Menorca Night Photography

         I recently had a weeks holiday in Menorca with my partner and his family. I find when travelling anywhere it is a great opportunity to play with new photography techniques. I tend to also take minimal equipment when on holiday thanks to hand luggage restrictions, this motivates me to be creative with what I have. While in Menorca I had a great time doing night photography around the coastline. Below I have listed some tips to help anyone wanting to try this out, I have learnt a few things along the way to make it much easier:

• The 3 photos in this blog were taken using long exposures of 6-10 seconds, in all cases I needed a stable surface to put my camera on. When you don't have a tripod, you can use anything stable and flat as an alternative, just look through the viewfinder or use Live View if your camera has it to check composition. I used a stone step, a wall and the rocks on the floor. I also used my leather camera strap to lift up the lens into the right position so it isn't pointing at the floor (you can use whatever you have to hand, jumper, lens cap, scarf etc.)
• My next tip for extra stability is using timer - I used a 3 second timer so my hand was nowhere near my camera when the shutter opened, this eliminates camera shake so you don't ruin your photo from the beginning when you take your finger off the shutter.
• Use manual focus - autofocus tends to dislike the darkness and will usually struggle to find a point to stick on. Zoom right into the area you want to focus on and then rotate your focus ring until that area is sharp, you can then zoom out to decide on a composition. Live View is great for this as the screen is easier to see in the dark than trying to crouch and look through your viewfinder. 
• For some jazzy starbursts where there are spotlights (above and below images) set your aperture to a nice high number like f16, don't ask me the science behind why this works, I just googled how to do it once as I wanted to try it. I enjoy this effect as it makes your images look like a holiday postcard.
• Setting the aperture higher lets in less light so your exposure will need to be even longer, this gives you a watercolour type effect if you are photographing water which can look really nice, especially when lights and buildings are reflected in it. 
• Shoot in RAW if you can. If your camera has the option to shoot RAW it will gather a wider range of lights and darks in the image, especially important when shooting at night as your camera will pick up more detail.  
• To finish off my travel photos, I usually don't have a laptop so I will edit my favourite RAW files in camera, save as a JPEG and then send via Wifi to my phone/Ipad. I then edit further using the free app Snapseed, which is one of my favourite image editing apps. 

Castle Park on Film

      Does everyone remember that bank holiday at the beginning of May when the sun actually shone for 3 days straight? I spent 3 lovely days walking around different places in Bristol lying on the grass reading and taking photos. I try and use my film camera more in the summer as I love how brilliant the light looks on film when the sun is shining. I bought 10 rolls of expired Fujicolor ISO 100 film from Ebay and I absolutely love the colours it brings out. I now don't want to use all the other old film I have because I know they won't be as bright...

     These images were all taken around castle park when I was trying to finish a roll before dropping it at Bristol Cameras for developing. I thought it was 24 exp and then turned out to be 36, which meant I had a lot more to use than I thought. 

      These were all shot on my Minolta X-300 with 35mm f1.7 lens - a great combination for walk around/street photography. This camera is pretty lightweight and simple to use, I managed to pick mine up from Ebay for £30 with the lens. Let me know what you think of these, if you have any other recommendations for colourful film let me know. 

Game Of Thrones Tapestry

      So at the beginning of May I booked a last minute trip to Belfast with my boyfriend. We spent our first day there wandering around near Queen's University where there is a wonderful Botanical garden and the Ulster Museum, both free to enter. Games of Thrones has brought a huge boost to Northern Ireland's tourism, there are many different locations you can visit that were used for filming. We did our own little road trip to a few of these amazing places along the coast and it was pretty amazing. 

      Tourism Ireland has created a Tapestry which is currently on show at The Ulster Museum, it is 77m long and still growing, with new sections being added as the new season is shown! I couldn't believe the sheer scale of the tapestry, it shows the storyline as it develops (so there may be some spoilers if you read too much into the images below). 

      The sheer details of all the embroidery is really beautiful. Some of it is pretty grim, I have only watched a few episodes of Game of Thrones (don't judge me!) but I remember some of the deaths being pretty graphic and gruesome. 

      I would highly recommend a visit if you happen to be in the area, the rest of the museum has a lot to see too! Let me know what you think. 

Spring Bluebells

       Happy spring everyone! What with the snow storms, freezing temperatures and miserable rain it hasn't felt particularly goods so far. This time last year I was wandering around the woods out the back of Wild Place in Bristol taking photos of some lovely bluebells with my film camera. 

I use a Minolta X-300 with a Tamron 28mm f2.4 and Minolta 50mm f1.7. I love the 50mm for its beautiful depth of field, it really helps the bluebells stand out. 

These are all taken on Fujifilm Superia ISO 100 film bought expired on Ebay. I so far have been lucky enough with expired film that it still always gives me good results even if I have no idea how old it is. 

These photos make me miss the warmth and sun! It is 7 degrees outside and I was still deicing my car last week, I wish spring would hurry up. 

Lothar Meggendorfer's International Circus

       So, it has been a while and I thought I should come back to this blog with something truly beautiful and amazing! I was gifted this pop up book by a family friend who is a self confessed hoarder of amazing things. Since she knows I love the circus this was the perfect present for me. 
       The book she gave me is a reproduction pop up book which was printed in 1979, the original production of this book was printed in 1887! The book is a panoramic scene, the "book" folds out to create a circus tent with a different act in each section. The Frankfurter Journal reviewed the book in 1887 calling it:

"the most spectacular of Meggendorfer's surprises... a book that is certain to astound and delight everyone"

  

In the year we are celebrating 250 years of circus, it is great to go back and look at images of the original circus with it's classic big top. 

The below images show some of the amazing and humorous illustration, with captions from the book. Enjoy! 

"Miss Ella rides her stately horse while the clowns have trouble riding their Donkey."

"Mr Funtolo performs on his horse as he leaps over a flaming gate."

"The Bravo family show their graceful skill riding bareback on two horses"

"The sultans courier straddles his galloping horses"

"Clara Springel leaps and somersaults through a hoop"