A Photographer Dreams by Hugh Griffiths
The Arundel Tulip Festival is on my list of “every year” events. It’s an easy place to get to from Lancing, and the festival is a huge homage to the hundreds of different tulips that can be grown. The gardeners use several thousand bulbs and create a wonderful display. And of course, the rest of the Castle grounds are well worth visiting at the same time.
It's not an opportunity to introduce Poppy, my over-friendly cockapoo, to the crowds, but it is a lovely day walking around and looking at the incredible colours of some of these flowers.
Photographically speaking, it is easy to take beautiful colourful pictures, but the real challenge is to take a photo that is different from the many thousand photos of a group of flowers. I do take pictures of complete flower beds – I like the mass of colour, even though those pictures will not be used in any competitions. But I also try to take photos that are a wee bit different from the norm and using a different lens can give the opportunity to do just that.
I have a wide-angle lens (17-28mm, f2.8) and a macro lens (90 mm, f2.8) that can give quite different perspectives on the flowers; in this example, I have used my macro lens to peer into the heart of the tulip, emphasising the shapes and the colours of the stamen and the petals. It’s often difficult (for me at any rate) to get close up, macro, photos with the right depth of field – so that the bits that I want to be sharp actually are sharp. You need a much higher aperture value (so a smaller actual aperture) than seems reasonable to me … maybe I need to practice some more.
I love the contrast of the colours here, and the way the stamen and the stigma (have only just learned those terms – thank you Professor Google) are sharp, together with the petals. It’s a very graphic photo – I love it!
It's not an opportunity to introduce Poppy, my over-friendly cockapoo, to the crowds, but it is a lovely day walking around and looking at the incredible colours of some of these flowers.
Photographically speaking, it is easy to take beautiful colourful pictures, but the real challenge is to take a photo that is different from the many thousand photos of a group of flowers. I do take pictures of complete flower beds – I like the mass of colour, even though those pictures will not be used in any competitions. But I also try to take photos that are a wee bit different from the norm and using a different lens can give the opportunity to do just that.
I have a wide-angle lens (17-28mm, f2.8) and a macro lens (90 mm, f2.8) that can give quite different perspectives on the flowers; in this example, I have used my macro lens to peer into the heart of the tulip, emphasising the shapes and the colours of the stamen and the petals. It’s often difficult (for me at any rate) to get close up, macro, photos with the right depth of field – so that the bits that I want to be sharp actually are sharp. You need a much higher aperture value (so a smaller actual aperture) than seems reasonable to me … maybe I need to practice some more.
I love the contrast of the colours here, and the way the stamen and the stigma (have only just learned those terms – thank you Professor Google) are sharp, together with the petals. It’s a very graphic photo – I love it!
It was later that same day that I went on to the Arundel Wetland Centre (just a few hundred meters from the Castle). Always a delight, and there is a great café there as well! I have shown other photos from here before – this one is a bit different.
I saw this moorhen (I think), swimming along to its nest, holding one more blade of grass to make his home comfortable. I focused on the bird and tried to make sure that I got as little of the banks of the pond as possible; I was thinking of a photo that (after editing) would centre on the bird. I hadn’t got in mind the editing that I actually did; my aim when taking the photo was simply to have a picture of the bird on its own in the water.
But when editing I decided to try emphasising the moorhen and making the water almost disappear – almost, but not quite, as you need to have something to bring the moorhen into a real world! I selected the bird in Photoshop and made the rest of the photo very high key (very over-exposed), then I crisped up the bird. I’m not sure about the colour, but it looks attractive. I like this sort of picture, one that makes you think a little bit about what you are seeing. It isn’t too difficult to do in most editors.
I saw this moorhen (I think), swimming along to its nest, holding one more blade of grass to make his home comfortable. I focused on the bird and tried to make sure that I got as little of the banks of the pond as possible; I was thinking of a photo that (after editing) would centre on the bird. I hadn’t got in mind the editing that I actually did; my aim when taking the photo was simply to have a picture of the bird on its own in the water.
But when editing I decided to try emphasising the moorhen and making the water almost disappear – almost, but not quite, as you need to have something to bring the moorhen into a real world! I selected the bird in Photoshop and made the rest of the photo very high key (very over-exposed), then I crisped up the bird. I’m not sure about the colour, but it looks attractive. I like this sort of picture, one that makes you think a little bit about what you are seeing. It isn’t too difficult to do in most editors.
The following day, I went to the Weald and Downland Living Museum. This isn’t that far from Arundel, but I had run out of time the previous day. The museum – and here I conjure up the, inaccurate, picture of a grand old building full of interesting objects – consists of a large number of buildings scattered around an old lime quarry. These buildings are the real thing, but not from here: they were brought to the museum and re-erected as they were to give visitors a sense of what life was like in the past. There is a similar museum in South Wales at St. Fagans, just outside Cardiff.
One of the buildings at this place is famous for being a star of a BBC TV series. The Repair Shop is filmed here in one of the old barns. Indeed, when I was there that day, they were preparing for the filming of a new series. Quite exciting!
They also have craft shops where people are doing the actual work of craftsmen of their day. I particularly enjoyed the blacksmith’s workshop – they were making fireirons, and I was able to take a number of photos of the blacksmith and his assistant (older than him) doing their work. This photo is a favourite (there was one other, a close up of the scene above) and I have converted it to black and white to try to emphasise the old-fashioned nature of the job. In my opinion, it works and gives a more interesting feel than if I had left it in colour.
The Malden Camera Club usually meets on most Thursday evenings at the Library in Kingston Road. We are a friendly group and love our photography. Come along one evening when we start up again. You will be very welcome!
Our website gives a lot more information … www.maldencameraclub.org.uk
One of the buildings at this place is famous for being a star of a BBC TV series. The Repair Shop is filmed here in one of the old barns. Indeed, when I was there that day, they were preparing for the filming of a new series. Quite exciting!
They also have craft shops where people are doing the actual work of craftsmen of their day. I particularly enjoyed the blacksmith’s workshop – they were making fireirons, and I was able to take a number of photos of the blacksmith and his assistant (older than him) doing their work. This photo is a favourite (there was one other, a close up of the scene above) and I have converted it to black and white to try to emphasise the old-fashioned nature of the job. In my opinion, it works and gives a more interesting feel than if I had left it in colour.
The Malden Camera Club usually meets on most Thursday evenings at the Library in Kingston Road. We are a friendly group and love our photography. Come along one evening when we start up again. You will be very welcome!
Our website gives a lot more information … www.maldencameraclub.org.uk