32) Floods

The recent wet weather and the resulting floods presents a bonus topic for the blog. We both live and work close to the Thames and the river bursting its banks gave us the opportunity to get the cameras out. Flooding brings devastation and yet at the same time can also create spectacular imagery. It will be interesting to see what we come up with...

Autumn by TJ

I am somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to autumn in that I love the vast array of wonderful colours that we are blessed with in the UK. Each year I make a mental note of exactly the best week of year to capture the golden leaves on the trees just before they fall, and of course I always forget. The setting for my photo is a view at the start of the Whinlatter Pass in the English Lake District taken at the beginning of November. Not only was I fortunate enough to be in a stunning location, but on that weekend the first snow of the year fell. So what I was able to capture was a picture that shows an autumnal setting encompassing the dieing throws of an English summer in the foreground and the fast approaching winter with the snow on the mountains in the background.

My other shots were of three different settings closer to home. The left hand photo is of the woods above Medmenham close to work. The centre photo is of Stubbings Nursey on the edge of Maidenhead Thicket, and the right hand photo is a low level shot taken on a farm in Littlewick Green near Maidenhead. The problem I had with all three shots was trying to replicate what I could see with the human eye, and I think that is the difference between these photos and the main Whinlatter Pass photo.

Autumn by The Brunette

I was lucky enough to be on honeymoon in Poland for what is known as the Golden Polish Autumn.... you can see why! I couldn't believe my eyes at the depth and variety of colour, I wanted to roll down these wooded slopes - they looked like soft down!! It was hard to choose my favourite, as you can see from the filmstrip below, but in the end I went for one that was ALL about the colour with no other distractions. Edit wise, they are pretty much as taken, with just a touch of boost on the saturation dial!

31) Autumn

For our next topic we are tackling the current season of autumn. The season is full of rich colours as summer fades away and winter approaches. There are numerous possibilities for this topic in terms of location and subject matter. There is a really interesting website here that gives some great tips on autumn photography. A bit of planning may reap big dividends, but also the ability to capture a snapshot of the glorious colours is key. Let's see what we come up with...

Panoramic by The Brunette

I decided to try the panoramic setting on my new Samsung Galaxy SIII phone, as it makes it EASY for you! It tells you to start and then directs you as to where to take the next shot, keep focus and exposure static for you and then stitches it altogether! I decided my trip to the beautiful Natural History Museum in London would be my location, and took four panoramas that I am really pleased with using just my phone! My favourite HAD to be the dinosaur in the main hall, which would be impossible to get into one shot without a panoramic photo! I am really really pleased with it, I like the distortion created by the super wide view on the building, and the fact that you can see a more than 180 degree view into the archways either side, including my husband, standing patiently waiting for me on the right hand side (the bearded handsome man by the archway :) Below are the other three shots, taken across huge swathes of the inner great hall, and one of the ice skating rink outside, they would be fun to print up I think!

Panoramic by TJ

I had great fun with taking panoramic photos. I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend in Cumbria so I was presented with plenty of stunning landscape scenery to try panoramic photography. I knew what I wanted to photograph before I got there. The Ribblehead Viaduct which is actually just across the border in North Yorkshire on the Settle to Carlisle railway, and somewhere I had last visited in the 1980s with my dad. It was a bitterely cold afternoon when I got there with icy strong winds, rain in the air and the light was fading fast. I used my tripod although it was not easy finding a flat surface and in addition the wind was causing the camera to move at times. The panoramic view contains 3 photos I took using the panoramic setting on my Lumix FZ45, which I then put into Adobe Photoshp Elements 9 to stich them together into one complete image. I was really pleased with the final results as there was no other way to photograph such a wide structure close up, which therefore made it a perfect subject for this topic.

My two other photos were taken the following day in the Lake District. The top photo is 5 photos stitched together of the stunning Derwentwater. The main problem I had with this photo was I took it by hand and didn't quite get the level right to start with, which meant I had to rotate the photo and crop it losing some of the lake, but it was a good lesson learned. The bottom photo was 3 photos stitched together taken from the Whinlatter Pass looking down towards Braithwaite Lake, and this one worked to plan and I was really pleased with it.

30) Panoramic

Any subject, anywhere as long as it's panoramic! Panoramic Photographs as you probably know are SUPER wide angle, made by taking several photographs of the same scene and then "stitching" them together to provide a seamless looooong photo! Some cameras do this in their own panorama settings, some you need to take several photos and then stitch them yourself in post editing software. There are some things that can really trip you up in the creation of a good panoramic shot, you need to make sure, focus, depth of field and most importantly exposure stay exactly the same for all the individual shots, so that when stitched together its seamless. Here's a good guide on how to get started! Good Luck! :)