Post 13- Butterflies and Bugs and a little creativity

 The good weather has provided an opportunity for Field Trips and I have greatly enjoyed organising them. We have been on at least one Field Trips each week, many with camera club colleagues, others just Moy and I. We are fortunate to have many nature reserves within a short drive of our home.

The easing of restrictions has resulted in an alarming number of people going out into the countryside and the behaviour of many of them has been appalling. Piles of discarded camping, picnic and barbeque litter have been abandoned and left for volunteers to clean up.

The opening of Pubs and Restaurants has led to spikes in Coronavirus infections as many of the patrons fail to follow social distancing advice. The campaign slogan "Don't Kill your Granny" has unfortunately NOT resulted in a reduction in this type of behaviour and has increased our concern. 

We seem to be the only ones still being careful. We plan to keep out of shops, pubs and restaurants for the foreseeable future and are choosing outdoor venues that are not attracting crowds.

We have both become quite adept at finding and photographing Butterflies, Dragonflies, Grasshoppers and Crickets. Putting names to these creatures is a challenge as there are so many varieties.

Here are some of my favourite shots from the past four weeks.

 

A visit to Calke Abbey provided an opportunity be a little more creative. I am quite pleased with these  images.

 

Post 12- 100 days in lockdown and restrictions are easing

The Coronavirus lockdown has been going on now for over 100 days and as infection rates reduce the government are now easing up on some of the restrictions. All around us we see people young and old apparently ignoring social distancing measures and this makes us very nervous. We have seen packed beaches and massive demonstrations on the TV and are very apprehensive. The Pubs are allowed to open tomorrow and this coincides with a match between Derby and Nottingham Forest.  We are anticipating a very difficult day for our three family members in the police force who will have to try and control those fans who choose to cause trouble.
The easing in restrictions has had some small positive effects in as much as we have been able to go out taking photographs with members of Ockbrook Photo Club and the Macro Photography Group. We have been very careful to keep our distance and have all enjoyed getting out and about again.

All my recent photographs have been of wild flowers or insects and I must admit I enjoyed taking these more than I ever thought I would. The insects particularly are rarely still and present a real challenge.

I was quite please with the upward view of poppies made possible by taking a mirror with me.

I also made an interesting kaleidoscope effect using Photoshop to modify an image of gorse berries.

Post 11- Zoom Zoom!

Without the opportunity to meet up face to face with fellow photographers we have been forced to develop new methods for sharing ideas. This has led to the discovery of the Zoom programme that means we can all join together using our Computers or Tablets and have discussions and share ideas. Both the Macro Photo Group and Ockbrook Photo Club have been holding regular meetings and it has been really nice to "meet" with the many friends I have gained through membership of these organisations.
Both Clubs have arranged to have guest speakers and it has proved to be a surprisingly effective way of watching presentations.
The Ockbrook Club have been doing a series of technical demonstrations using Photoshop and Affinity and we have learned a number of useful techniques that will facilitate to production of composite images. I have been working on composite images for some months but am learning new ways of combining elements and hopefully the quality of my work will improve.
Here are a few of my recent images.

 I was also challenged by Valda Bailey to produce images that evoked the Coronavirus and I produced a couple of ones that might be suitable as Public Information Posters.

Post 10- Ten weeks into Lockdown

We have now been in lockdown for 10 weeks and it seems we have many more weeks to look forward to. We can now travel further away from home to take our exercise but with no public toilets open we are still bound to stay close to home. The weather has been excellent so we have been able to spend a lot of time outdoors but this week saw a return to the more normal wet and windy weather.

I have taken very few new images recently but have been revisiting ones from my archives and giving them a new treatment. The following set of images is an example of the use of overlays to transform the mood of images.

Original

 

This set shows three different treatments again through the use of overlays.

Most of our exercise walks have been on the roads around our estate but we now have the chance to travel a little further and have discovered some new local footpaths and wooded areas.

I have also been experimenting with close up photography of insects. Surprisingly the damselflies were in our own garden pond and seemed happy to pose for me.

 All in all this has been a very productive period but it will be nice to get out and about a bit more.

Post 9 -Food for thought

I have just read a very thought provoking article by Julia Anna Gospodaru.
In the article she comments upon the significant number of photographers and training companies offering reduced prices on presets that can be used in Lightroom or Photoshop to speed up the process of post processing images. Use these presets, they claim and you can, at the click of a button, create high quality images and some even claim you can create Fine Art Photographs.
Julia argues that there are no shortcuts to the craft of producing creative images and that the process cannot and should not be rushed. The only benefit of presets is to show the user what is possible but using them will unavoidably produce images that look similar to those created by the preset creator not the users original work.
Being truly creative means finding a way of expressing your own unique ideas by producing a piece artwork. If you are successful this activity this will deliver a level of personal satisfaction that makes it worthwhile even though other people may not fully appreciate the merit of what you have produced.
Although I understand Julia's arguments I feel as if my own motivations in becoming visually literate and using that knowledge to produce creative images are not yet based upon the deep felt need that artistic people have to demonstrate their unique view of the World to others. This realisation leaves me with the feeling that I still have a long way to go and that I should not see visual literacy as my final destination but merely a staging post on the route that ends in a place called Creativity.

If you are interested in reading the full article follow this link.
http://blog.juliaannagospodarou.com/about-shortcuts-versus-real-craftsmanship-in-art-and-photography/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=About+Shortcuts+Versus+Real+Craftsmanship+in+Art+and+Photography

Post 8- 30 Days of Photoshop

I now have a lot of time on my hands due to the Coronavirus lockdown. It seems like it might go on for a few months for people of my age group.
I have found a series of 33 videos entitled 30 Days of Photoshop by Aaron Nace of PHLEARN.
I have been using Photoshop for a couple of years to make blended and composite images but have never learned the basics of the programme.
I have spent the last three weeks going through these videos and have the opportunity to build firmer foundations for my creative efforts.
I hope that this will give me more tools to help me deliver my creative visions.

Post 7- Finding the Essence of the technique.

Having followed the advice of Doug Chinnery and produced some really nice images I realised that the essence of the technique was taking two or more images and blending them together. I decided it was not necessary to combine images in camera using multiple exposure techniques .
I started to take single images of interesting domestic subjects and duplicating them in Photoshop using the Free Transform tool to move or adjust the size of one of the pair so they were out of phase.
Having done this it was possible to change the blending modes and select ones that gave pleasing images.  They are very different from basic Chinnnery shots and I have shown a number of these below.