McNyat's 52. Still here!!! Work & Evolution added - More to follow soon... Hopefully

Hi Michael,
thanks for commenting.

I tried to convey Ciara: gettingon, bouncing and falling off. I have mirrored the last pic to help with telling the story, (I know that the hair clip is now on the wrong side) and added the frame as you have suggested.

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Hiya Ciaran

I like your trio shot, very clever idea for the theme. Much prefer the second post as it seems to flow better.

Well done

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
A brilliant trio, I really like it - great subject and a well shot set!
Do you have some sort of studio that you did this in?
 
Thanks to all who have commented.

Tim, I just have a white sheet with a Lastolite 2 light kit. Will take a shot of the set-up later and post it.
 
First version seemed to be missing something, which I think you very much fixed with the second version, flows well telling a story from left to right.
 
Ive been busy with other things for a while and am gong to try to get back into this 52.

Any way some pics to catch up:

The 'OBJECT' for my falling behind is the Gazeebo that I decided to build in our garden. This was started last July, put on hold over the winter and then when the weather improved over the past couple of months I have literally spent all spare time getting it to this stage. Wee bit still to do but at least it's functional :)



Object_-_Gazeebo_small.jpg











Re-shoot for week 11 - 'ACCOMMODATION'. The Sleive Donnard Hotel where we had a couple of days over Easter to rest after all the work with the gazeebo.



Accommodation_-_Sleive_Donnard_small.jpg











On the way back from the Easter break we stumbled across beautiful tropical gardens that had many wonderful animals such as this peacock. I kept the palm trees in as part of the shot as I felt that they helped to convey the 'tropical' theme.



Tropical_-_Peacock_small.jpg




Hopefully I can fill in the missing themes over the next few weeks (although some are very difficult to get ideas for, without just giving 'token' shots).

Please leave feedback as this will encourage me to keep going.
Thanks :thumbs:
 
Hiya Ciaran,

Glad to see you are still with us and well done on the catch up.

The gazebo is gorgeous, and well done on the build. I bet you are going have some great times using it. So when is the roof wetting party? :D
I love the way you have photographed this, the star bursts really add to the feel and the whole image looks very inviting.

Your accommodation shot is a definite improvement on the first, and I can see the progress you are making with your photography with this photo. Once again love the light bursts and the sky is beautiful with the few stars. You have used great control with this photo.

Tropical is right on theme, and I can see why you left the palm trees in to add to the tropical feel. A great shot, although it looks very slightly soft to me ... perhaps a bit of sharpening will bring out some more of the detail, especially in the peacock's feathers. But otherwise a well composed photo.

You definitely have to keep going, these are some great shots and I look forward to seeing the rest as your post them.

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
Well done on keeping up mate.

Have to say im impressed with the gazebo... was it a kit build or did you just go for it yourself... def needed in the UK where often a nice bit of sun is accompanied by wind!
Is it structual steel... as an engineer I always fancy doing something to my house in steel!

Love the space hopper shot to... real pro looking... well done!

Mark
 
Hi Ciaran,

great set of images here... love the gazebo .. full marks for effort, both building and taking it i guess. and such a beautiful still shot of the peacock... :thumbs:

Kev
 
Hi Dawn, Mark, Kev & Tina,

Thanks to you all for the feedback.

Sorry Dawn, the part has been and gone, great evening with a few friends and family. Glad to find that the wind was kept out perfectly as when we went out to the children (who were happier playing in the garden beside thye gazeebo) every now and then when needed we realised that it was pretty cold out. The kids didnt seem to notice.... they say young blood doesn't feel the cold.

Kev, the construction was 4 midl steel channels concreted into the ground and clad with timber. Aluminium channels were also recessed into the timber and paving brick on the ground to give the glass that 'frameless glass' look. The roof is all timber with tounge & groove visible on the inside. I did it myself, except for the paving brick, (glutten for punishment me, but it's all been worth it in the end).

With regards to the softness of the peacock shot, I had noticed this. The higher resolution version seems to be ok but when I re-sized it to the smaller size I felt that it had softened a little. I have thought this with some of my other posts. Is there any way of counter-acting this? Anybody got some suggestions?
 
Heres a couple more to catch up:

This first one was originally meant to be for week 19-Didived. However following a number of 'foul' breaks where the white went into the corner pocket my thoughts changed to week 15's them-Wrong (as I have another better idea for divided which is an outdoor shoot and will have to wait for better weather).

Anyway, I give you the 'wrong' way to execute a break when playing snooker :bonk:

Wrong_small.jpg



I know that the radiator is not great and could have pp'd it out but please overlook this (time is in short supply and I'm very behind at the min) along with the fact that half of my head is cut off ,although I feel that this works (maybe) as the main focus is on the snooker balls, and comment of the rest of the shot, ie motion blur, colours etc. I had about 20 attempts at this to get this timing btw, learned a few new things and also enjoyed myself along the way.



This also got me thinking about another weeks theme that I was really struggling with...... week 16-paradox. Snooker in black and white doest seem to make sense.


paradox_small1.jpg



Divided to follow (sometime this summer maybe :lol:) along with more to catch up fully.


Please share your thoughts as they will hopefully help me to improve.
 
You snooker break reminds me of my skills with cue and ball :$ :lol:

Whilst I was aware of the radiator my attention was held by the action on the table :thumbs: IMO your lack of a head actually looks deliberate and again pushes the viewer to the tbale. I like the blur, looks strong and fast :D

As for the b&W...well that is plain wrong ;)
 
Hiya Ciaran,

Two great shots .... I'd love to try this some time, but don't have house big enough for a snooker table :D Will have to try this at one of the campsites I visit on my travels later this year.

