Saturday 30 November 2013

Hocus Focus

I was looking for photos for my Macro Mashup 2 and I found this photo. I was just going to put it into the mashup, however the more I looked at it the more I liked it so I thought it deserved a post of it's own!

I think the great thing about this photo is that the majority of it is out of focus, not something you usually strive for! However there is just a small line of grass across the middle of the photo which is in focus, easy to miss! And that is what I like the most about it. That the point of the photo was for it to be out of focus, and for it to be different to the usual photos you would expect from a photo like this.

Focus really is something that I love to play about with, and I think you can really see things from so many different perspectives when you just play about with the focus.

So go out and have a play with the focus yourself and see what you can come up with, I'd love to see it!



Don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one of these for yourself!
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Thursday 28 November 2013

Macro Mashup 2

Another rushed post from me as the uni work is piling up and I'm struggling to get out to take photos!

So today's post shall be a cheeky macro mashup of things I have taken which havent made it onto the blog yet! See my first Macro Mashup post for more shots!
On a quick edit point after looking through these I realised how 3 of them aren't even remotely macro! You can tell my brain was frazzled! My bad!
Today's installment consists of:

1.The birdhouse in the back garden.
2. My old hamster cage. Now there is no hamster actually in the picture, however I just really like the colours in this.
3. Pirhanas!! And yes, they do actually have gold fleck on them!
4. A Flower at Speke Hall.







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Wednesday 27 November 2013

Hanging about

I decided that whenever my girlfriend and I went somewhere, I would collect something to remind us of where we went. Be it a receipt, napkin, wristband or whatever, I have something from everywhere we have been. And I mean everywhere, with the exception of only very few places (places I forgot to get a receipt!). Cinema trips, meals out, days out exploring, holiday, comedy nights, nearly everywhere has something to keep, and so I did. Right now I have an envelope full to bursting with bits and bobs and we're only just coming up to our 1 year. Going to have to have an envelope for every year!
Anyway, we went to Blackpool one day to have a go on the amusements and generally mess about. For those of you who don't know what Blackpool is, it's basically England's horrendous answer to Vegas. It's awful and scratty, but it's a fun day out. So, we spent a while in the arcades collecting tickets and thought we were doing really well! This was until we saw what our tickets could get us. We ended up with these two little keyring figures and a rubber frog. Odd I know. Sadly the frog has since passed away as it was really hot for a few weeks in England this summer and he melted all over the dashboard. oops! So now all we have are the two of us in skeleton form hanging from the rear view mirror in the car! I'm on the right and she's on the left by the way, incase my lovely scarf threw you off!
We were out one day taking photos for my Beacon Hill post so I decided to take this when we were back in the car warming up, as the background is actually quite nice!


Anyone else do something like that?


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Tuesday 26 November 2013

It's Christmasssss!

With Christmas round the corner (less than a month!!eek!) I was having a think about what I love about Christmas, which, apart from family-time of course, it has to be the food. The sweets, the chocolate, the nuts, the snacks, the everything and above all, the Christmas dinner. I'm physically drooling over the thought of Christmas dinner right now. It's then that I remembered the year when I had just bought my camera and we had some amazing food at Christmas! So these were my first ever food shots, taken on my old G10 camera. Funnily enough they feature the same chocolate marshmallow treat as in my German Markets Post. Shows how delicious they really are! We also had lobster soup one day but before my mum butchered them I took this snap! 

From both of the photos you can see how much I have evolved as a photographer with basic practice and perseverance which really makes me happy to see the improvement. I left the lens hood on in the lobster photo with a flash and it left a shadow! Amateur error!

Anyway, I hope you are as excited for christmas as I am, and these don't make you too hungry!





Don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one of these for yourself!
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Sunday 24 November 2013

Look at me when I'm taking your photo!


 The back of the head is never seen as a focus for photography. And it's not difficult to see why! Obviously it's much nicer to catch a smile, however every now and again I take pictures from behind the subject to give a different perspective. When doing this I found that if you can get the lighting right, and focus on the head rather than the scene behind it, you can capture some really nice photos.

