Driven to experience life

This weekend I drove for four hours to spend time in Norfolk with my Cameras.

I woke up at five on Saturday morning and rather than turn over and go back to sleep I dressed and walked down on to Cromer Beach just as the sun was starting to rise. I set up my Camera and Tripod and took some photographs and then returned to my room to await breakfast.

Once I had eaten I was back in car and driving into the Norfolk Broads. I drove the length of the main road twice as over the next eight hours I tilted at windmills with my Camera. At the end of the day I had captured ten different scenes on both film and digital and walked more than usual for me.

Three days later I consider the trip more recognisance than a definitive record of the Broads. Over the coming months I will now seek to find a couple of days when I can return and better capture what I saw over the weekend. As someone who enjoys landscape photography I am obsessive or realistic in the fact that the conditions were not optimum?

My actions over the weekend were outside what I do normally. I spent less time in bed and was more responsive to the environment that I would be at "home". The lack of "local" knowledge drove me to explore and question more. However the lack of time in some ways saw me rushed as I sought to tick off views from some mental shortlist. My photo essay of Hitchin Lavender Farm over six weeks this summer has show the benefit of revisiting a space to record a scene. So was I wrong to think that the Norfolk Broads was something that could be crossed off after a single visit?

How best to show your work?

As seen on Flickr

As seen on Smugmug.

Over the last few weeks as I have started to use my kit on a frequent basis I have posted the outcome on Flickr via iPhoto. I have noticed that the scale of my pictures has been little more than thumbnail even though I have a "pro" account am loading RAW files. This means that as others see them the detail I see is not the same others. As I am trying to get feedback on m style and technique I want to show off my shots as best as I can. For less than $35 a year I get a hosting services that offers better quality but it does not have the community that Flickr offers when it come to feedback.

I will for the next few weeks post the same image on Flickr and Smugmug but I can see myself moving towards just Smugmug with links to other social networks in a effort to get feedback. Once I have developed a style and technique that is worthwhile I will then tend to enter competitions and exhibitions. I am conscious that I have a higher level of exhibitionism than others. A friend that I sometimes take pictures with told me that he is "too self conscious to post his photos on the web as some might consider them poor". My attitude is that some of those that comment do so not to help and others do share as the photographer I have to filter the good from the bad.

Flickr not working out

Old Barge Hand pulling into the Rickmansworth Canal Festival

Over the weekend I posted a number of images on Flickr. Whilst the feedback has been good and it gets lots of people looking at my pictures the quality is poor.

This has come to light with the linking of my Flickr files to the Nikon Cafe community where the size has not been good or reproduction good enough. I am going to look at a few paid for services that can do a better job and post the majority of my photographs on that site.

In an effort to improve both my eye and technique so far this month I have taken 747 pictures and still have the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Hertfordshire County Show and Champions League Final to attend. So far I have to say that my eye seems good when it comes to street photography and Landscapes but I need to improve my macro skills and using lights.

So how do I get better?

1. Ransoms (Wild Garlic)

2. Nikon D700, 14-24 f2.8 & Tripod

The only way I am going to get better is by using my Equipment. As well as developing some form of eye for framing an image it will help improve my technique. Once I have captured something on the memory card I can then start to adapt it using Apature, Capture NX or Photoshop CS4 and then see what happens when it gets printed out.

Then I need to find somewhere to talk with people who can tell me how I'm doing. As well as online I have started to test the water with local camera clubs and also chat to a few professionals. The problem is that from the outside I am seen as Faustian which means that in person people don't say much and online comment is limited to I like that or don't like that.

Yesterday I spent 90 minutes looking for the above ditch and then standing in/over it to get a few pictures of Ransoms (wild garlic) see the bottom image above. This was my second expedition to find the wild flowers in the past week as they offer a different challenge to my recent pictures of Bluebells. The results is the image at the top which I am now trying to tune using one of the three editing packages. Once I am happy with what I have produced I guess I can start entering the outcome into competitions to judge my progress. However the feedback is only positive in that you get no feedback. Sending the image to one of the many photography magazines for criticism has as much chance as me winning the Lottery this week so that I can buy more lenses.

An Introduction

Back in 2007 I went on Holiday with the Family to view the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion Park. Because the views were going to be exceptional I decided that my point and shot camera was not going to do the job and it was time to get a proper digital camera. Not wanting to spend too much on something that might not get used after the holiday I bought a Nikon D40x kit with two zooms.

The holiday passed off well and I took a number of pictures. However they were little more than snaps as I had set the camera to capture JPEG rather than RAW and so was unable to do much to improve them. However the new camera was something that I started to carry around and I started to learn how to use the settings and RAW format. In March 2008 I upgraded to the D300 and two better lenses and the Nikon bug had got under my skin. Six months after the D300 upgrade it was time to get the D700 and experience Full Frame Digital Photography.

Now I have the toys it is just a case of using them as much as possible and get as much feed back as possible. I post some of what I shot onto Flickr and submit shots to Groups on the site. I also post on the Nikon Cafe. At present feedback is limited.

With this blog I hope to share some of the joy and the frustration of learning to shot in Digital having started my photography with Film.