As Tina has already said, the radiator and chopped head don't distract too much from the main focus. My eyes are immediately drawn to the action of the shot, great motion captured there :thumbs: I think the composition works well. Out of curiosity what does the other side of the room look like, perhaps taken from a the other side of the table might have been different, i.e., no radiator?

The b&w is definitely good for Paradox, I think trying to play snooker in b&w could be a challenge in itself ..... :thinking: although after a few :beer: what difference would it make :lol:

Well done on both counts :clap:

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
Much prefer the second one to the first... great idea generally for a shoot though... I can imagine even cooler pictures from a snooker hall with the contrast and the dark lurking atmosphere of the hall! Just a petty they cant be smoke filled any more now... I love the motion blur on the balls!

Mark
 
Thanks again to all who have commented. Just tried a quick pp on one of the above following the last comment from Mark. Feel that it improves it in some ways but some of the motion blur on the figure has been lost and I cant decide if this matters or not as the main focus is on the balls?

Wrong_dark_small.jpg
 
Heres my catch-up for 'divided' showing either side of the fence......


divided_small.jpg





...and also when taking pics of Ciara last week she started playing up a bit so I had to threaten her with getting no treat when we were finished.
She promptly gave me her BIG puppy dog eyes and 'promised' to be good.....


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... and then wanted to do something different for twisted and came up with this shot of a tree. I gave the camera a slight twist during the exposure to come up with this sort of contemporary effect.


twisted_small.jpg
 
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All three on theme :thumbs:

Divided: a great idea, I like the desaturation on the 'other' side. Shame a bout the sky :(

Promise: I'm not good at portraits and find them impossible to crit so leave that to others.

Twisted: A good idea and enough turn to make an impact but not too much; again, shame about the sky :(
 
Hiya Ciaran,

Great catch up and love all three photos.

Divided: Wow that is some contrast .... I hope your garden is the one on the right :lol: (says she who's garden looks like the Amazon Jungle at the moment ... time for me to call in the garden service :D). Nice DOF, spacing is a bit uneven ... which leads me to ask .... how did you take this photo ..... were you balancing on the fence? However, it does fit the theme well.

Promise: I love this photo .... like Tina, I too don't have the expertise to offer constructive critique, but in my eyes, this is perfect! I think the b&w conversion works well and the angle at which you have taken the shot adds to the 'promise' look. Ciara is a gorgeous little gem with beautiful big eyes and lovely hair. :thumbs:

Twisted: Well as you will probably know by now I love this kind of image .... it is 'out of the norm', abstract and I like it very much. My only crit would be to have cropped it at the bottom so that the tree trunk is coming direct from the corner. It is a pity about the OE sky ..... but have you considered maybe applying a bit of a grad filter in post processing to dull it a bit? But hell that is a good technique that I might try myself some time (especially as I live in front of a woodlands and have loads of opportunity for such shots .... weather permitting :lol:).

You are doing a great job with your project, keep up the fab work .... I always look forward to seeing what you produce for each week.

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
Hi, there, some well thought out themes there.

Object...well my, that's a nice hideout...catchlights are nice and it has a really warm feel to it.

Great ideas with the snooker photographs. I prefer the perspective of the B&W and the reflections of the balls is great.

Divided, another nice idea and well composed. I though making the other side b&w may emphasise the divide??

Cheers.
 
Hi Ciaran, great shot for "twisted". I love these simple but striking images. The brightness is very appealing. The white sky and overexposed tree works well.

The composition is very good, but I would prefer to see the trunk coming out of the bottom right corner of the frame and to have more of green in the frame.

Also really taken with the potrait of Ciara. Very nicely done and good to see a different perspective. Hope she got her treat:)
 
HI Ciaran

you have some great ideas for the themes:thumbs:
Beautiful portrait , those eye's are wonderful :)

Like the idea for Divided but my OCD wish's the fence ran straight down the centre , the sky's already been mentioned but I know how difficult skies can be :thumbs:

Great take on Twisted...think you've achieved the effect you were after.More color in the tree & less white in the sky would help but still far better both in idea & execution than I could do :thumbs:

Great edit version of the Snooker table...think I prefer that version as it really concentrates you on the action :clap:

Great captures , look forward to seeing the rest of your 52
 
Power added.

Trying hard to cath up. Will describe this one in more detail when I have more time.


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Hiya Ciaran,

Love the colours in the sunset of the 'power' shot.

Well done

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
Great shot for power. And good on yer for keeping going - I was weeks behind at one point so I know how easy it would be to give up.

Great colour in the sunset. I'd be tempted to increase the exposure and see what it looks like.
 
No folks, I haven't given up. Still trying to keep this 52 going and adding my offering for 'Broken' from a few weeks back. This is a piece of glass that was moulded in the kiln at work and as you can see it didn't go to plan. Some may feel that the depth of field probably could have been greater, but I was trying to place the focus on the broken edge.


I have a few ideas for some of the other themes and I am determined to catch up (but not with just any old shots as that would detract from the holw point).


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On another note I have been out and about taking photos of some of the work that we have completed as part of my day job (and I hope that some of the up-coming themes will allow me to post some of them). This has helped me greatly with the old confidence issue that I mentioned a while back :)...... although there is still a long way to go.
 
Hi, as said, you're power horizon's off....

Great colours in the sky and nice clouds. It's a tad close for me, though.

Broken, it has a Star Wars feel to it, I feel. I like the reflections, it looks quite sharp and some nice blues in there.

Any reason for the larger space at the RH side?

NB, I've just realised it on glass or some similar top....nice reflections :thumbs:

Cheers and catch up...;)
 
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