The difficulty with this is that light is such a hard thing to work with. At least for me it is. I find it so difficult to make sure im standing in the right place to not cast any shadows on the subject, but to not be too far round the subject to get too much light in! Plus if the subject is stuck to something then it makes it even more difficult! ARGH!!
However, ever now and again you can use this irritating light to your advantage, and capture some really lovely photos. I took these whilst trying to photograph my girlfriend, and once I had taken a really bad photo, I saw the effect the light could have and worked on my positioning to produce these!


The first one has the light coming in from the side so it highlights some of her hair, but also highlights the ground in fromt of her to give some really bright colours, and the winds adds a lovely effect to her hair.


This one was a lot more difficult. The light was infront of us, where we were looking at a waterfall. However somehow I managed to capture it just right so some of the sun is streaming across the picture, but not too much. I think it looks like an advert for a jacket or something, maybe that's just me though!

 

Think it could pass for an advert?


Don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one of these for yourself!
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Saturday 23 November 2013

I HAVE BEEN FEATURED!

YAY!! CELEBRATIONS! AND A BIG THANK YOU!!

okay I'll stop shouting now....

But I was browsing on Bloglovin and saw that I have been put on the 'Up and Coming' section of photography blogs!

Yay! So thanks to all of my new followers etc. I'd love to get more exposure and get out to more people so thank you for sharing my button/sharing my posts/sharing my competition/being awesome/following etc and keep doing it!

And, if you dont believe me, here is the proof!
 

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Don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one of these for yourself!
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An adventure

Today I went on a little adventure. I hopped in my car and off I set driving. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't really care, I was just out looking for photo opportunities. I remembered one place that I had spotted a few weeks ago which would have been the perfect photo, but I didn't have chance to stop. So I attempted to go and find it, and took photos along the way. Finally I did find it and I was too late, the majority of the leaves had fallen from the trees and so the amazingly autumnal scene I once had seen looked a lot more dreary and wintery than before.

After that disappointment, I looked over to my right and saw something I was looking to take a picture of, but figured I would never find it. My dad had taken a picture before like this whilst we were driving through Austria, and it's stuck with me ever since. Mine is a lot less impressive, but it's nice to see things like that, that remind you of things you have done.

Eventually after finding only a few things to shoot I headed home disappointed with the days haul, but happy with the memory that I had rekindled.

Anyway, here are the photos of the day:

The road that I stopped on to take some pictures...

 Some woodland shots...



 This is the shot I was looking for, and you can probably imagine that a couple of weeks ago it was full of leaves on the trees - now they have all fallen to the floor. Boooooo!


This is the photo that was inspired by my dad's photo in Austria. Nowhere near as good, but I still like it.

More logs...


I was a little naughty going to get the log shots too, seen as I jumped over the fence right next to this sign to go get them. oops!

For some of these photos I used my Gorilla Pod, so don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one for yourself!
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Friday 22 November 2013

Beacon Hill

Here in Loughborough there is a hill called Beacon Hill, which at the top surprisingly has a beacon. Funnily enough back in Halifax, my home town, we also have a Beacon Hill! When my girlfriend came down to visit a couple of weeks ago I took her up there so we could attempt to take some photos!

Now for those of you who don't know, a beacon is a large basket on top of a pole which was lit when there was danger or for towns to communicate with each other. They're pretty old, but they are a part of the country's history so it's nice that they are still around. Unfortunately they aren't as cool as the ones you see in films like Lord of the Rings, but it's the same idea!

It was bitterly cold when we got to the top of the hillS so much so that we struggled to take photos as our fingers were so cold!

But here are some of the ones I managed to take!

Beautiful skies...

My little photography buddy...
 On top of the hill is a small stone with this brass plate on top showing the different locations of towns and cities...


Amazing how some plants can retain such bright greens when others turn to brown...


This is part of a statue at the top of the hill carved out of wood...

And the beacon itself, told you it wasn't as impressive as in the films...

