Johnnyguitar's 2010 52 - crap week 4

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johnnyguitar

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After looking through a lot of the 52s and 365s of 2009, I decided to try a 52 for myself. I only bought my first SLR in the summer with the intention of taking some photos on honeymoon that could go up on the wall. I succeeded in that (I think they're alright, everybody else might think they're crap! :lol: ) which was probably a combination of nice light and beginner's luck! I seem to have gone downhill since then, but have challenged a friend to a 52 in the hope that it will better our pics and understanding of cameras and taking photographs.


Anyway, enough of my waffle, week 1 for me started on Monday 4th Jan and my year will end on Sunday 3rd Jan 2011 (not 2010 dur!).
My first pic - Ratcliffe On Soar power station. Personally I think it's a bit pap but that's what it's all about I suppose - a learning curve!!

Cheers!
 
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Ohh I like this one John I don't normally like tilted shots but this one works very well. Welcome to the 52'ers :thumbs:
 
Agree it works tilted,crisp shot with good colours
 
I really like the angle of this picture. I think you've also managed to capture the atmosphere really well - just looking at this image, I can say it was really cold - crisp blue sky, snow on the tracks.....brrrrr!!

Welcome to the 52 - as I'm sure you've seen from the forums, you are in very good company doing this for the first time. I'm sure you will not regret doing this by the time 3rd of Jan 2011 comes! (I think you meant 2011 - otherwise your year ended even before it started!) :lol:
 
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Thanks guys for the comments, I've decided not to set myself any rules other than to make sure I read my posts before I submit them and get crucial things like dates, etc. correct :lol:
 
That's a nice strong image to start with. Good luck with the next 51.
 
An interesting take on the theme, I can see how the curves on the cooling towers really attracted you eye and the effect of dynamic lines of the train and fence line add to the image. Although I wonder if using a longer lens and zooming in on the curves of the towers would have created a stronger image for the theme :thinking:

I'm not quite sure the tilt works, can you explain the thought behind this specific tilt?

I do really like the colours you've managed to eek out of the sky, did you use a polariser or was this enhanced in post processing? Whatever the answer it works and deserves credit :thumbs:

I'm looking forward to keep popping in to this thread to see how you progress through the year :)
 
Thanks guys. I don't have an ND filter but that's certainly something to look into for the future. I agree some movement in the train would have been nice, but I didn't have a tripod with me so it would have ended up a shaky shot.

There was no particular objective behind this specific tilt, other that it allowed me to crop out some objects that I didn't want to include without compromising the focal length or the size of the image. This was taken with a polariser and has had no adjustments.

To be honest - I didn't realise there was a theme :lol: I hadn't read the full 52 thread and wondered why everybody's pics had something to do with curves, so I guess mine was quite a lucky shot :whistling:
My aim was to make sure I make the effort to take my camera out and use it at least once a week - I'll probably forget there is a theme and so if I do manage to stick to it, I'll post that I have done.

I tried a closer crop of the cooling towers but I don't really like it and I don't think it worked - another tilted shot as well as the straight ones just looked a bit dull when I looked at them. If you want to see the closer crop, click here.

Although I said I wasn't going to give myself any rules, I won't be using any archive pics - each pic will have to be taken that week - and I will try to commit myself to posting only one pic per week in this thread. If there are any others, they'll be linked to or will have to appear in a separate thread. Will I follow the theme? Depends......:lol:
 
johnnyguitar said:
To be honest - I didn't realise there was a theme :lol: I hadn't read the full 52 thread and wondered why everybody's pics had something to do with curves, so I guess mine was quite a lucky shot :whistling:
Click to expand...

Hi John.

:lol: Don't tell everyone it was a lucky shot regarding the theme :schtum:
I was just about to comment on what an unusual and inspired interpretation it was !

Nice clean shot with lovely colours, it works really well :thumbs:
I'm not that keen on the tilt myself, but that's purely a personal thing rather than anything wrong with it - and I seem to be in the minority anyway.

Shhhhh . . . Not sure if it's dust, but there is a black splodge right at the top on the right hand third that could do with cloning out.
 
Yeah there is a bit of dust on it - I hadn't noticed until you mentioned it and having attempted to remove the dust with a lenspen and blower, made it worse, then a bit better, then much worse, then not as bad as it was but still noticeable, I give up and I'll have to try and clone it out of future images! :bang:
 
Seem to have cleaned it up a bit for this week anyway!
 
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Ok folks - week 2. Cheers in advance to those of you that have looked in on this thread and left your comments. It's much appreciated and helpsp me understand better what I can and, more often than not, can't do :lol:

Anyway - week 2, Statue Of Liberty.
If it looks a bit smaller than you remember, that's because it's Leicester's Statue of Liberty - the one that used to sit on the roof of the Liberty Shoe factory in Leicester and was removed when the building was knocked down for student flats. It now sits at the end of Upperton Road.



I know I said my 52 wasn't going to follow a theme as I felt it was more important to just concentrate on taking a decent pic. It seems there is a poem relating to everything these days (although this one has been around since 1883 :lol: )

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
 
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It definitely stands out! ;)
Looks a bit soft focus wise though, but still a good effort.
Good linking to the poem.
I found this week a bit of a struggle what with being busy but I'm looking forward to the next week as I'm really going to give it my full attention.
 
I agree the focus is a bit soft. I tried a couple of different shots over a couple of different nights and I don't know if it's the way it's lit or the shape that makes it soft, but they all seem to have some softness.

