031:365 The First Month

I'm amazed and seriously chuffed with myself, I've managed to do the whole first month of my 365, only 11 more to go.

I do tend to leave things a bit to the last minute which isn't a good idea so i really need do more planning to make sure that i know what i'm doing, I know it may not always work out but at least i will have had a plan to go on.

Tomorrows shot is planned and i'm working on some stuff to use for it, so hopefully that will all work out fine.

030:365 After 300 Yards...

I've been doing a little bit of playing about with my blogs tonight to make them a bit more user friendly etc.

This one is now http://my365.ifotou.co.uk/ and my main blog is http://blog.ifotou.co.uk/

I really wasn't sure what to do for my picture today but after argueing with my satnav for a few hours today it looks like i need to buy a new one so i decided to shoot this one, in the dark in the kitchen with a f of 1.8 so the backgound all blends in.

Hopefully a Better one Tomorrow

029:365 Have your Cake and...

Todays shot is a bit of a snapshot of a teddy bears picnic in our house.

My eldest Son Kyle is 11 today and got the school teddy home for the night - he's a movie star you know. By some strange coincidence Caron got her class dragon home too so they both helped to snaffle down all the birthday cake.

028:365 Andy Helps Out

Today means that i'm now four weeks into my 365 and still doing well.

I've had one or two days where it has been a bit of a pain in the backside an i've shot stuff at the last minute, but i'm still really happy with how things are going.

Todays shot is of Andy, who was roped in at the very last minute after a mix up in the studio bookings left us with 30 minutes to get a shot and meant that Keith, our intended model, would never make it in time.

Andy kindly offered to help out when i asked for volunteers and him and Anna and Scott were all good company in the studio.

This was a test shot from the digital slr where i was checking the lighting before i shot off 4 frames through the large format 5x4 camera using Fuji Provia 100iso slide film.

I'm off to Trumps in Edinburgh tomorrow to get the film processed, as doing E6 is just not on my list of things i want to do.

Hopefully i'll be able to get some pictures from this up by the weekend.

027:365 My Little Baby

This little lens and my 50mm f1.8 are probably the 2 most used lenses in my kit bag.

I absolutely love this little lens, and i'm sure that Scott thought that this was my only lens.

I love the effect that comes from this lens and I've shot pretty much everything from landscapes, environmental work and portraits with it.

I will be using it a lot more in the coming months.

026:365 A Real Feet

I had a few ideas for today, originally i wanted to do some shots whilst seting up the Large Format Camera at college today, but Scott took them and i was too interested in what i was doing.

Then i thought i'd photograph some chopsticks in the house, we have a set of mother of pearl inset chopsticks that i tried but it just wasn't working out.

I then decided that the best way forward was to look at our feet and take a picture of a shoe for each of us.

The image is slightly more saturated and a vignette added but other than that it's straight from the camera.

Lit with the Jessops flash through a softbox.

025:365 The Country Park

Today i managed, at least, to do something that i had planned.

After a long lie and a txt chat with Scott we finally got out around 1pm and nipped over to Almondell Country Park where we had a good old wander about with the cameras.

This shot is one of my favourites from today, where the sun was directly behind the tree and was around 2:30 ish this afternoon, so a very high shutter speed and small aperture were used to get the effect and the image looks almost black and white.

Very much like this one today!

024:365 Book Space

Not the best picture in todays, but i had a bit of an awful day....

It was meant to be pretty simple today, drop into Dunc's studio and do a model shoot but then the model doesn't turn up, and won't even return a call or answer a txt, pretty disappointing.

So i end up not being very great and not sure what to do for today...

But then ii decided to photograph my most recent book purchase! This book by Peter Lindbergh I purchased a week or so again at Beyond Words in Edinburgh. I do plan to purchase at least one new book a month to increase and diversify my photographic book collection.

023:365 How Long Has it Been for You?

It's not been that long since i last done any darkroom stuff as we had a project that was handed in before Xmas.

Today was the beginning of much more though, i'll be doing a lot more film work over the coming weeks and months and today starts it.

I picked up the Camera and film from les and Ricky yesterday and Scott and I had a quick shot this morning, then Processed the film and scanned the negs, although i only ended up with time to scan one neg so far.

I'm pretty happy with the shot, which was handheld with a Mamiya 645E and 4 year out of date ilford Delta 100 developed in Ilford Multigrade and scanned using an Epson 4490 flatbed scanner.

022:365 Format Fight

Todays picture is of a Mamiya 645E and some Ilford Delta 100 B&W 120 roll film.

I'd like to say a big thanks to Les for the loan of the camera and to Ricky for the film.

I'm really looking forward to doing a lot more film stuff.