For some of these photos I used my Gorilla Pod, so don't forget to enter my competition where you can win one for yourself!
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Dear Harper

Thursday 21 November 2013

Macro at Home 2

So after my first Macro at Home post, I decided I quite liked this type of blog post and I liked finding the photos, so I would try to make it a weekly thing. The only thing with taking them, is that every time I do one, the challenge to find more things to capture gets harder! I guess I will just have to get my thinking cap on!

So here is this week's installment. I meant to post it yesterday but I have been so busy with uni work that I just plain forgot!

These luckily for me and my, at the moment, very dead brain, didn't require me to find more things to shoot around my house as I took them at my girlfriend's house!

So here they are....

1. A rose
2. A funky light fitting
3 & 4. The radiator - I liked the symmetry of the first photo but I liked the second one more so I posted them both! And it took me forever to get these photos so I am putting them both up!
5. The cheese on a pizza, mmmmmm...







Also don't forget to enter my competition, a fantastic prize is up for grabs!

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THE GOOD LIFE BLOG

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Camera Stand - 100 Follower Giveaway!

Howdy everyone! 

As you can see from the title, this post involves a giveaway! Yay for free stuff!

 First of all I am going to review/show you my gorilla pod camera stand, and then one of you lucky folk can win one!

 So... Those of you who know anything about cameras will hopefully have seen these Gorillapod stands as they have become pretty popular these days. I bought mine on that little known site called eBay! I got it pretty cheap compared to what they can go for so I was happy with that! They have different weight limits for different types of cameras, but I went for the heavy duty DSLR version just to make sure my camera was never dropped! I must admit that using it at first was a little bit scary. Putting your faith into something that has your camera holding onto a tree was pretty scary, but it really does hold on well!

Now I take it everywhere with me when I go out shooting as it's light and can really be used anywhere. Plus if I'm doing some macro shots of things on the ground I just whack my camera onto self timer on the stand and there is zero wobble in the photo, brilliant! Also if out and about with nowhere to put the camera, I can still take photos of me and my girlfriend. I actually did this on holiday with the camera resting on a steep hill in the middle of a bush, it actually worked!

One issue with the stand is that it isn't very tall so obviously if you want to have an eye level stand this isn't the one for you unless you find something high up to hang it on, but if you want to go exploring in the woods or on some walks then it is ideal as it is reasonably small and light, and can be used anywhere!

It comes with a 1/4" adaptor so for most modern cameras it fits, and can fit compacts aswell as DSLRs. If you have a camera with a 3/8" mount an adaptor has been supplied with it so yours can fit on too! yay!

Here are some photos showing you what it can do. Now, I apologise for the quality, these have just been taken on my iPhone in my dark bedroom, so they are grainy and rubbish, but they do show what the stand is capable of!





And now for the competition!

Rules:

1. All you have to do is enter the competition below to get your name in the hat! Once I reach 100 followers I will give it 2 weeks for the competition to close, to give the new followers a chance to enter themselves!

2. There are 4 ways to enter the competition -
a) Follow me on Bloglovin for 3 entries
b) Follow me on Google Friend Connect for 3 entries
c) Grab my button and share it on your blog for 10 entries! Yes, TEN! Also if you let me know, I will share your button on mine too! Buttons must be shared until the competition closes, you can keep it on there longer if you want!
d) Write a post about the competition for 10 entries! Yes, another TEN! Simply write a post about the competition and include either a link to this post or include the rafflecopter competition widget itself by following this link: Rafflecopter Widget and pasting the HTML into your post.

3. The winning entry will be checked before the prize can be awarded. If the winner is found to have entered without completing the entry rules, for how they entered the competition, they will be disqualified and the prize will be awarded to someone else. Let's be fair folks!

4. I will send the prize to ANYWHERE in the world! Once you are announced the winner, we can have a chat and I can get your address and I will post it as soon as I can!

5. Once posted I will inform the winner and all responsibilty for the item shall then be theirs. Should it not arrive for any reason, a new stand will not be re-sent, I only have the one!

6. Good luck!

Any questions then just post a comment or email me!
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