Anemone overload

 My favourite flowers are Anemones - of pretty much every type and as mentioned in my last blog I have had a couple of bunches from the wholesale florists, next day delivery from Holland. They have lasted really well, its been 3 weeks since the first bunch of Anemone Nero and blue mistrals, the blues are on their last days but the Neros should last a few more. The pastel Anemones which arrived a week ago are so beautiful and many are quite a surprise when they unfurl their petals, showing colours Ive never seen before in Anemones.

 

So far I have concentrated mostly on macro photos and focus stacking, but I feel my photos are a bit "samey". Ive photographed Anemones up close before so these are not much different, although I was hoping to improve by using focus stacking and producing a better result, but Michael agrees with me on the repetitive point too. So I have decided to produce some still life images, but instead of the usual dark and moody approach which I love, I am opting for more of a light and airy, spring feel. I rarely use white in still life so I'm going to step out of my comfort zone and go for a brighter look. This is not natural for me as generally it is not what I like, but if we  don't try different things then we aren't likely to learn and grow. 

I have also been contemplating what my aims are for this year too. I am still inclined to concentrate on learning more about extreme macro and trying to hone macro skills. I was going to pull back on still life, but I am feeling a pull to try to create still life with a different feel to my usual, maybe even trying out  food photography and commercial still life - that is a huge area to explore, where lighting is so important, with lots to learn and all which I can do from home too. For now I am going to start creating still life with my Anemones and a few other flowers over the next couple of weeks and see if I enjoy that. 

My new lenses arrived and I am excited to get using those too. I did have a short test run with them yesterday. the 180 macro lens is amazing, super fast at focusing despite requiring an adapter to fit my camera. It is incredibly heavy though, so I need to use a tripod with it. I cant wait to get out and use it for shooting spring flowers, Im itching to get out amongst the snowdrops and Crocuses but its been far too windy this week and I've not had the energy. Fingers crossed for next week. 

 

I took a handful of images using the Lensbaby velvet 85, such as the one above, I'm going to have such fun with this out doors. Its manual focus only, but the peak focussing on my Sony A7iii and the magnifying option help a lot, especially whilst using a tripod. The image below is taken with this lens too. A friend suggested it reminds her of Easter, I think it does too.

I thought I would have a play with textures too, something I used to do a lot years ago, but again it feels very much like stuff I have done before and isn't really hitting the spot for me. 

So maybe I need the challenges of learning new skills. I am still considering pulling back from entering competitions as much as I have been and maybe only entering macro, floral and close up. I'm unsure why I feel like not entering much as it has been an enjoyable part of my life and a good driving force to learn and produce better images. For some reason I feel embarrassed about my wins, I don't feel I'm any better at photography than most photographers, I have just had the time and focus to enter. But I'm not really liking how I feel about it all. I will probably still enter IGPOTY as I love this competition and think it is a positive focus, but that might be the only one. Its a strange feeling, hard to explain. The thrill of winning is nice briefly, but the taking part is better. It is kind of resulting in me reviewing what I want out of photography, why I enter competitions and if there is another way forward that I would prefer. One route I am exploring is how I can use my experience to help others and I have started to do this more, although I need to find a better way than in messages as its quite draining on my limited energy.

Another way forward could be starting to give talks again, maybe via zoom. I am unsure on this, partially lacking confidence as it's been a long time, plus brain fog and cognitive dysfunction can be an issue for me a large percentage of time. But I think I can prepare for this by making notes. If anyone has ideas I would welcome suggestions. Obviously having M.E. has an impact on how and what I do. I feel some deep meditation and soul searching coming on :) 

My 2023 photography journey continued

 Well since my last blog I have only managed to get out to do a little photography once due to my health not being too good, so have mostly been concentrating on short creative spells sat at our dining room.  I have swapped between macro photography of insects and flowers, mostly focus stacked, a couple of still life images and even a little dabble into food photography which I really enjoyed. Its been a bit rough health wise but doing photography has really helped to distract me from how I feel both physically and mentally. It also keeps me happy 

My trip out was to Wallington hall to see their little lawn full of purple Crocuses. We set off to arrive as close to opening times as possible on a sunny morning to capture the flowers at their best, but it was busy from the start, with one of the NT photographers set up on the lawn, being rather grumpy at anyone who got in his shots - this made us laugh as he could have gone half an hour early and got the shots without people in. 

 In truth this spot was incredibly difficult for me to reach on my mobility scooter, so anyone with mobility issues or using a mobility device would be wise to check access before going if heading to the walled garden. There is only one access point for those in a wheelchair or on a mobility scooter and it is incredibly steep. 

