Race against time

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I feel like I'm drowning under a tidal wave today.
Work is utterly mad, and it's incredibly draining. I fear that we have so much work on, nothing will be done properly or in time.
On top of that, although I had a nice walk with the dogs, and cooked a tasty pizza, I have felt disproportionately down this evening. It took me ages to think of anything to shoot, and then when I eventually cut this bit off the "triffid" as I call the excessively productive beast of a plant that occupies half of the garden, it wilted pretty much before my eyes! This was supposed to be a photo stack, but the plant wilted by so much in the less than a minute it took to shoot the stack, that it was unusable!

A Forest of Capacitors

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A spot of electronic repair this evening, which turned out to be quite interesting - the failure wasn't strictly electronic, but one of the components had a fractured lead from metal fatigue caused by vibration.

Twiddling knobs

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Not the finest photo I've ever taken, but it is representative of my evening spent helping a family member's band get to grips with their new sound gear.
Not a bad little setup, and I've rather enjoyed my trip back into sound work.
Sadly, I'm not around to help at their first real gig with this new gear, but their regular sound man is doing a good job, and I hope the last couple of sessions with two heads on sound have been useful for him.

Droning On / One Way or Another

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I put the drone up this evening, after a rather long hiatus.
It evidently still works, and it would appear that I can still fly it.

Lightroom has really worked wonders on the first picture - the JPEG straight out of the drone was not much more than points of light in a black frame. The DNG file evidently held secrets to be revealed though!
Second shot and the straight JPEG after the jump...

Moving On

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I revisited "my" tree this evening.
It's looking very different today in the April drizzle than it did during a January storm or a beautiful February sunset. (Earlier shots after the jump)

Man Takes Picture of Flower

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Again.

I guess this is getting a bit boring. I need to try and diversify my subject matter a bit, I think.
That said, I was quite happy with this one, especially for something shot handheld outdoors.

Speedwell

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A walk in the woods with a local wildlife group and Bailey today.
Phone pic of a worn-out Bailey after the jump, to pay the dog tax 😊

I want to go back with a better setup, and without the time pressure of a guided walk to re-shoot a few subjects I saw today.

Herb Robert / Opportunistic Spider

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Went for a quick wander in the woods to see if I could catch the last few rays of sun on the bluebells. That was moderately successful, but I preferred this one.
I gave it a little bit of help with a mini cube LED light with a snoot fitted, which I think quite nicely mimicked a gentle sunbeam, and just lifted the subject out from the background a bit more.

The spider in the second picture (after the jump) isn't in perfect focus in quite the right place, but I was reasonably happy with it for a very opportunistically grabbed shot. Again, I gave the beastie a bit of light from the LED cube, as it was rather dim in the undergrowth.

Fully Transistorised

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It turns out that I am more mathematically incompetent than I had realised, so the photo I had planned for today will have to wait for another 13 days!
After scratting around for a while, I eventually settled on this as a subject. It feels fairly fitting, I've been doing quite a bit of electronics at work recently.

April Showers

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Saw this on my way home tonight, and was fortunately able to pull over in a good place to catch it.
Very patchy, torrential rain, moving fast.
This shower passed right across my field of view in a matter of minutes, chased up by bright sunshine.

One more after the jump

Reflective On Soar

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An impromptu trip out after catching a glimpse of some potentially interesting light (which I missed, obviously - as Joe Cornish said, if you've seen it, you've missed it) ended up bringing me to a side road near Ratcliffe on Soar power station.

As it happened, I bumped into another photographer who happens to be working on an article about the power station for a national newspaper. I shall be interested to read what they have to say about it when it's published.
I am very jealous that they are getting a tour of the plant tomorrow.

One more after the jump.

Networking Notworking

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"Update your firmware", they said.
"It'll make things better", they said.
"Your lights won't turn on", they neglected to mention.
"Your thermostat will be unreachable", they omitted to describe.

Roll back the firmware, I did.
Curse the internet of things, I did.
Roundly, and at length!

Alstroemeria / Turkish Coffee

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A couple of pics from today, one is a quick focus stack of an alstroemeria, and the other one is a phone pic of (the remains of) a Turkish coffee I had after lunch.
I originally took the picture as a quick snap to send to family who were trying to guess where we were, but I ended up liking it as an image in its own right, so I decided to use it on here to reflect the reality of the weekend rather than just another set-up shot.
Just wish I’d had a real camera on me rather than falling back on the phone!
Turkish coffee after the jump.

