Now, don't get all excited thinking I am going to go into the antics of the boudoir.
After a cup of horlicks and a good read......I'm gone. Off to Dreamland.
No, my passion is for taking pictures.
Although my passion is nowhere near as advanced as Wadey's...he is prolific in his picture taking.
When I go away with Ma I take two camera's.
Where ever I go both camera's come with me.
Why do I have two camera's with me.......well, it has been known for the one with the li-ion batteries to run out of steam before my desire to take pictures has been satisfied.......and my other camera, though old, uses Duracell....which are easily available unless you happen to be at the top of a mountain........ah, but even then I am usually Ok. Being a good little boy scout(it was much more fun than girl guides
) I always have a spare set in my camera bag.
I take hundreds of pictures...and once we get back from where-ever we have been, I secrete myself upstairs on the computer looking at the views I have taken.......I can be gone for hours......sitting and looking at them, critically appraising them, cropping them...generally fiddling about.
Sometimes I will enhance them by using an editing tool(PicniK....brilliant...and Free!)....but somehow this feels like cheating.
It feels like the photo wasn't good enough and I am making it something it wasn't in the first place. Does that sound daft?
As Ma is in a wheelchair, there are many places that she physically cannot get to, so me going out there, and getting to the places that she cannot go, makes for a more rounded view of place we have been to.
After each trip away I put the pictures on disks for her, so she can visit these places in her quiet moments.
She tells me that she gets lots of pleasure from spending an afternoon looking at places that we have been to...and because she tells me this it gives me the extra lift too.
Oh, yes...I use the pictures for personal greeting cards too.......this means that whoever gets the card has a unique card....they won't see it in Clinton Cards with a price on it.
On the comment to my last blog Cashy tells me he has given up taking pictures...that he was never a good photographer anyway....that he has a shaky hand.
I have a shaky hand too.....but these days even the pretty basic point and shoot camera's have optical image stabilisation....which counteracts the shaky hand.
I still sometimes get a blurred picture...despite the OIS...and when that happens I just have to delete and hope that I have taken two shots.....I still do that....take two shots.
It is habit...something my Dad did......he was a semi professional photograher in his spare time......Wedding and Bar Mitzvahs his speciality.
I used to help out in the dark room........twirling the knob on the developer tank........tilting the trays and watching pictures magically appear on the paper.....black and white of course.
I often wonder what he would have made of the innovations in the digital camera's of today.
Would he think they were a lazy way of taking photographs? Or would he think it great to open up photography and make it interesting to more people, because it is easier? I really don't know.
Photographs are a way of ensuring that changes can be recorded, they are a way of expressing ourselves and also a way of having fun.
I am still learning, I still make the daft mistakes.......but it is an interest that is cheap(ish) to pursue and gives me and others pleasure.......that can't be bad.
If you want to see more of my pictures(I do hope that doesn't sound conceited)....have a look here.
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16506530@N07/6172296928/in/photostream
That one is for you Cashy.
After a cup of horlicks and a good read......I'm gone. Off to Dreamland.
No, my passion is for taking pictures.
Although my passion is nowhere near as advanced as Wadey's...he is prolific in his picture taking.
When I go away with Ma I take two camera's.
Where ever I go both camera's come with me.
Why do I have two camera's with me.......well, it has been known for the one with the li-ion batteries to run out of steam before my desire to take pictures has been satisfied.......and my other camera, though old, uses Duracell....which are easily available unless you happen to be at the top of a mountain........ah, but even then I am usually Ok. Being a good little boy scout(it was much more fun than girl guides
) I always have a spare set in my camera bag.I take hundreds of pictures...and once we get back from where-ever we have been, I secrete myself upstairs on the computer looking at the views I have taken.......I can be gone for hours......sitting and looking at them, critically appraising them, cropping them...generally fiddling about.
Sometimes I will enhance them by using an editing tool(PicniK....brilliant...and Free!)....but somehow this feels like cheating.
It feels like the photo wasn't good enough and I am making it something it wasn't in the first place. Does that sound daft?
As Ma is in a wheelchair, there are many places that she physically cannot get to, so me going out there, and getting to the places that she cannot go, makes for a more rounded view of place we have been to.
After each trip away I put the pictures on disks for her, so she can visit these places in her quiet moments.
She tells me that she gets lots of pleasure from spending an afternoon looking at places that we have been to...and because she tells me this it gives me the extra lift too.
Oh, yes...I use the pictures for personal greeting cards too.......this means that whoever gets the card has a unique card....they won't see it in Clinton Cards with a price on it.
On the comment to my last blog Cashy tells me he has given up taking pictures...that he was never a good photographer anyway....that he has a shaky hand.
I have a shaky hand too.....but these days even the pretty basic point and shoot camera's have optical image stabilisation....which counteracts the shaky hand.
I still sometimes get a blurred picture...despite the OIS...and when that happens I just have to delete and hope that I have taken two shots.....I still do that....take two shots.
It is habit...something my Dad did......he was a semi professional photograher in his spare time......Wedding and Bar Mitzvahs his speciality.
I used to help out in the dark room........twirling the knob on the developer tank........tilting the trays and watching pictures magically appear on the paper.....black and white of course.
I often wonder what he would have made of the innovations in the digital camera's of today.
Would he think they were a lazy way of taking photographs? Or would he think it great to open up photography and make it interesting to more people, because it is easier? I really don't know.
Photographs are a way of ensuring that changes can be recorded, they are a way of expressing ourselves and also a way of having fun.
I am still learning, I still make the daft mistakes.......but it is an interest that is cheap(ish) to pursue and gives me and others pleasure.......that can't be bad.
If you want to see more of my pictures(I do hope that doesn't sound conceited)....have a look here.
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16506530@N07/6172296928/in/photostream
That one is for you Cashy.
