Moving home!

Charlwood Photography's blog is on the move.

It can now be found at...

http://charlwoodphotography.wordpress.com/

Please update your readers accordingly.

First things to do with a new camera..

(image of NIkon D5000 courtesy of DPReview.com)

It is probably true to say that boys do not grow up, their toys just get more expensive. Cameras are toys really - albeit fairly expensive ones that you can end up playing with everyday and calling it 'work'.  Unpacking a new toy is still exciting, perhaps I have changed little from the six year old who eagerly opened and began assembling lego on his birthday. A new camera requires a few things done to it first, before it will work. The first is charging the battery, something that usually takes several hours, and adds to the anticipation. The keen can look inside at the camera at the mirror and shutter to keep themselves occupied.  Then, when the battery is charged, comes the moment of truth...

The first thing I do with any new camera is go into the menu and turn off two things: the focus 'beep' and the autofocus assist light.  The focus light is meant to help the camera find focus in the dark. In practice I find them a waste of time as all they do is let your subject know you're there, and the speed of focus depends so much on your lens that it hardly matters. I turn the beep off for similar reasons.  As the photographer you would eventually not notice it, but everyone else will.  In the veiwfinder is a light that confirms focus anyway.  Only after that do I put the camera to my eye and take a photo, and it's usually of myself in a mirror taking a picture of me taking a picture...

Spring

Yes, it's early, I know!  However, Friday was wonderfully sunny and I quite enjoyed standing waiting for a train.  Looking forward to Spring made me dig out one of my favourite photos.

This shot was taken at a Christian retreat centre in Sussex.  My family know some of the people who run it, and for much of my childhood our one holiday of the year was spent in the stunning grounds of the old house at Ashburnham place.  Here's a photo that always reminds me of the tranquility of that place, and of Spring...

Taking time out...

I frequently work for a local franchise that does music and movement with young children aged a few months to four years.  I work a bit differently to the average nursery photographer as I use solely natural light and work around whatever the kids are up to.  It's great fun, and I usually get adopted by one or two who are fascinated by the camera.  Due to preserving client's privacy I can't share many photos, but here's one of my favourites...

Product shots

Taking product shots is all about light and photoshop.  It's not my skill set, I love photography that is fast paced.  However, one saturday I was bored and starting experimenting taking pictures of my own mobile phone.  

With product shots the light is always directional.  It captures the shape and form of the image and adds a sharpness makes the eye catch the detail.  Here's my haphazard effort...

A reflective surface adds to the shot - so often on billboards and adverts there will be a slight reflection of the object itself.  At home you can do that with a mirror...

If you've got an off camera light source shots like this can be done very easily.  The best part?  You don't even need a good camera.  All the shots above were taken on my Canon G11 compact.  The G11 is only expensive because of the build quality, any compact camera could produce the results above if the light was right.  Any of my readers do product shots?

(photo courtesy of DPreview.com)

Portraits 6

Here's a photo of my little niece.  She's  a lot bigger now, but still has the capacity to make most people want to take her home with them...

Embarrassing moments...

Every photographer has probably got some embarrassing moments, they normally just choose not to remember them! I was photographing a wedding with a friend last summer and we'd taken five minutes out, having been on our feet for about 7 hours.  We put the cameras away in the bags, got out the chocolate and chatted for a bit.

Someone ran out to tell us that the speeches were going to be starting early and they'd thought we'd like to know.  We quickly put out kit away, grabbed our cameras and headed inside again.  As we went in, we both put our cameras to our eyes and realised the same thing: we'd both not taken our lens caps off.  Any embarrassing photography moments readers?

(image courtesy of http://diglloyd.com)