weekly Don's 52 for 2023 Catch up

Don153

Don153

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Donal
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A late start -

I spend a lot of free time walking in the countryside, and consider most of Berkshire/Hampshire to be "My area". Two weekends ago I went to one of my favourite spots. It's an old disused horse jump on the top of a gentle hill. You can sit there in absolute solitude and see for miles in all directions.

This is the spot - unfortunately, I haven't managed to make a nice photo of it!!!

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Pity...

However, there were some breaks in the cloud, and I got this shot, which I quite like.
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Yep that light is great :)
 
Lovely light and I really like the composition, always a fav of mine a single figure in a huge space. Great start to your 52.
 
Second for me too. Great light, picking out the lone figure giving good scale to the picture, as well as the receding lanscape over his shoulder
 
That's a great image Donal. Love the light on the tree and with the man and his dog(?) adding visual interest.
 
The light on the tree is exquisite, the difference light can make to a scene is amazing, I'm assuming it's shining down out of the shot.
 
Love your chosen shot Donal. Great light, and the person and dog adds extra interest. Fab
 
Week 7 - Letters

My apologies to everyone! I have been taking photos - although not as many as I would like. I like to post them in the correct order (and on time), but I am so far behind that I am just going to post this weeks entry now.

This morning, I had opened the window after seeing some jays on the lawn when I spotted this squirrel in the garden. Conditions were overcast, but I'm very pleased with the result.

The letter "N".

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I'm always a sucker for a squirrel shot, looks like an N to me!
 
Nice squirrel! Interesting the way he has his tail. Stands out nicely with the dark background behind
 
Love the n.
We have a year long project in camera club to photo letters that aren't proper letters, I took this for S the other day.20230208-FXT40022.jpg
Feel free to delete if I'm not supposed to post in your thread - sorry, not sure what the ettiquette is on this, but just thought you'd like this image.
 
Week 10 - Full

This is a Full Frontal of a Hare. taken last Sunday. I'm determined to photograph hares boxing, so I've been going out every Sunday. I've found plenty of hares. Some of them in groups, and some chasing each other around. However, I haven't seen any blows exchanged - yet!


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Thats a cracking shot Donal. I see hares occasionally on the golf course where I play, but yet to be close enough to take a decent snap with my phone. Not etiquette to take a "big" camera and stop to take photos when I'm hallway through a round!
 
Fab shot. Shouldn't be long now before you see the "mad march hares". I love the determined expression on his face!
 
SimonH said:
Thats a cracking shot Donal. I see hares occasionally on the golf course where I play, but yet to be close enough to take a decent snap with my phone. Not etiquette to take a "big" camera and stop to take photos when I'm hallway through a round!
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Thanks. My current method is to go for a 2h drive around some country lanes keeping a sharp eye out. This seems to be very productive, and I'm also enjoying the exploring the countryside.

Gav-canon said:
Nice shot, it'll kick off soon! Just need a bit of sun and over night warmth and the fur will fly ;)
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Keeping my fingers crossed!
HelenC said:
Fab shot. Shouldn't be long now before you see the "mad march hares". I love the determined expression on his face!
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Thank you Helen.
 
Week 11 - Pattern & Technique Black and White.

I'm not at all sure about this one, but I took it on Sunday, and it is growing on me. When I saw it on the computer screen at first, I was shocked by the white "bits". However, if I remove them in Affinity, the image just looks dead. Comments, bad as well as good, very welcome.
These are the patterns on an Azaelia leaf. It looks better (IMHO) in black anf white than in colour.


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Nice detail in the patterns and the leaf has a rough leathery 'elephant skin' feeling to it. Is it like that or is it waxy in real life?

White bits would be a mammoth job to clone out!! If they're there, then they're there!!
 
overbez said:
Nice detail in the patterns and the leaf has a rough leathery 'elephant skin' feeling to it. Is it like that or is it waxy in real life?

White bits would be a mammoth job to clone out!! If they're there, then they're there!!
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It is fairly waxy, but not a waxy as I thought. Here is the colour version:-

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Getting some catch-up comments in!

Letters - The squirrel has a look of "caught in the act about it" :)

Full - Great action shot, trying to decide if personally I would crop a bit tighter or not, maybe but only a bit.

Pattern - I think some of the texture has been lost in the mono conversion, as a fellow Affinity photo user I know how tricky at times it can be to get the change you can see in your head to work in practice
 
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Catching up:
Full: Love this Donal, I'm not good at capturing this types of images
Patterns: Nice shot, I think that I prefer the b&w.
 
I prefer the B&W pattern, but as @StuartPearson has said, some texture detail has been lost, I think its due to the top being more exposed than the bottom making any conversion as a whole difficult.

I had a quick go in On1 Photoraw and tried various different parameters with nearly the same results.

Pete
 
StuartPearson said:
Getting some catch-up comments in!

Letters - The squirrel has a look of "caught in the act about it" :)

Full - Great action shot, trying to decide if personally I would crop a bit tighter or not, maybe but only a bit.

Pattern - I think some of the texture has been lost in the mono conversion, as a fellow Affinity photo user I know how tricky at times it can be to get the change you can see in your head to work in practice
Click to expand...


Darkslinger said:
Catching up:
Full: Love this Donal, I'm not good at capturing this types of images
Patterns: Nice shot, I think that I prefer the b&w.
Click to expand...

seaodyssey said:
I prefer the B&W pattern, but as @StuartPearson has said, some texture detail has been lost, I think its due to the top being more exposed than the bottom making any conversion as a whole difficult.

I had a quick go in On1 Photoraw and tried various different parameters with nearly the same results.

Pete
Click to expand...

HelenC said:
I like this - makes a moody mono image.
Click to expand...


Thank you all for the comments. I was unsure about the mono image, but I didn't know why. I suspect that with better/different lighting it would have turned out much more striking. I did struggle with the processing, and applied a gradient brightness filter to tone down the top half.
 
Week 12 - Tunnel.

This was a good lesson in the importance of good light. I took some shots on an overcast day, and they really are dreadful. This one is a bit better with some sunshine.

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Good light makes all the difference, to both photography and well being. Nice shot!
 
Week 13 - Spring

At last, I seem to be catching up! Longer days and some bright skies are making things easier.

A spring lamb:
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Spotted my first butterfly of the year - a sure sign that Spring is here:-

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I thought that I would do some thing completely original. Turns out that it wasn't original at all. C'est la vie! Anyway, I tried.
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I had a play with the "pro-capture" feature in my camera, and it really works well. These are wagtails about to "spring" off their perch. They are feeding on insects that are flying over the lake.
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I'm going to go with the sheep. To be honest, I like all of them, but the sheep shot is closer to the type of photography that I am trying to learn. Less techie, and more compositionn.
 
Great Set Donal. I really like the last one. What an excellent capture!
 
Week 14 - Smooth.
I really struggled with this one. I wish I could understand why???

I've been trying to process a smooth lake shot, but I just cannot get it to look right. I've been mucking about with a shot of a robin that landed close to me on Saturday just over a week ago. A slip of the contrast slider produced a result that at least, looks different As an added bonus, I can just about make out my reflection.
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The worst thing about the tough weeks, is when everyone else makes it look so easy!

The fact that that's a robins eye make it even more impressive. I thought an owl. But the smaller size of a robin ups the difficulty.

Sharp and detailed, really giving a look to the feather detail above the edge and the gorgeous colour underneath. The fact you have the hint of the beak still in frame is lovely.

Beautiful shot.
 
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Lovely, and different shot Donal. The feather detail, especially at the top of the shot is remarkable and the reflections in the eye add further interest.
 
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