Project #52 recipe ingredients

Another topic for the Project #52 course was to set up and shoot the ingredients for a salad- a shot that could be used in a cookbook. I really enjoyed this assignment. I'm loving the tabletop work. I think I enjoy the arrangements-the making of the still life, as much as the photography.

Here is  my short list:

These were taken in my lounge room. In the last one the sun was coming through the window, and I really like the effect. It was difficult to get the exposure right in these shots-exposing for the white background would have meant the cheese and the onions were overexposed-well they are slightly anyway, but if I had exposed for them, then the white background would have been dull and grey. I know there is a solution, probably to do with using flash in some way..
But I think the ingredients look tasty and inviting, and I guess that's what it is all about!

Project #52

One of the topics for project 52 was CHOCOLATE- a shot with a square crop that could be used on a restaurant menu. This involved me cooking as well as taking photos. Here's the result:

E is for Earth

Well, E proved to be a very hard letter, and in fact I only ended up with one photo for E -freshly plougher EartH!

D is for Discovery

Today I went for a walk, a walk I have done many times before down to the Dell near my house. For those of you on the other side of the world the Dell is a small wooded valley. Our dell has a river-The Water of Leith, and I have walked along the water time and time again. It is so peaceful, and changes with the seasons, so there's always something new to see. Herons, magpies... I'm always attracted to the water. But today I decided to take a path that I've not walked before, and I'm so glad I did, as I made lots of discoveries.

The path I took was at the top of the dell, so it was interesting to look down into the dell, down to the path that I usually walk, seeing things from a different perspective. That's one of my favourite thing about photography too, seeing things from a different point of view, finding the small detail within the big picture.

Among my discoveries today was a complex of abandonded and derelict buildings:

I've actually been inside this building, Graysmill House, when it belonged to the council and they used to use it for inservice training. However it was sold to a developer who very strangely built a housing estate around it. Seems bizarre that very expensive new houses look out onto this. Maybe there are plans to develop it into apartments, but in the meantime, it's abandoned and no doubt falling into disrepair.

This little building may have been a workers cottage to support the big house:

 

And this was probably the stable block:

 Peering through the hole in the door allowed me to get this shot:

 The lock:

And  my favourite photo of the day-I love the way the light is falling here:

The path took me through this disused tunnel-I think it was a railway tunnel perhaps:

Click on images to see larger.

C is for Cathedral

St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh to be precise..

2011 A-Z Challenge #C

so for letter C I decided to use the theme of Curves. I met up with some fellow photographers at the Old Calton Burial ground in Edinburgh. I used my 50mm lens and concentrated on the small details, rather than the big picture.
Here are a few of the photos:

Project 52 #3 Still Life magazine cover

The assignment for week 3 of Project 52 was to shoot a stillife to fit a predesigned 8x8 magazine cover. Still life isn't something I've done before, so I thought I would give it a go. I gathered up some bits and pieces from Emily's room, and set them up on the kitchen table, which I covered with some white stretch fabric.

And here's the result:

I did struggle with light-it's still gloomy here in Scotland, so this is shot with the halogen lights of the kitchen on, and then I draped a silver emergency blanket over a chair and shone a head torch onto it to bounce some light onto the objects. Overall, I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and I think I could get to enjoy still life photography!