All going well i'm planning to shoot some images in the morning then process and scan then tomorrow for the 023:365 image.

Fingers crossed.

021:365 Weird Science

Decided to take a wander up to Deer Park tonight to try to get the cars going round the roundabout.

I was pretty sure that the sculpture on the roundabout was lit up at night but it turns out not to be!

A lot of the images were ruined by some cars parking at the junction next to where I was.

I'm pretty happy with this image, lots of nice colours and light patterns in here.

020:365 Loopy or Lupe

After a recommendation from a college friend i signed up for freecycle where instead of sending stuff to the landfill it is recycled to others who may be interested in it.

My first interactions were to give away a TV and DVD player that had been cluttering up the house, however I have now received some stuff.

I posted looking for stuff to help with college, with cameras and darkroom equipment being of particular interest.

An email reply meant me picking up a car full today, with around 20 books, an enlarger and a whole host of other darkroom goodies all being picked up.

The Lupe here was part of the kit and will be a welcome addition to my kit box, photographed on a shorthand notepad, handheld under the kitchen light.

019:365 The BEBO Face

You can see more information about this shoot on my main blog, but this was part of a college project on high key portraiture.

Charlie is a great model but has a habit of being a complete riot to work with and we have on a great number of times had 'the BEBO face' which is demonstrated perfectly here.

For info a 5 light set-up, 2 background lights set to f11, 2 side lights bounced off reflectors set to f5.6 and a main front on softbox set to f8.

018:365 The Clouds Roll In

An absolutely awful day for me today, i went out with Scott to do some shooting today, firstly to the airport for some plane shots then over the forth bridges.

The light on them was awesome and i was really really happy with what i had seen on the camera LCD.

Got home and soemthign went wrong, i'm still not 100% what but it looks increasingly like issues with my USB2 card reader which meant when trying to rescue images and formating it got worse.

After some recovery software and another card reader i found some of the images but there were still issues and none of them would open at all.

so after kicking it up and down the street i took some of the roling in clouds at around 4:30 pm and have darkened them down a little in PS.

017:365 I Wish I Could Fly

My daughter Caron and I went for a wander down the canal today so that she could feed the swans and ducks...but despite walking a good amount of the canal there were none to be found so we ended up throwing the broken up half loaf of bread for the seagulls.

This is a full frame uncropped image, so i'm really happy with the framing, although i do feel it's a touch soft, mainly due to the shutter speed and the speed it was moving at, in hindsight i would have increased the ISO a touch to get a sharper image.

I'm beginning to quite like images of birds also, something i never ever though i would have.

016:365 Corston

Today Scott and I took a wee trip up to Corston Farm and shot some of the landscape and farm up there.

We then had a wee trip down to the Almond and shot some around the bridge and the A899 flyover.

Then we went over to Starbucks to meet Simon for a coffee and a blether.

015:365 Demonstration

Today was another trip out for Universal News and Sport so todays picture comes from that.

Today was a demonstration of University of Edinburgh students against the mass murders happening in Gaza.

This image is one that i felt had a lot of emotion and thus picked it for todays image.

014:365 The Reservoir

Another day where Scott and I nipped out from college to do more compositional work.

This time we managed to find our way into Eliburn Reservoir past all the new build housing and get some shots.

This is probably my favourite from the set and is the first one i edited from the range of images shot today.

Quite happy with this one and i like the fact it looks desaturated even though it is still full colour.

First 2 weeks down only 50 more to go...

013:365 Sunset over Livingston

I got to go out for a little while earlier around 3:30 to get this with my new bits and bobs of kit.

I spent most of the rest of the day in the house waiting on the delivery man - always takes ages when you're waiting don't they.

They delivered my new Redsnapper Tripod and 3-way head, my new Sigma 28-70 f2.8 lens and my new Battery Grip for the camera.

I had a whole lot of drama with the battery grip caused by my old tripod and the grip is now firmly stuck in place and will NOT EVER be able to come off, but hey it's all good.

Picture taken from the new tripod (with grip attached to the camera) and using the new lens.

012:365 Buffy the Cat Slayer

Todays pic features our gorgeous dog Buffy.

I tried a few cloud shots first, but wasn't happy with them so i chased Buffy and her ball about the garden for a while and snapped a few.

I know the crop on her ears isn't great on this one but i just love the look :)

011:365 Give it a Rub!!

Not the shot i had planned for today as i was out today with Scott and Keith helping Scott to do some shots of a local band that he was asked to shoot.

other than acting as VAL though i only took 2 shots both attempting some stroboscopic work but they just don't work very well so i decided to play in the house with this.

It's a little Budda that sits in our display cabinet at the front door and was shot on white card using the flash and softbox to light it.

