Photo Blog

Black and White

I finally got the camera out again on Saturday after a bit of a hiatus.  We visited the beautiful grounds of the Bishops Palace in Wells, Somerset.  The snowdrops were out in full bloom and the grass was carpeted with them.  Since trying to get down to snowdrop level to take some photos, I’ve remembered what little gadget I wanted to buy:  a right angle viewfinder.  Sadly, I didn’t have one, so my hair and camera strap kept flopping in front of my eyes, and I got damp patches on my knees trying to be flower height…

Here’s an example of a snowdrop photo that was relatively successful.  I admit, I took lots, but it was only when I got home to look at them that I discovered I taken some rather dead looking flowers, or the focus wasn’t quite right.  With this one, I quite like the light on the petals and the depth of field creating a nice blurred backdrop.
I also took some pictures of Wells Cathedral.  If it had been a less windy day and I’d got the composition a bit better, I could’ve got some nice symmetry on the water.  I know the two pics below are at slightly different angles, but somehow I prefer the black and white shot.  I did apply a orange filter.  Potentially the stone of the cathedral looks a bit drained, but overall, I like the contrast and the atmosphere it creates.  The colour photo seems a bit dull in contrast.  What do you think?


 
 

Blog, Web blog

First steps…

 

Hello.  After a 5.25am wake up call from my son, I couldn’t sleep.  So I decided to have a tinker here…Welcome to my first ever blog on Smudge on the Lens!  You’d not believe how hard it was coming up with a camera related website name.  I thought I’d been inspired coming up with something around the Sunny 16 Rule, but someone had beaten me to it on every turn.


At the moment my first forays into web design aren’t going to well.  Currently when I type in my web address I get a “This site can’t be reached” message, even though it’s working on my mobile.  Sadly, I’m no where near enough of a pro to know what’s going on.  My rather handy husband told me to Run a dialogue box and type in “ipconfig /flushdns” and that seems to have done the trick.  See, not in a million years would I have come up with that solution.
Right now, the plans and vision for my website far outweigh the knowledge and talent I actually have!  I’m hoping in the future to have a page that showcases some of my photographs. At the moment, only the basic structure is in place, but it’s lacking the “me” feel.  Hopefully I’ll get there in time.


My current mini project is creating a site logo.  It’s very rudimentary as you can see.  I was aiming for a camera lens with a “S” smudge in the middle.  You’d not believe how many times I drew that ‘S’ with the mouse…and it’s still not ideal.  I also need to work out how to make the edges translucent.  This is very much a work in progress…


Update – you need to use Paint.net and use the magic wand feature to select and then delete out the unwanted white parts.  Then, the image was saved as a .png format, which supports transparency.


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