I went up with the family to Nottingham in August in order to see where my eldest would be studying from September. As usual, I took the camera. Although the trip wasn’t about photography, I did manage to sneak a few shots in.

The first two are of what  they call ‘trams’. Quite a novelty for me as the only ones I’ve seen are in Europe. The first one was a panning shot to emphasise a bit of movement as the tram drove past me. The second was a zoom burst; hand-held on a slower shutter speed, shot is taken whilst zooming the 24-105 F4 L.

A couple of views; I’m not sure what the domed building is but it’s right in the city centre. Unfortunately, there was a big fairground ride in front of it so I couldn;t get a shot of the whole building, so focused on the roof against the blue sky.

The second shot was where we parked. The original shot was taken at a focal length of 32mm so had converging verticals which I corrected in Photoshop.

Time for some fun as the youngest wasn’t too interested in the uni facilities or the shopping opportunities (apart from the sweet shop). This was the fairground ride in front of that lovely domed building.

The first shot was taken sufficiently slowly to get some panning movement. The second one was ratcheted down to 1/20sec in order to get lots of movement to make an abstract shot.

Then, as we walked from the city centre back towards the uni, time for a few snatched architectural abstracts. The first shot is a detail shot of the car park building above. I’m not sure what the windowed building was.

Posted under Photo Shoots

Five times a year we have an internal print competition at the Letchworth Camera Club. Thursday just gone I entered 3 colour & 3 black & white prints into the comp which is voted on by 6 members.

Unfortunately, my colour prints didn’t come in the top six but my black & white entries did rather better. The following two shots were awarded first & second, the  footballer winning the best shot.

The American footballer was taken at Hatfield University last week during Sunday practice & the B-17 & crew were shot at Duxford over the summer.

At the AGM the previous week, I managed to get myself voted in as new club secretary!

I recently made contact with the Hertfordshire Hurricanes American Football Team who are Hertfordshire’s University team. They play their games during term time which means a winter season, which is great for fans of British American football as you can follow the game throughout the year.

They said they were happy for me to pop down to Hatfield Uni to meet them & take some photos, so I arranged to go down to one of their first training sessions of the season. They train on Tuesday, Thursday & Sunday. The weekday sessions are evening under floodlights. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to try out some photography under floodlights, as I’ve never done this floodlit sports before.

Coaching staff said they were happy for me to wander round the training ground taking shots & these are some of the results.

Due to the poor lighting conditions ISO had to be ramped up. All the shots here were taken at ISOs of between 2000 & 6400. Although noise is greatly increased the 5D MkII does have good high ISO quality & a run through with some post production Imegenomic Noiseware has produced some credible results.

It was an ideal opportunity to play with shutter speeds. So I slowed them down a little to accentuate movement & here’s a few results:

Of course, there is more to sports photography than action shots; I always like to catch personal studies of players concentrating, lsitening, watching or just day dreaming.

I’ve not taken any photos for about three weeks now. It’s the longest time this year that I’ve not done any photography. The reason is very simple; I’ve been too busy.

I’m currently sorting out a new shed. Since we started a family I’ve been shoved out to the bottom of the garden in an 8 by 6 shed. It’s served me well for about 18 years. I have my computer & do all my photo processing & documenting down there.

I decided the time was right for a new shed. One with much more space, so I had one twice the size of the old one delivered a couple of weeks ago. It will have more space & a larger desk which will be home to my Wacom A3 graphics tablet. I’m using all my spare time currently re-wiring it, painting, insulating & generally sorting it out.

I’ve also not had the time to post other work done this year which is sitting on my laptoip ready to be uploaded to the blog.

I hope it doesn’t take too much longer as I’m itching to get back out there with the camera.

Three weeks without shooting any pics is way too long.