Category: Photography

Happy New Year Everyone.

Well its Thursday and everything is back to normal, we are at work but that does not mean I am not thinking about what to plan for the coming year.

One of the photographers I admire is Joe McNally, I love his location portraiture, this year he is giving a seminar in the UK and I already have my place booked and paid for.

I also want to try more outdoor portraiture and art nude work, I have not done much to date but the few times I have tried it I have always come back with fantastic images.

My focus each month is still going to be street photography.  I have a number of images in my head it just needs the right people in the right place, so I’ll keep trying.

Once Spring starts to arrive i’ll also be heading out to local parks and Whisby Nature Reserve with my SLR and long lens to capture more birds in flight.

Last year was a bit light on studio work so i’ll be wanted to get back into the studio and try a few ideas I have come up with.

At home we have major plans with the new house.  Within the house a priority is a wood burning stove to make winter nights more cosy, as well as new doors and windows.  Not a priority for this year but next i’ll be wanted to setup my home studio and home darkroom so I can develop medium and large format film and scan it myself.

Outside we are planning a veg plot, bees and chickens.  So lots to do and exciting times ahead.

Well thats another Christmas over.  We had a great Christmas here in the new home.  Being in the countryside with lots of space meant we could hold dinner parties for close friends, and have a very quiet Christmas day with just ourselves and the parents; then on boxing day we had the wider family round, so we were surrounded by family, brothers and sisters, children and dogs.

A lovely Christmas and surprisingly no photography, well none until today.  I did a quick studio test experimenting on what different apertures and depth of field from the Leica Summicron 35mm had on the skin of a model.  I intend on getting hold of a Summilux 50mm and repeating the test.  I have an image in my mind that I intend on creating next year which requires a certain amount of natural blur to soften the image, and I would like to get it in camera and not have to fake it in Photoshop.

I like the way Leica Summicron can render out of focus areas as in the example above of the stone door frame of Lincoln Cathedral, and the Summilux should be even better.

The hardest part of all of this is finding a mint condition Summilux 50mm, as new they are outside my budget.

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope Santa leaves you a good present under the tree.