Signs of rain

Signs of rain, Manila, July 2010

Natural lighting

Lightning storm, Manila, July 2010

What did you do on Saturday night?

After the fun and games of Typhoon Conson earlier in the week, we just had a rather long thunderstorm roll through. It was putting on a great show and time and direction were just right for some photos from the back garden.

They don't really stand up to fine scrutiny - focussing in the dead of night against a dark sky proves to be rather tricky.

Sometimes it's all an accident

Manila, June 2010

A case in point. Carefully composed and shot as black and white. The colours are all over the place but that was never the intention. Created with the project in mind.

As I started running through the processing steps, this jumped out at me after only the first couple of moves. Just right, without it ever being the intention. No good like this for the book, but just right as a single image. A complete accident, which I may not have found if I'd run the development steps in a different order.

The rocket moon

Moon shot 3, Manila, May 2010
98% waning

A bit of fun with the camera this evening, shooting for the moon. As it's nearly full and I knew it would be rising such that I would have a good shot from the upstairs balcony between the treee branches, I decided to have a go.

I didn't realise how quickly the moon moves until I tried photographing it. 500mm + 1.4 TC gives a narrow field of view, but even so, a series in rapid succession gives noticeable shift across the frame.

I can see this becoming a print for the wall.

Connections

Recently on TOP was one of the "Random Excellence" posts, highlighting a series of Vietnam war shots published by the Boston Globe. looking through them I realised that this shot

From Boston Globe's "The Big Picture"
South Vietnamese marines line beaches and swim out to ships, fleeing from the northern port city of Da Nang on March 29, 1975 before its fall to the Viet Cong and north Vietnamese. This picture was taken as some marines successfully fled, abandoning scores of weapons, vehicles and even a helicopter. In the foreground, men on LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) prepare to throw rope to marines coming up on inner tubes. Only a fraction of the city's 100,000 defenders were evacuated before its fall. (AP Photo)

was taken on the same day as this one:


The latter being me, taken a few hours later and half way around the world.

Rather sobering.

Happy mistakes

Unexpected mistake, Manila, March 2010

Sometimes getting it wrong yields interesting results.

Hyporeality continues

Hyporeality 77, Manila, March 2010

Hyporeality 78, Manila, March 2010

I went out at the weekend and took some more of my Hyporeality shots. I'm enjoying taking these, they're quite a challenge to look at and are helping me figure out a whole bunch about my photography along the way.

Expect more here, so much so that I've given them their own label.

A garden is a novelty

Green web

Trapped

Sticky blanket
All: Manila, February 2010

This is the fist time I've had a place with a garden, and with the warm, dry weather, I can see me having fun photographing the bugs.

An interesting challenge

Floating leaves 2, Manila, February 2010

After my initial efforts picturing the floating leaves in digital, I reckoned it would make an interesting subject for a short series using the large format camera with the goal of producing some nice prints for the wall. And so, at he weekend, I decided to start on that effort, while the idea was fresh.

turns out it's quite a challenge for a few reasons. For a start, I've not done any close up work like this with the LF camera. there is the difficulty of working with the camera pointed at the ground, mounted low. Not too easy. Especially when it's suspended out over the water.

I also didn't realise how much the leaves move in the wind. In the course of the 45 minutes or so of fiddling around, they did 2 complete laps of the pool. With the narrow field of view I'm working with they traverse the ground glass in about 5 seconds. This will be a challenge of weather and shutter speed, too.

Needless to say, I didn't get a single exposure in. Instead i decided to bring it indoors and spend some time in the evening practising the set-up required. Below is a shot of part of my experimenting.

Staring at the floor, Manila, February 2010

With a 210mm lens mounted and working at about 2-3 feet above ground I'm getting out close to full bellows extension, hence the front standard hinged forward.

Another thing I've learnt from the digital trials is the difficulty of the white balance for these shots. It looks like I might have to get a grey card to help.

Fortunately there is no time limit on this - I can shoot almost any day while I'm living here, so plenty of opportunity to try things out. And I won't be exposing a single sheet of film until I'm happy I've got the technique sorted.

Floating leaves

Floating leaves 1, Manila, February 2010

This is a subject that is likely to become a regular feature of my picture making in the Philippines. There is an endlessly fascinating selection of leaves floating on the pool which, due to the forces of wind and surface tension, form interesting clusters around the edges. And as they get cleared away and replaced on a constant basis, there is a continual replenishment and variation in the subject matter.

Some of the pictures might actually turn out quite good, too, with some practice.

Hyporeality: skies

Hyporeality 10, Manila, January 2010

Hyproreality 56, Manila, January 2010

Hyppreality 65, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality: buildings

Hyporeality 6, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 43, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 59, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality: signs

Hyporeality 13, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 22, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 71, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality: trees

Hyporeality 3, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 11, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 35, Manila, January 2010

Some things seen

This is likely to be my last post before Christmas. I'm off home for a couple of weeks' vacation, to some much needed cold weather. In the meantime, here are a few of the recent pictures of stuff I found out and about. Some more festive stuff over on Impressions of Place.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Junction box, Manila, December 2009

Four tyres, Manila, December 2009

Manila, December 2009

Square and round, Manila, December 2009

Yet another new blog

Some time ago, Paul Butzi (who seems to do a lot of my creative thinking) postulated some ideas for photographic projects. One he suggested was a long-term collection of photos: one from every month for ten years. And that got me thinking - I had a move up-coming at the time (now completed) which would form an ideal start point for collecting photos of the places I live. Over ten years I'd expect to live in 3 or 4 different locations, forming some nice sections to a developing project as my life and surrounds develop.

And so I've started such a project: Impressions of Place. I'm putting it to its own blog because then I can write about my impressions as I gather together photographs. That keeps this blog to be more directly about photography and the new project as its own entity. Along the way I'll also post my usual eclectic mix on my photo of the day, and I might well collect impressions from places I travel to in the meantime: vacations and the like - to see how those impressions compare and contrast with those of my home location. I also want to see if my impressions and photography have influences on one another.

The way I'll write it will probably be 3 or 4 posts a month, together with a number of photographs. At some point I'll need to choose the photo of the month for each month. That will be a special post at the end of each month. I've already put together the first few posts.

Urban jungle

Experiments in looking closer at things.

All: Manila, December 2009

Releiving boredom

Or maybe exercising some creativity. I've been looking to inject a bit more self-motivation.

Bedroom abstract 1, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 2, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 3, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 4, Manila, December 2009

More from Lisbon

Under 25th April, Lisbon, October 2009

A very interesting bridge.

Just a head

London, September 2009