52 Week 5: York Minster

Apologies all for the delay in uploading this - I spent the latter part of last week in various parts of the North, mostly for the purposes of a job interview (more on that soon, hopefully).

Anyway, my photo for the week (which was taken in the correct week, even if it's uploaded late) is of York Minster:



Those of you who know York will know that it's not an easy building to photograph, due to the close proximity of other buildings around it making it difficult to get it all in. Thankfully, my excellent Sigma 12-24mm ultra-wide-angle lens removes some of these restrictions. The above shot was taken at 12mm, and I've corrected some of the perspective distortion in post-processing (hence the reduction in converging verticals). Shame about the shadows down the bottom, but I didn't have the opportunity to come back later in the day.

Comments appreciated, as always.

52 Week 4: The Old and the New

I spent yesterday in London with Mike and his girlfriend, Taylor. We ended up heading out to Greenwich Park, where we were treated to a short burst of excellent light in an otherwise grey and fairly gloomy day.

My 52 shot for the week is this view of the Old Royal Naval College, with Canary Wharf in the background. I particularly like the contrast in ages of the buildings, and also the bright evening sunlight set against a threatening sky.



More photos of the day to follow soon.

52 Week 3: Flame

Week 3 already, and I've been having a go at shooting a candle flame:

Getting the exposure right was hard work, and I'm not sure I've quite nailed it. The candle was the only light in the room, and I shot at 1/80th of a second at f/8. I took focus from the wick before lighting the candle, and then switched to manual.

I'd like to try this again with a stem candle so that the flame can be isolated from the background - this one was the best I had to work with!

Comments on this and the other photos are greatly appreciated.

For those of you just joining us...

Given that I'm resurrecting this blog after more than a year, I think it's time I brought things up to speed.

I graduated from Flight Training Europe (or FTE Jerez, following the rebrand) in early April 2010, having completed the Commercial Pilot's Licence with Instrument Rating and Multi-Crew Cooperation Course (or CPL/IR + MCC, otherwise known as fATPL - aviation is a world of abbreviations). I was invited to stay on in Jerez to work on the development of the computer-based training (CBT) packages, and to be general IT dogsbody and resident photographer. It was this latter role which gave me the opportunity to do things like Air-to-Air photography, which was, in a word, awesome. Examples can be found on my Flickr photostream.

I finished working in Jerez at Christmas, deciding it was high time someone else had a go and I got to know the UK again, and I'm now back in High Wycombe hunting for flying jobs. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep this blog going, and also the aforementioned 52 photo project.

Incidentally, I've been asked to advertise the blog of my dear sister, who rejoices in the screen-name of muffin-nuffin. She's studying Archaeology (although all she ever seems to talk about is cricket at the moment) and she reacts violently to any mention of Time Team.