22 Things You Can Do Today to Change Your Photography Forever

This is a great blog post by Jim Harmer that I found one evening using StumbleUpon. The tips here are something I’d love to try to work towards over the coming year, with the end result of [hopefully] becoming a better photographer from it.

3 Notes
M5 J25 (Taunton) Northbound on Flickr. Today I’m sharing a much more recent photo, which at the time I wasn’t that fussed about but looking back I think it’s actually not bad. This is the first time I was out with a “proper” camera, my Canon 450D that I recently purchased. Taken from a small bridge over the South-bound carriageway I was here for about 20 minutes snapping on the way home from work. A good combination of low ISO and long shutter speed has left me with the motorway just lit enough to see the road markings and barriers, with a nice set of light trails over the top.

M5 J25 (Taunton) Northbound on Flickr.

Today I’m sharing a much more recent photo, which at the time I wasn’t that fussed about but looking back I think it’s actually not bad.

This is the first time I was out with a “proper” camera, my Canon 450D that I recently purchased. Taken from a small bridge over the South-bound carriageway I was here for about 20 minutes snapping on the way home from work.

A good combination of low ISO and long shutter speed has left me with the motorway just lit enough to see the road markings and barriers, with a nice set of light trails over the top.

9 Notes
Frozen Spider’s Web on Flickr. This weekend we had our first hard frost of the year, which made a perfect reason for me to get outside and test out some of the news lenses I’ve acquired over the last week. This photo was taken with a Jupiter-37A which is a 135mm f3.5 on an M42 screw mount. This particular lens dates from around 1991 so it’s over 20 years old and yet to look at you could mistake it for brand new. I’m having great fun with my collection of vintage lenses and the Jupiter-37A is quickly becoming one of my favourite, with a beautifully engineered 12 blade aperture that closes down in a near perfect circle. Using these old lens with their manual focus and apertures has taught me much more in a few weeks about taking photos than years of digital AF point and shoot. I’m planning to share some of what I’ve learned later this week when I finish writing up my beginners guide to shooting with vintage lenses.

Frozen Spider’s Web on Flickr.

This weekend we had our first hard frost of the year, which made a perfect reason for me to get outside and test out some of the news lenses I’ve acquired over the last week.

This photo was taken with a Jupiter-37A which is a 135mm f3.5 on an M42 screw mount. This particular lens dates from around 1991 so it’s over 20 years old and yet to look at you could mistake it for brand new.

I’m having great fun with my collection of vintage lenses and the Jupiter-37A is quickly becoming one of my favourite, with a beautifully engineered 12 blade aperture that closes down in a near perfect circle.

Using these old lens with their manual focus and apertures has taught me much more in a few weeks about taking photos than years of digital AF point and shoot. I’m planning to share some of what I’ve learned later this week when I finish writing up my beginners guide to shooting with vintage lenses.

1 Notes
Windmill, Gran Canaria on Flickr. Today I bring you a photo from my 2006 holiday to Gran Canaria. This shot of a traditional windmill was taken up in the hills away from the usual tourist spots and commercial delights of the coast. We were lucky/clever enough to book a car while we were over there and took the opportunity to tour the island on our own terms, rather than being at the mercy of our tour operator or even worse being victim of the sporadic public transport network. Our holiday was probably the worst we’ve been on, but only due to bad luck and not due to the holiday itself. While we were there for two weeks we only had a few days of sunshine, although we were grateful for that as the heat in the sunshine was unbearable at times. My partner (now wife) got ill a few days into our trip and spent over a week stuck in the villa, limiting our enjoyment somewhat. When she did finally get better it then rained for two days! Perhaps the Canaries were trying to tell us something. Our previous trip to Fuerteventura had been perfect, so maybe next time we will try that again or maybe even Tenerife?

Windmill, Gran Canaria on Flickr.

Today I bring you a photo from my 2006 holiday to Gran Canaria. This shot of a traditional windmill was taken up in the hills away from the usual tourist spots and commercial delights of the coast.

We were lucky/clever enough to book a car while we were over there and took the opportunity to tour the island on our own terms, rather than being at the mercy of our tour operator or even worse being victim of the sporadic public transport network.

Our holiday was probably the worst we’ve been on, but only due to bad luck and not due to the holiday itself. While we were there for two weeks we only had a few days of sunshine, although we were grateful for that as the heat in the sunshine was unbearable at times. My partner (now wife) got ill a few days into our trip and spent over a week stuck in the villa, limiting our enjoyment somewhat. When she did finally get better it then rained for two days!

Perhaps the Canaries were trying to tell us something. Our previous trip to Fuerteventura had been perfect, so maybe next time we will try that again or maybe even Tenerife?

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