So as my exhaustion levels have been so high and I have been feeling so unwell lately, I have kept my activities to as low energy as possible. I have enjoyed doing focus stacking sat our table and feel that Im learning more. I've photographed some spring flowers and a few insects aswell. I have also finished creating a new texture pack which I have put up for sale in my Etsy store, a few examples of images with these textures are below. 

 

Im am starting to get to grips with how to relax and position the taxidermy insect specimens after breaking limbs of quite a few. I never knew there was so much to learn about the care of such specimens and Im so grateful that the macro community involved with Alan Walls's following are so open to sharing and helping each other. I highly recommend anyone starting out in this area to look them up on Discord or Youtube.

Ive had a quick play with still life and hope to do more this coming week after obtaining some nice new items to use. The Cherry blossoms are blooming and I couldnt resist a simple set up. 

I've been planning to try a bit of food photography for a while and as there is a competition this month I decided to push myself to try things Ive not done before. I have to say that I really enjoyed both attempts and will be trying more this year. For the cheesecake set up I preferred  doing straight on shots to flat lay and it was good to use the focus stacking rail for the close up cheesecake slice shots too. I found these easier than doing still life. 

 I have more appreciation for food photographers and stylists after doing these, there are lots of little things to keep in mind, attention to detail is important and sometimes its better to use foods in a slightly different way to how we would eat it - for example a fresh blueberry with sauce over it is going to look a lot more appealing in a photo than a cooked blueberry. Keeping things looking fresh is important too.

 

This set up of pancakes was actually really easy, although harder to capture the honey dribbling exactly as I wanted in just a couple of attempts - Im sure seasoned food photographers will have several lots of pancakes and berries, and plenty of honey, I was not as prepared. The lighting was not as difficult as I had anticipated, just two lights and a reflector, plus a couple of small diffusers, although I did make a learners error in leaving the room light on.

I did try out some single shots at F8 or F11 then some focus stacked shots at F2.8 just to see which I preferred. I think I prefer the single shots

So all in all I have actually still managed to produced a fair amount of images in spite of not being too good lately.

Spring has arrived

 This week I had such a lovely excursion  photographing spring flowers. We visited the very pretty Richardson Dees park, Wallsend,  a park fairly local to us in North Tyneside,  on a magical sunshiney morning .

The sun was just starting to cast its rays over the park, which was slightly hazy, causing some gorgeous light beams cascading through the trees, lighting up the jewel like flowers. We couldn't have chosen a better morning, with barely a hint of a breeze, and relatively warm for February.

I quickly found my favourite spot full of purple Crocuses, Snowdrops and Winter aconites, all in bloom, although none of the Crocus flowers were open.

 The flowers were mostly in shade when I arrived which is actually a lot better for photographing shiny flowers such as Crocuses, the harsher light of bright sunshine can be a bit tricky for flower photography, often causing severe contrast between light and dark. But the sun soon rose and lit the dazzling scene up. So I was having to move around  and keep in the shade to make the photos work the way that I wanted, luckily there are a few trees that helped. I'm hoping to return with a reflector next time to diffuse sunshine, with a stand to hold it, maybe a bit later in the day next time too so I can capture the Crocuses actually fully open ( I'm assuming they close when its dark and open in good light/warmth). By the time I left, the Crocuses were starting to respond to the daylight radiance and expose their full, exquisite colours, I did get a few shots of some in their full glory, but not many, so will plan to return within the week if I can.

I took along 4 lenses but ended up only using one, my 100-400, because it allowed me to photograph the flowers from a few ft away, whilst lying on a mat, which meant I wasn't crushing lots of flowers. You can see from an image further up how closely planted the flowers are, it was difficult to get close to the Winter aconites, but I will be trying to find a better spot to photograph them next time, when hopefully the flowers will be open.

I photographed pretty much everything at F6.3 to F8, yet still got a lovely bokeh due to the longer lens and positioning, composing the scenes to include blurred foreground and background. Whilst I had my mini tripod, I ended up just lying on the ground looking through the viewfinder - something I'm regretting now as my neck and shoulder muscles are crying out for some deep heat and hot baths. So tripod it will be next time. Its funny just how much I forgot after not doing this for a few months.

It was lovely to chat to a few people and also finally meet an online photographer friend after chatting via social media for many years. I was amused to discover that he thought I had fallen from my scooter, until he spotted the camera, I really must make a sign for my scooter so people don't panic. Even one of the gardeners was super friendly and rightly proud of the garden, hoping I would share the resulting images.

The image below is my favourite from this session, you can see why I want to return to capture more of the blooms fully open. Believe it or not, all I have done to this image is increase shadows and reduce highlights. That's all for today, lots more images below.