You can see a daytime shot here which seems a bit sharper and another night shot here which I wasn't really happy with anyway for lots of reasons but I like the idea of the night shot just because I think it looks better at night! :lol:
 
John, the first works nicely, not sure on the angle, but ... It does work for the Curved theme.

I like the image and it fits the poem. It took me a while to work out what was "wrong" it's not green :lol:... also, the contrast between the statue and the black background seems very harsh, but I think I can understand how you got there.
 
Love the curved shot, the angle really works for me too (but I love angle shots anyway).

Statue does look out of focus to me.
 
The statue was shot handheld at f4 from below the statue, focused on the head - I guess there could be some depth of field issues, although I tried this from a couple of different positions and it looked a bit soft. Depending on which way you shoot, there is a lit apartment block in the background which I could probably get by standing further back and using a longer lens or getting up higher (which I can't do!!).

I'll have another go at it as I'm not especially happy with it, but I'm learning and I guess this is what it's about!!
 
This was the other shot I tried (link to bigger a few posts up from here)



TBH I think I was less happy with this one than the one I finally settled on, but that's what it's all about eh?! :lol:
 
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I much prefer the angle of the first one John,was it hand held,just a guess with you having upped the ISO to 800
 
I'm undecided between the first and second night shots that you've posted.
I love the angle of the first one, but I think the contrast between the white statue and black background is perhaps a bit too much.
The second one does look sharper and I quite like the buildings and lights around it to give it some context.

If you were able to get out and reshoot, I'd really like to see a version of the first one taken with a tripod to allow a slightly longer exposure and a bit more background detail - and to help you get it a bit sharper.

Very good idea though and well done for finding a poem to go with it.
 
Mick it was shot handheld at f4, 800 ISO and with you and Sarah, I like the angle and I agree Sarah, having spent more time looking at it, that the contrast is a bit much - I'll have plenty of opportunities to reshoot as it's only 5 minutes down the road, so I think that would be on the cards and provide an opportunity to go out a bit earlier in the evening when the sky is slightly lighter and also to try a different white balance to see if it makes any difference to the colour.

There is a plaque on the pillar with a quote from Thomas Paine that reads, "When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon" which I thought of submitting with the image, but it's not a flippin' poem is it? :lol:
 
Aah it's Friday and p*ssing it down and I'm clearly running out of time! :lol:
 
Well, end of week 3 and this is all I have to show for it :lol:
Had a busy and distracting week and generally not very motivated. Got to half 9 last night and thought I should get off my arse and go and take a photo. I went a reshot week 2's statue from a tripod at a lower ISO and a cooler white balance and it does look a bit sharper, but still not a brilliant shot!



It's a funny shot to try and take - I tried to shoot from across the road with a longer lens, but you end up pointing the camera up because you can't get up to the height of statue without trying to get into someone's flat! So what you see of the buildings and lights don't really mean anything. Then when you shoot from below it (like I have done), there is no background, all you get is a bit of sky and if it's dark, then it's just black.

Anyway, then I went up to the Highcross centre as I wanted to try and capture the John Lewis store at night and some of the Showcase cinema (it's sort of shiny hammered metal). It has nothing to do with the theme (although I'd never really intended to stick to it anyway :lol: ) but it's something I'd wanted to try for ages. I don't think I've done a particularly good job of it as I was trying to crop out most of the city centre crap (plywood fences around empty plots, traffic lights, road signs, etc) and it's just not very good. But I've not done anything else this week so it'll have to do :thumbsdown: :lol:

So, my week 3 - doesn't follow the theme, probably wasn't going to anyway. I could come up with some tenuous claim that the ring road has 'chopped' the city in half, but that would be clutching at straws, so I won't bother! It would have been easy to stick a knife through a cucumber and dig it into a chopping board (apologies if anybody's done that - I wouldn't have done it justice) so I opted to go and take a photograph that I'd been meaning to do for some time.
 
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Me: Hey there's a statue of liberty in Leicester,
Mrs: No there's not
Me: There is someone on the forum that's posted a picture of it. Was on some shoe factory.
Mrs: No there isn't.
Me: Look
Mrs: Oh yeah.


She's from Leicester :bang:
 
To be fair it hasn't been up that long - December 2008 I think it went up after the Upperton Road viaduct works were completed so if she's not been back for a while, then I guess she wouldn't have known - bless 'er! :lol:
 
Right John, although you have taken a decent shot for week 3 it has nowt to do with chopped. Yellow card for you.:lol:
 
Ah I had a crap week last week - didn't have time really to get out, didn't have time to look through any other threads and the only thing to show for it was this truly disastrous effort for week 4. Personally I think it's a load of crap but in the spirit of submitting something, here it is for your viewing (dis)pleasure. It was a bloody miserable and grey day when I went out and the colour (or lack of it) captures my mood and lack of inspiration. Ah well! I don't even think it's straight.
 
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I felt exactly the same this week, its been a while since they collected our rubbish and the fact that it just looks like a dive dont help ( round here )
Oh how i long for a picturesque village lol

Yours is a good shot though even if the subject isnt something you wanted :)
 
Much appreciated :thumbs:
I mean to put in some time to have a proper look at a lot of the threads - hopefully I'll get the chance tomorrow.
 
Thats no where near as bad as your making out John, it works perfect in black and white, suits the era in which houses were built. Well done....Mick
 
You're not the only one who didn't like this theme John, but you've done a good job of that. The textures and brick work along the wall stand out sharp and clear.
 
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