010:365 A Bright Idea

Today was a bit of a strange day, i had big plans for today as i was meant to be doing a press job but a night of being sick put paid to that.

I struggled from then to think of what to do, until i had the bright idea of using my lightbulb that i had for some creative mixed lighting shots.

Shot in the kitchen in the house at f5.6 1/160 sec ISO100 and at 200mm.

I shot it at the angle to give it a sense of movement.

009:365 Yup Another Moon Shot

Yup...it's another Moon shot... but I really like this one today.

Lynn bought me a Tamron 55-200mm lens yesterday which arrived today so i decided to have a bit of a redo of yesterdays feeble attempt at a moon.

This time i waited til it was darker and shot at 200mm from the tripod.

The white streaks are cloud movement as it was shot at f5.6 4.5 sec ISO100 then desaturated in PS.

008:365 Moon Walking

Today I really wasn't sure what to do for the picture, i think i need to start taking my camera with me to places just in case anything crops up that would be cool.

Anyway at college today i editted a different image from yesterday to post as i wasn't happy with the image, mainly due to monitor issues and dodgy editting i think, although much happoer with the one there now.

Coming home from college wondering what to do i seen the moon beginning to rise up over the trees and although shot at 50mm and cropped i really do like this shot.

007:365 Boat on the Ice

Today was an interesting day shoot wise. Scott and I decided to abandon college, with permission, for a few hours and go to Beecraigs Loch within Beecraigs Country Park.

Scott spent some time photographing some trees - goodness knows why - then we wandered down to where the fishing boats are launched from and snapped away there.

We did have a good giggle about scott wanting his Cok-in most of the pictures which amused us both with our funny sense of humour.

Shot at f16 1/10 sec and ISO100

006:365 Speed Machines

Today was a nightmare for trying to get my image to update here. My first plan was to nip out to Binny Craig/North Mains area to get some sunset type images.

I've got a few but i was a bit rushed and the sunset was bland and minging and really didn't work. I then tried some images of the trees against the dull background with the idea that i may just convert them to B&W but again they didn't work.

It had been a little snowy so i thought that i would wait and see how deep the snow would get, but again that was up the spout as it was more rain than snow.

So i took to hunting the house for some stuff to do and ended up with some of Kyle's 1:18 cars and my motorbikes.

More from this on my main blog here.

005:365 A Policital Decision

Today's photo was an easy choice and not a huge amount of thinking needed as i was asked to do some pictures for a press agency of Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon MSP.

All to do with the removal of car parking charges in Livingston.

004:365 Seaweed and Ice

Todays offering comes from South Queensferry, Scott, Drew and I had a wee trip out to South Queensferry. The original plan was to try to get some nice landscape type pics but with rubbish grey sky's and not a lot of anything else we generally all concentrated on the smaller things around us.

This little iced over bit of water in a rock formation took my eye and i decided to focus on the seaweed and I'm pretty pleased with how it has come out.

Shot at f1.8 1/125sec and ISO100

003:365 A Swan Song

Today was an opportunity to add an outdoors image to my 365 project.

We're currently visiting the in-laws so I've brought the mini laptop and the camera gear and went for a little wander up by the canal (the union canal I believe) and between these images of the swans, which were taken with the nifty fifty, and we passed around 2 foot away from them.

The canal was frozen and this bit here was the only part with a break in the ice, even managed some images of broken bottles half in the ice etc, but I thought the swans made better subjects.

Shot at f2.8 1/2000 sec and ISO100.

002:365 A Hero on Guitar

Day Two, and I'm still quite happy with the pictures I'm posting lol.

Last night Kyle (my son) and I managed to complete Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock on the Easy mode. He got it for Christmas and he's much much better than me at it, we had a quick squint at the Expert mode but that scared the crap out of the both us so I think we need to work our way up to that via the medium and hard levels first.

Shot taken at f2.8, 1/20 sec and ISO400 with only natural light through our bathroom sky light.

001:365 - A Drunken Beginning

And so it begins!

I had a number of different thoughts on what to do for today; images of the January 2009 at the top of the new calendar in the hall; shots of the candle burning on the kitchen table; some Irn-Bru and a packet of paracetamol and even just some pictures of people shaking hands.

But I though that as being Scottish we all seem to recognise New Year as an excuse to get drunk and enjoy ourselves so i went with a picture of one of the shelves in the fridge.

We're having a few folk round tonight for a couple of drinks so the fridge is pretty well stocked.

Shot taken at f1.8, 1/40 sec and ISO 800 with natural light from the kitchen windows.

Maybe tomorrow will be the Irn-Bru and paracetamol after all.