Over the years photography has given me access to many places & people that I otherwise would have never experienced if it was not for my camera.
However even I was baffled when back in July I opened the post to discover I had been invited to a rather plush country house location to test drive an Aston Martin of my choice!
Now I’m not on skid row but likewise I’m also not quite in the tax bracket to shop for 100k’s worth of Britain’s finest prestige autocar either.
However with that small detail forgotten about I decided to call the dealer to book a test drive (come on you gotta do it haven’t you!) but I did enquire why I may of been on the mailing list to which the salesman did not know or seem to care..fine by me!.
To cut a long story short myself and a car loving friend went along (a bit under dressed I might add) and test drove the new 4 door Aston Martin Rapide which was rather nice but then for £140,000 I think it should be!.
The most memorable part of the of the day was my friend driving the car up to a motorway island at 120 mph and scaring the trained test driver who was with us!
You can just about hear him apologising on the end of the video clip below!!
I still haven’t worked out why I got the invite I can only think it’s somehow came through some of the car shoots I’ve done at some point, either which way we had a great day out at a fantastic location in some stunning machinery…oh well back to the diesel burning beemer and reality I suppose!
I came across some very nice photography eBooks at a site called Craft & Vision a couple of days ago.
After a quick browse around the site I promtly purchased one of their titles called “VENICE A Monograph, The Print & The Process Series David duCheminof”
The book turned out to be very well produced and contained some fantastic images of Venice in less than comfortable weather.
The site has a selection of approx 15 titles and here are a few that caught my eye.
Chasing Reflections
The Print & The Process Series Eli Reinholdtsen Learn the techniques to capture movement, timing, and contrast to get the sophisticated and artistic reflection photographs you’ve always dreamed of.
VENICE,
A Monograph The Print & The Process Series David duChemin A collection 30 of David’s Venice photographs, accompanied by a discussion of how & why the images were created
The Magic of Black and White Part I -Vision
Andrew S. Gibson Learn to begin seeing in monochrome and create great black and white photographs.
The Inspired Eye
I Notes on Creativity for Photographers, Vol.I David duChemin Understanding and nurturing our creativity is the first step in breaking out of our ruts
If you asked 50 photographers what inspires them to shoot you would not doubt get some very varied responses but without doubt one of their inspirations would be great light.
I don’t need much inspiration to photograph my children but I’d be a liar if I said the light in this image had no part to play with me grabbing my camera.
We were out camping and had just finished eating when the light broke through the rather heavy clouds and the whole field in front of our tent glowed in golden light.
I grabbed my camera and laid down in the grass waiting for my children to ignore me which they often do except when I haven’t a camera in my hand!
After 5-10 minutes my eldest daughter Gracie decided to start dancing around the field and I reacted quickly to fire off 6-7 frames while she played to the camera.
I have photographed many people,models and even a few celebrities over the years and my approach to lighting was and still is to keep it as simple as possible.
This is a good example of very simple but stunning natural lighting (no reflectors or flashes).
To me this type of lighting (back lighting) is probably the most beautiful lighting set up’s (if you can call it a set up) you can use especially when shooting females.
The only modification I made was to add 1 extra stop of exposure to my camera meter to allow more detail on Gracie’s face and further lighten the background.
Watch Out For Lens Flare When Shooting With This Type Of Lighting.
A few weeks ago myself and my wife decided to make the most of the summer and take our three young children away camping each weekend (or as many weekends as possible) during August.
As always my camera is never far behind when packing and one evening while visiting Teignmouth (which is located on the east coast in Devon England) I managed to go awol for a couple of hours to catch the fading light.
I’ve always been drawn to the coast to shoot and the sea has pretty much always featured in my life.
My first homes (bachelor pads) where all located overlooking the beach and it was fascinating to watch the changing light over the sea and it provided a constant hunting ground for images.
I spotted this Lighthouse during an afternoon drive and quickly whipped out my iphone to check where the sun’s position was during the day (got an app for that!).
I knew from the information that the evening would work well and it meant I could not only catch the lighthouse illuminated but also avoid waking the kids at 5.00 am and enraging the wife!.
I managed to get to the location and set up in plenty of time before the light got interesting and tried several camera angles before being happy.
If you have seen some of my Photography Tutorials you’ll know by now that shooting long exposures is very common place for me and this one was no exception.
This is not my final choice image as I have a fair amount of work that I have planned for that one before it’s completed but another from the evening.
Shaldon Lighthouse Near Teignmouth
Exposure for this frame was 8 Seconds at F16 shot on my Canon 1Ds Mk 2 and 28-70mm L Series set at 40mm.
I also shot a very short video clip on my phone showing the location.
The video is aimed at digital photography for beginners and we not only explain what various camera settings do but also illustrate them and show how they can be used creatively to produce images YOU want to create not the camera.
I’m currently away on location but just heard via the wonders of mobile email that I have been awarded bronze in Epson’s 2010 Panoramic Awards.
I’m not sure of all the details but no doubt I’ll post them when I return.
![[Ask]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/ask.png)
![[Bloglines]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Furl]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/furl.png)
![[Google]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[Hugg]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/hugg.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[MySpace]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Propeller]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/propeller.png)
![[Squidoo]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/squidoo.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://prophotoinsights.net/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