Tomatoes in Progress

I’m staying with my in-laws for a couple of days, and they have fingers that are substantially greener than mine. For reference, I appear to have the mysterious ability to accidentally kill off any plants that come within about 100m of me.
They are propagating a burgeoning collection of veg on their windowsill, and the hairs on this tomato plant were really catching the sun this morning.

I wasn’t totally happy with the photos I took this morning, so I came back later with a torch and had another go.
I could have done with focus stacking these, but although I have both the camera and laptop here, I stupidly don’t have the right USB cable with me!
A couple more after the jump.

Bluebells

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Cones

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A backup image today.

It's been quite a busy day, and I was out this evening revisiting my past life in audiovisual tech, helping a friend's band out with their live sound. I quite enjoyed it.

Faded Glory

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Mum bought these daffodils for me a couple of weeks ago, and they've been really pretty.
I never got round to photographing them in their full glory, but I do think they still look interesting now they have gone over. I couldn't decide between the shot with or without water droplets, so I've uploaded the other one after the jump!

Get Your Toe Down

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Plans for this evening went a bit sideways, but I went out for a drive in search of photos after I'd had dinner. I'm reasonably happy with this one.
It was actually quite a lot darker than it appears here, this is a 30 second exposure.

I also came close to repeating my incompetence of a few weeks ago, by throwing the big camera bag in the car, full of lenses, but absent a camera body. Fortunately, I had the M6 MkII in the car too, so while the 6D MkII and a better lens would have done a technically better job, I reckon this is pretty OK, all things considered.

Playing With Fire

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I've been wanting to do something with fire for a while, and now felt like a good time.

Brass swarf from the lathe and a few drops of alcohol produces an interesting surreal effect of burning metal.
Unlike real burning metal, this is relatively safe and controllable!

Bulbous Tower

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A trip to the National Space Centre today with my cousin in law and her family.

It's years since I went here last, on my third date with Lucy. So much has happened since then. If you think about it too much, it makes your head spin!

This one was incredibly close to black and white straight out of the camera, so it was an easy decision to go mono on this.

Bulrushes

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A trip out with Bailey & co today. I quite liked the look of the bulrushes filtered through the spring leaves.

Also a pic of Bailey after the jump, because the dog tax must be paid when one mentions dogs...

County Hall Reflections

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Took a late evening wander out with Mum and Dad this evening, and ended back here on the embankment, one of my regular haunts.

Brackets

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A backup image today, taken on a walk with a friend a couple of days ago.
I find it odd to think of these things as fungi, they seem too solid!

Louder!

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Oops... It's not plugged in.

I'm measuring and making a CAD model of the knobs on this amp to 3D print a replacement for a missing one, so naturally, I took a diversion via photography.
It's the most efficient way, don't you know?

Three Phase Sunset

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One that I took last night after I uploaded yesterday's photo.
One more from a walk I went on today after the jump.

Stay on the sunny side of the river

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I had quite a nice short-ish wander by the river this afternoon.
It started raining as I was heading back to the car, but I enjoyed the patterns it made on the water.

A couple more after the jump.

Peek

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The tulip from a few days ago has opened.

I should have focus stacked this one for optimal effect, but I'm tired and feeling slightly under par today, so I skipped that.

Outlier

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I was helping my parents out with something in their garden today, and grabbed a few photos as I was leaving.
I was quite pleased with this one.

Rainbow

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This rainbow was one of the most intense I've seen, particularly against the dark stormy sky behind.

https://open.spotify.com/track/79qxwHypONUt3AFq0WPpT9

Tune up

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I'm a bit knackered tonight, and quite glad to have finished work for the long easter weekend.
This is another one from yesterday.

Don't Fret

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A bit of photographic fun with a guitar that I've been asked to do some minor electrical work on.
It's a beautiful instrument, I wish I had the skills to make it sing.

I bought a Smallrig mini cube light, it's really meant as a video light, but it turns out to be pretty handy to stick up next to the flashgun as a modelling light of sorts. I think it'll be quite useful.

Waiting Game

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Thought I wasn't going to have time to get a photo today, but I eventually got round to shooting this tulip my Mum gave me a few days ago.
It's starting to open, hopefully in a day or two it'll be properly out.

Lunch is ruined

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It is only fortuitous that I had a new pack of bagels ready to go...

Explorations in Infrared

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Dug the old infrared filter out today because it was nice and sunny.
I didn't quite get the punchy clouds I was looking for because it had gone a little bit hazy, but it was fun to have a play with IR again.

