I had the home studio set up for a pre-wedding shoot. After the clients left, we decided to have a little fun.

Laura did some nifty posing with her World Cup vuvuzela & acted the rock-chick with her Guitar Hero getup.

Tess, our Border Collie, is pretty much a real wuss, she was even more so when asked to pose in the studio. To start with she had to be coaxed by Sarah.

Sunday 2nd May saw the Herts Hurricanes travel to Birmingham University to take on the Lions for the second time in the season. This time it was for a place in the National Championship Final of the British University American Football League.

It was always going to be a tough game for the Hurricanes; they lost their regular season battle by 44 – 12, the Hurricanes’ biggest defeat of the season.

Although, a better p[erformance by the Hurricanes, they lost the game 28 -12. The Lions advanced to the Championship final while the Hurricanes' season came to a bitter end.

This was the last Hurricanes game I covered in the season. I’d like to thank the coaches & players for making me a member of the team & allowing me exclusive access to get some shots that most other photographers aren’t able to access.

Good luck to the ‘Canes who  will graduate this year & move on to other things. I look forward to working with the Hurricanes again for their 2010-2011 season when it begins all over again in October.

You can see the rest of the shots from this game on my old website.

I went up to Peterborough to shoot the Saxons taking on the Kent Exiles on Sunday 6th June.

The Saxons ran out winners in a high-scoring game, 41 – 26. The weather was overcast, which was fine as it remained quite constant. But it did rain for part of the game.

This was the first game I’d shot which had a female official.

I love to take portrait shots. This is a shot of a Saxons player waiting for the start of a play, in the rain. I entered a copy this shot in black & white in a camera club competition & it received a maximum 10 out of 10 from the judge.

You can see the rest of the shots from this game on my old website.

Sunday 25th may saw me up to Peterborough to shoot their home game against the Colchester Gladiators.

The weather remained fine for the match, nice & sunny. It was nice to meet John Singer, the photographer for the Gladiators with whom I’d corresponded via the Internet previously.

Peterborough won 15 -6 in a low scoring game. They’d probably have done a bit better if it wasn’t for the stupid penalties, some of which were just a loss of temper.

Most of these shots were on the 1d Mk IV with the 600mm attached, apart from the last two which were on the 5D MkII.

You can see the rest of the shots from this game on my old website.

Sunday 25th April saw my local team, the Watford Cheetahs, begin their 2010 BAFACL season campaign in an away game with the Milton Keynes City Pathfinders.

Watford have played the Pathfinders several times over the last few years. They played their season opener against them in 2009 also.

It was a pretty hard fought game. Both teams’ defences dominated through most of the match with neither side able to get any appreciable lead over the other. Right up until the last part of the 4th quarter. Defensive Cornerback, Dyann Lewis (#21), in his first ever game of American football, managed to intercept three MK City passes & return all 3 for touchdowns, leaving the final score 28 – 8 to Watford.

This is a section of photographs with the theme of hidden in plain view.

Wherever we go we are surrounded by photographic opportunities. Sometimes it’s just a case of looking for something that’s already there & turning it into somthing which pleases. I was quite pleased with these.

The first two are simply reflections in glass buildings next to the River Thames. The 3rd is a building just outside the tube station we used to get to the Thames. (I can’t remember which station it was now)

The orange building is a set of flats which front the river by the bridge which leads across to St Paul’s Cathedral. The second was some flats on the Cathedral side of the bridge. I think the third was a car park for flats just off an alleyway which leads you away from St Paul’s.

Then we have the flats above the aforementioned car park & a simple door number.

And lastly, I think the yellow lines should have been taken at an angle as they look a little static. I just loved the graphical element of the hoarding around some building works.

In the middle of April I took my youngest down to London for the afternoon to take some photos. I normally stay away from the city if I can help it & have never really been there with the express intention of just taking photos.

Fortunately the weather was fine, it was probably the hottest day in April.

All photos were taken with the Canon 5D MkII & Canon 100-400mm zoom.

Not being a regular visitor, I have no idea whether the empty pod in the photo on the right is normal or not.

On the 13th March the Hertfordshire Hurricanes took on the Portsmouth Destroyers when Portsmouth visited Hertfordshire’s Hatfield ground.

As usual, lighting was variable throughout the game changing between sunlight & dark cloud cover.

The Hurricanes went behind with an early safety but ended up eventual winners with a score of 12 points to 8.

The second of the following shots was taken remotely with the camera on top of a monopod held high in the air & triggered with an radio shutter release. It was taken while the teams warmed up prior to kick-off.

You can see the rest of the shots from this game on my old website.

Posted under Photo Shoots

I bought the Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens in February 2009 but not had a chance to properly try it out. Spurred on by a recent article in Amateur Photographer, I got the lens out & collected a few insects to try it out on.

The wasp was a dead example I found in the shed. It was placed on top of a small perspex box in the light of a window. Radio shutter release was used, I think the shutter speeds were around 1/2 a second.

For each of the images I took 20-40 photographs all taken at a slightly different focusing range. All the shots are then loaded into image stacking software – in this case Zerene Stacker – which goes off & takes the sharp part out of every image, combining them & deleting the rest. Thus you end up with a photograph with a much wider depth of field than is possible with the lens in a single shot.

Taking 40 shots of an insect is only possible if the subject is really still. In the case of the wasp, that was fine as it was dead. With the spider, I put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes. I’m told that no harm is done to the creature & it goes into a state of sleep as if in a cold night, though you do have to be careful not to cool it for too long.

The ant is in  the state of waking up from its brief winter sleep. In fact on the second shot it was preening its antennae so I wasn’t able to get a series of shots to focus-stack. This is a single image, you can see how narrow the depth of field is with just one shot.

The woodlouse was a dead specimen found in the garden.

On the 6th of March my choir performed our spring concert at St Mary the Virgin Church in Pirton near Hitchin. We had the rehearsal during the early afternoon & I took my camera with me.

After the rehearsal I spent some time in & around the church setting up some shots which I intended to process with HDR (High Dynamic Range).

The shots were taken hand-held on the 1DMkIV, five shots in a rapid sequence, then married up on Photomatix & combined. The processing is a little more subtle than the more obvious HDR effects you quite often see.

The couple in the car arrived by driving into one of my shots, the quickly realised & reversed back behind the church so I could finish taking the shot. By the time I worked my way round the church to where they had parked, the car was still there. I liked the fresh, shiny, smooth bodywork against the old stone of the church walls.