A journey of photographic adventure, Two Views was born by two friends having a blast and learning from each other on a photo shoot in the autumn sunshine, asking the question “How can we continue to push our photographic boundaries in terms of technical knowledge, new challenges and creativity and have fun at the same time?” The answer we came up with was to set ourselves a project every two weeks, and then publish the results together. Two Views of the same subject / idea or technical approach. By the end of this year we will have covered 26 subjects and produced at least 50+ awesome photographs, and have learned a huge amount along the way! We’d love your comments, critiques and ideas, and if you want to “play along” too, please do let us have your shots by links in the comments sections! TJ & The Brunette

Friday, 16 December 2011

Christmas by TJ


The Christmas topic proved to be a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. Having had a lot of snow the previous 2 years leading up to Christmas, this year has reverted back to the traditional snow less Christmas Thames Valley. So in scenic photographic terms a bit of a shame as the shot I have chosen would have been wonderful with a sprinkling of snow in it. I took the picture in Henley on Thames at 7:30 in the morning to maximise the effect of the Christmas lights between total darkness and the sun coming up. I was very pleased that the moon played ball and took its place in the picture too! I played around with the brightness and contrast a bit, and decided in the absence of any snow to use a soft focus in the editing. I think for me the picture captures a typical town centre Christmas scene at this time of the year, and I deliberately kept the street lights in the picture as it all adds to the festive atmosphere.


The other shots I considered were two different ideas. I got my gorgeous niece Anna to pose in front of their Christmas tree. Its a lovely photo and I was very tempted to use it, but I think she steals the show rather than Christmas! The 2nd idea was much more studio for me. I used a glass of wine in focus in the foreground with the newly decorated Christmas tree at my mum's house as the out of focus background. So I was kind of experimenting a little with depth of field here. I was pleased with the result and on a braver day I might have used it too!

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2 comments:

  1. BlondeAries17 December 2011 at 19:48

    I absolutely love this,in fact all 3! But the winning shot is just amazing, i love the sense of timelessness of the scene, and the fact you can see someone shopping but not their detail, it's like Christmas is the serene backdrop to the madness of our material rushing around and shopping. Its also visually perfect composition wise and your eye takes in the tree as the main focal point as it should be, but then takes in the buildings, the person, the moon and the colours of the sky, you shot it just at the right time to pick up the detail and yet still allow the lights to be the star of the show, you should be really proud!!

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  2. Adam Hodgson18 December 2011 at 16:17

    Yes, I think these three are by far the best to date. You have captured the mood of Christmas in all three. Nice composition in all.

    I am intrigued as to where you shot the the image from. The angle of view is raised. Did you stand on the roof of the car?! And I particularly like the ghostly shopper in the foreground.

    You have the composition of the shot of little one just right. Here you could have done with a little fill-in to brighten her face a little, get a few features defined. A simple piece of white card or paper to bounce any available light back into the shot would have done here.

    And well done with the glass shot. THose two little candle reflections in the glass give it a nice twist.

    I think that you could also have popped the Christingle photo in aswell

    A fine Fine effort.

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