I'm quite tempted to full spectrum convert one of my older cameras to play with this further.

A couple more after the jump.

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Radiant

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Not the most inspired or creative image, but I liked the way that the rays came out from behind the clouds.
I think it's relatively unusual to see these rays going up, versus how often you see them coming down.
Either that, or I'm very unobservant. Could be either really...

Inverted Understanding

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This post originally had a long spiel, but I'm told by a normal human being that this isn't the place.
Fine. Here's a self portrait where I'm exploring what is perceived versus what is experienced.

We see things through our own lens, and there are things in others' situations that we do not understand, even when we think we do.

A flower for Lucy

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Lucy's Camellia has just come out with a single flower. Not ashamed to admit that it made me cry.

Busy, busy

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A full on day staring into deep the soul of my CAD software, and a full on evening with faaaaaamily (you know who you are from that...) meant no time for a photo today, so here's another one from my trip out last night.
I'm slightly annoyed at having missed that bush in the foreground, I'd have moved a bit had I noticed it at the time!

Pending extinction

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The last coal fired power station in the whole UK.
While I'd be a very long way down the list of people to argue against the transition to cleaner energy, I have to admit that I'll be kind of sad to see it go when it closes down later this year. It's been such a fixture on the horizon, and a landmark on the way out to the motorway all of my life.
I wish I could go on a tour of the station before it closes, but it doesn't look like they offer tours.
One more after the jump.

VHS

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Remember these?
I've been digitising a few old tapes for a family member, and felt inspired to pay homage to the way we used to do home video.
Less than half a megapixel equivalent resolution, and full of analogue noise. Today, HD or even 4K in your pocket is now pretty much the standard.

I wonder what we will be recording our family memories on in another 30 years' time?

Never mind faffing with those flowers, I'm much cuter!

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A long walk with my parents and Bailey seems to have done my mental health a bit of good today.
One more after the jump. 

It's a drill!

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A few years ago, I did some macro work on a mirror. I thought I'd try it again here.
It may not have been the best idea, especially with the very harsh, raking light setup I went for. Despite cleaning the mirror carefully, I still ended up with a lot of dust spots in the image that had to be cleaned up in post. The flashes were very low down, in the same plane as the subject, so any dust on the surface of the mirror gets intensely highlighted!

Monochrome Bay

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I'm not entirely sure what to write today. I don't know how I feel. Perhaps a bit better than yesterday, but still a bit dented.

It's been a full on day again.
I spent the majority of the day working in our High Voltage test area with an external calibration engineer. Unfortunately the test area is rather bodged onto the factory floor, and far too close to a lot of noisy production work for my liking. It was very unpleasantly noisy, and I spent most of the day shouting over the noise of machinery while trying to carry out a calibration. Despite a near-disaster that I thought had killed part of the equipment at one point, the work was successful, but my ears are still ringing now.

I am exhausted

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Sorry if you're one of the numerous people I've missed messages from or let down in some other way.
Life is very busy, and emulating normal human behaviour is exhausting. I'm forever half a step from running out of mental bandwidth completely.

Normal service may resume at some point, but for now, here's a backup image taken a few days ago.

Bubbles!

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Continuing the (unplanned) abstract theme with some bubbles today.
This is a very transient subject to shoot, so I ended up with a fairly narrow aperture and blasted the scene with a softbox from above.
I don't have any flashes with modelling lights, but I tried bouncing a worklight up onto the face of the softbox, which worked really well for finding my shot, but was dim enough to make little impact on the final shot.
The extension tubes are proving pretty handy for getting a bit closer. I might splash out on a decent set at some point, just from a quality of life standpoint.

A couple more after the jump.

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Nothing in particular

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Feeling a bit abstract and unfocused today, and thought this fit the bill.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

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After the extreme depth of field work recently, here's the other end of the spectrum.
A wide open aperture on the 50mm f/1.4, plus a small extension tube, made the DOF vanishingly narrow.
I cranked the ISO up and turned off noise reduction to get a film grain feel to to the image.

I need to get one of the film cameras out for a play again...

Fell off the wagon (2024-03-08)

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First time during this project...
A headache, and feeling very tired after a rather annoying, underproductive few days back at work, conspired to put a stopper in my creativity, and I ended up shooting little and posting nothing.
This one is a backup pic taken earlier in the week - another one stacked with Helicon Focus.

Onwards and hopefully upwards...