Winter's Not Leaving.

It feels weird to be posting this seeing as it's sunny outside, but it's been so ridiculously cold this week that snow would be the only thing that would make it worth it. Not that I'd be able to enjoy it because I'm now at work everyday!

However, in honour of the cold, I thought I'd post these two photos. I took them a while ago (before christmas) at Perrywood Garden Centre, so unfortunately they're not of real snow, then happened to find them on my mac while I was sorting out some of the folders. I used the Film Grain Kit by Colton Rabon (definitely worth downloading if you have Photoshop. His Light Leak Kit is also amazing) to "sexy them up a bit" (they were very uninspiring digital photos before).

Check them out on my Flickr.


IN OTHER NEWS
We've been busy over at 27 Kodak Moments (the photography blog I contribute to) queueing up amazing photographers to feature and setting up the 27 Kodak Moments Flickr Group. We're hoping it'll make it easier for people to submit their photos for feature. So please check it out if you like to experiment with photography and would like a feature on a blog!

A Photoshoot in the Forest.

Well today's outing showed me that I don't really have a "photographer's eye". I could picture what I wanted to achieve in my head (pretty much based on what I've seen other people achieve) but I don't have the skills to implement this.

I did enjoy it though. My sister doesn't make a particularly good model, she kept laughing and pulling stupid faces. But I think I got at least a few good photos (although these have all been edited the crap out in photoshop!)

So anyway, the story.

I wanted to go somewhere where we wouldn't be interrupted (it's not exactly normal to take balloons to the woods, is it? I live in the countryside so we're surrounded by woodland, but we just happened to choose the woods that a load of school children were going on a trip to! Mighty embarrassing. We packed up pretty quickly when they came along.

We did three different set ups, the first was Sophie in the little den we found. The second she sat on a little bridge over a stream (this was when the school kids came along, so that photo is the only one I took there!) and the final set up we tried to get both of us in but I didn't have my tripod so I propped the camera on a branch, which didn't work particularly well :S

Probably because I'm not imaginative or creative enough, but I don't really like shooting set ups like these. I prefer to just stumble across something beautiful and capture that moment, rather than creating a fake one.

Film and Editing.

Brightlingsea Double Exposure.

I went to Brightlingsea after work today to see the beach huts, and had some more photoshop fun when I got home playing around with layering and opacity.

I also took a disposable camera with me.

It wasn't until I got home that I worked out how to capture double exposed photos with the camera, so I'll have to do that with another one I've got, but I'm going to play around with the camera once it's finished, like put it in the freezer or expose it to heat, and see what comes out :)

Double Exposure.

Ok so I really want to try double exposing some film, amongst some other techniques, like using expired film. I also want to buy an old 35mm film camera, so my dad's going to take me to some camera shops this weekend to have a look (I was looking on ebay but I don't trust whether cameras sold on there are going to work or not)

There's also a tutorial I saw about taking macro photographs without a macro lens, which looks interesting, and I'll post once I've given it a try.

Anyways, until I can get my hands on a film camera I've given double exposure a try on Photoshop, using two completely random photos, adjusting the opacity and placing them on top of each other.

They're too purposeful though, I want the complete surprise you get from film where you never know what the result's going to be, but I guess I'll just have to wait for that :(

Ok so this photo I took before, and was a happy accident. I took a picture of my sister through a window and the bushes outside were reflected in the glass, and this is the result, and partly the inspiration for wanting to take more photos like this.

These two photos were taken by my friend Maria. She always has an old camera or two on her, and browsing her facebook I came across these and she explained how she did it - I'd need a film camera that you wind on manually so you can take 2 photos in the same frame.

So now for some experiments in Photoshop:

(they're not great :S)

Can you tell I don't really know what I'm doing?!

I've also remembered some photos I took on my dad's film camera I borrowed a while ago, so I might scan some of them in. I seem to remember some of them being quite interesting :)