Mikes 52, week 33, Mobile, added.

Finally got round to Art. My initial thought was to shoot some graffiti and title it Art? but I couldn't find any locally so almost shoehorned on in from last years worldwide photo walk. I held off posting anything until today as I've been shooting a family bush craft day at Brede High woods and thought I'd see what I could get.

I give you The Art of Fire making.



 
Back on track now with relaxation. Unfortunately the dog blends into the duvet a bit but to change the duvet I would have lost the relaxed dog.



 
All I can say about relaxation is Awwwwww!!!!!!
What a sweetie :love: and I wouldn't have had the heart to kick him off the bed to change the duvet either.

Art is a fascinating shot - one I want to keep going back and looking at. You've done a good job at capturing the flare of the flame, but I think it may have worked better with a faster shutter speed to freeze the movement of the hands. That's where my eye keeps settling as a focal point and I'd like to see it a bit sharper.
 
Art fits the theme - it's a pity it's a little soft but I imagine the shooting conditions were quite difficult, and you have done very well with the timing. I think if you cropped a little off the top, to just below where the white background bit crosses behind the arm, it would concentrate the eye even more on the strike.

Relaxation - Awwwwww! This certainly looks relaxed - his head almost looks as if it doesn't belong to the rest of him! I don't mind the duvet, in fact it is rather fun the way the colours and crumples echo the dogs hair, so that you have to look to see where the dog ends and the duvet begins. Again, I would crop a little off the top to get rid of the blue bag on the shelf, and darken the highlight on the edge of the shelf. Just a suggestion, though.
 
Well after a manic week I managed to get a shot suitable for Grace yesterday afternoon. I found this lovely specimen in Brede High Woods.



 
Art, I agree with the comments, it's a very well timed shot, and the lighting likes really tough, but perhaps a little bit faster shutter speed to freeze the hands...

That's one relaxed looking doggie... Agree about not changing the duvet, that would have spoilt the chance. I understand why you went for this sort of shot, and I'm not sure you could have managed a really tight framing with the position of him, but that would have removed the background, and reduced the problem with the merging with the duvet.

A lovely shot of the Red Admiral. Lovely colours and spot on focus. They are graceful when flying around aren't they.
 
Thanks John. I've struggled with inspiration for the last few weeks and was so pleased when such a gorgeous red admiral appeared.
 
:LOL: Are you mad?
I just noticed that you posted grace at 4:53 this morning . . . far, far too early to be up and thinking about photographs !

It's certainly graceful though and beautiful colours.
The focus looks spot on and it can't have been easy to catch him staying still in one place.

It looks like you had the same problem as me this week with getting insects to face you. Still a lovely shot, but would have been stunning with him actually looking towards the camera.
 
I had to leave home at 6.15 and needed to get the dogs walked before I left so I was up just after 4 to make sure I got my TP fix. I managed to get a damselfly face on but to get the shot I had to wade across small pool. I got some cracking shots of the whole damselfly but didn't quite nail the focus on the face.



 
Thanks Sue, and moving on from Grace we have endings. First thoughts were a misty morning in a graveyard with a B&W conversion. There's a cracking graveyard in St. Leonards but the weather let me down and there was no mist when I had time to get there. Rather than rush the shot I decided to hold off until the mist arrived or something else presented itself.

Well today the opportunity arose. I'd taken the camera with me to try and get an insect shot for my insect a day project and I spotted a little moth and as I was about to get a shot it was attacked by an ant. This ant then held onto it whilst it's comrades attacked and killed the moth and it was then dragged down into the ant's nest. Instead of a single shot I felt that this required a short series to tell the tale. A little gruesome but definitely an ending.

I give you A sticky ending.











 
A nice series that definitely fits the theme. A little soft in places and I'm not sure if that's a lack of sharpening or camera shake, would be handy to have the exif attached to each image. The ants are fascinating and you've grabbed some lovely brown and red colours in those last few. Nice job.
 
Probably slight focus issues as I was struggling to get the right viewpoint through the many blades of grass in the way and moving them might have disturbed the action.
 
A really fascinating set.
I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before and there's some good detail in them.

Technically, a few of them could be sharper or stronger on composition, but for me these are more about documenting the event than anything else. And from that perspective they work perfectly.
 
Hi Mike

I can't believe I haven't commented on your thread before now - I've dropped in several times but for some reason or other haven't managed to comment. So perhaps Endings is a good place to start. :LOL:

Endings: Yes, a bit gruesome and certainly a sticky end, but as a nature lesson on what an army of ants can do it's fascinating. Technical perfection is always a Holy Grail but, imo, catching this sequence is the important thing and you've done a great job on it. :clap: What struck me is how quickly the little moth's wings were destroyed. :eek:

Jean
 
Thanks for the comments Jean, Chris and Sarah.

I've got quite a few more of this episode and when I get a chance I'll sit down and see if I can do a better job on the processing. According to a few sites I've visited this behaviour is fairly rare so I was really lucky to capture it.
 
