with modern elements including the t shirt of the guy at the steam tractor etc so I didn't bother .
 
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