My hopes of a lightning storm for this weeks image haven't materialised so I had to look elsewhere. After the fireworks on the West Hill last night we wandered over to get some light trail shots from the scary ride on the seafront and as I stood taking some some shots of the effects caused by the electric lighting I suddenly realised I'd got my shot without realising.

Electric.



 
That's well exposed and some lovely colours in there. The motion for me isn't quite as obvious as it could be though, needs a fraction of a second more for my liking.
 
Thanks Darren, the motion was a really awkward one to capture as it doesn't just move in one plane.

As soon as I saw this weeks theme I knew what I wanted to do. This is based around the idea I used for chemistry and I managed to con my togging buddy, Sue, to help out and be my model for part of the shoot. Possibly could of been better with a narrower aperture to blur the background but I was worried about getting the focus right in all the shots so I manually focussed and used f/8. I was going to shoot in manual to get the exposure the same in all the shots but the light was quite variable this morning so I ended up shooting in AV. I also contemplated using a bit of flash but thought that might end up blowing the white of the lab coat so I used natural light. We struggled to get the facial expressions right because we kept laughing but I'm reasonably happy with the end result, particularly as portraiture isn't really my thing.

Transform


Transform by Mike Jackson1, on Flickr
 
That's very funny. Having seen the results of your chemistry shoot it seems you've also learnt some lessons about health & safety too :) Nicely thought out and execute.

(you might want to resize before the pixel police turn up)
 
Thanks Darren, I'm hoping I get away with the size as it's a vertical panorama so I reckon I'm allowed 1024.
 
Quick catch up from me.....

Grace: love the butterfly, and colours are really good.

Endings: bang on theme and seems very well executed (!) but I admit I scrolled quickly past this one :eek:.

Electric: I like this one very much for the colours, the compostion and the sense of movement. I feel the whirly bit is just too close to the top edge, though - it would be easy to add another 20 pixels or so to give it a bit more room. JMO

Transform: a great idea which you have brought off well, though Sue doesn't look quite alarmed enough! A minor niggle is the short pale streaky bit on the lower left edge of the first two pics which keeps pulling my eye.

You obviously had a lot of fun with this - how did you explain it all to the neighbours? :LOL:
 
Tracer said:
Quick catch up from me.....

Grace: love the butterfly, and colours are really good.

Endings: bang on theme and seems very well executed (!) but I admit I scrolled quickly past this one :eek:.

Electric: I like this one very much for the colours, the compostion and the sense of movement. I feel the whirly bit is just too close to the top edge, though - it would be easy to add another 20 pixels or so to give it a bit more room. JMO

Transform: a great idea which you have brought off well, though Sue doesn't look quite alarmed enough! A minor niggle is the short pale streaky bit on the lower left edge of the first two pics which keeps pulling my eye.

You obviously had a lot of fun with this - how did you explain it all to the neighbours? :LOL:
Click to expand...

Luckily the garages are surrounded by high walls so the neighbours would only see if they were peering out of their back bedroom windows. They're used to getting up to all sort of strange antics with the camera.

justlooking said:
Transform - lol very well done, Sue looks more like she is about to giggle rather than transform!
Click to expand...

There was a lot of giggling and laughing.

dade_f said:
Transform: FANTASTIC concept, love it ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks Dade.
 
Slightly tenuous picture from me this week. Taken yesterday at the Rye Horse and Dog show during our agility display I figured that Bree was fairly mobile as she leapt the jump. Closer study revealed that the woman in the top right appears to be texting using her mobile phone so 2 tenuous links for the price of one.


Bree by Mike Jackson1, on Flickr
 
You've caught the action nicely there Mike, focus is spot on. Shame you couldn't get a little more separation from the background.
 
Thanks Darren, limitation of the lens unfortunately. 28 -135 f/4-5.6. Due to the size of the course I can't get away with using my 100 macro without missing shots on some parts. I guess I'll have to keep picking those lottery numbers.
 
:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: Brilliant idea for transform !!!
Absolutely love it and I don't mind the background being in focus at all . . . it's bland enough not to be distracting.
My only suggestion with these would be to have kept the camera angle exactly the same for all of them so that you have the same amount of table in view on all of them.

Great timing on mobile too. You've caught the action perfectly.
Shame about the background, but it doesn't look like there was much that you could do about that.
 
Electric: This really captures the atmosphere of fairground rides at night. You can almost hear the screams and I swear I can smell hot dogs and candyfloss! Well done. :)

Transform: An excellent visual joke, Mike. A brilliant and original take on a difficult theme. That smoking orange liquid looks evil enough to transform anything! :clap::clap::clap:

Mobile: A lovely action shot of the dog - definitely mobile! - and there's the added bonus of the lady texting. :) I sympathise over the background - I had the same trouble with my first attempts at an equestrian event last week. Why do the barriers/fencing etc always get in the way :bang: I hope the dog didn't land in your lap! :)

Jean
 
Tenuous link #3 Mike, the cars (automobiles) in the background?;)
Good capture on the dog, caught the action moment there so well done.
Iain
 
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