The online presence of Tim Collier. Photographer, course leader, lecturer and blogger.
1. Read the manual
Spend a few nights tucked up with the manual – Some are pretty dense and are not exactly user friendly and I would recommend buying a specific guide for your model. I wouldn’t be without the Magic Lantern Guides written for the Nikons by Simon Stafford. Well laid out, clear, concise, to the point and simply invaluable.
A second fall of snow last week meant another opportunity to visit the feeding station and try and photograph the regulars under very different conditions. In any studio the control one has of the light is obviously a great advantage over working in the natural environment. There are of course techniques that can be applied outside that come directly from a controlled studio environment, bounced light is one of these. A white card can be placed on the opposite side of a flower for instance, producing a bit of ‘fill” or a light tent can be placed over your subject, creating a soft, even and flat light.
All too often we’re led to believe that the more equipment you carry with you on any photographic trip the better pictures you will take. In many cases the reverse is true. Photography is essentially a simple act complicated by an aggressive consumer industry that needs to keep selling new and ‘improved’ equipment.
Tuesday 3rd Feb 2009
A good covering of snow at the farm today gave a chance of some different shots. It’s the first significant snow of the winter and for a while was heavy enough to cause disruption on the roads.
It’s been an interesting 24 hours, with a good fall of snow last night and a further heavy shower for a couple of hours this morning. When it comes down like this, and that’s not very often round here, you have to make the most of it and it simply draws me out. There’s no possible way I can sit in doors knowing of the opportunities just beyond the comfort and warmth of the house. So between 11pm and 1am last night I roamed the streets! The dampened down sound created by freshly fallen snow is something I have always loved and by eleven last night Llantrisant was under the spell.
Such a simple tip for producing arresting images is to change your angle of view. Most photographers seem to see the world from 5’5″ and pretty straight on.
Some images from a day at the feeding station at Home Farm – Weather; bitterly cold with snow flurries. Goosanders have returned, but are very flighty. The bridge hide has been put on hold due to high water.
A simple technique to photograph new and exciting angles. By using a monopod and the self-timer setting on your camera you can extend your imaging into places otherwise impossible to work from.
To help explain this side of my work I’ll take a typical days shoot and describe how I process the images from downloading to saving as final ‘print ready’ photographs. Back in the autumn I was at Ogmore Estuary when I came across three Grey Phalaropes. I stayed with them for about four hours and took 701 JPEGS. They’re a fairly obliging bird and continued to ply a predictive route up and down the river all afternoon. As the session wore on it gave me more and more opportunities to try something different as I was confident I had secured some fairly decent ‘stock’ images.
I’m frequently asked which file format I shoot in, particularly when I talk to groups or societies and have a good number of mounted A3 prints for them to look at. There is often surprise when I reveal that the majority of the work is shot in high JPEG. RAW obviously has more information, often as much as ten times that of a JPEG. It has a greater latitude with regard to exposure and more control over the basic settings that are available to the photographer; such as colour balance, contrast, sharpening, saturation and hue – but all of this doesn’t necessarily make it the obvious and only choice. There are advantages and disadvantages in shooting in both. Once you have some understanding of what is involved with each it becomes a matter of personal preference and pragmatism, often related to the type of work you are involved in.
Just come across a quirky little download, but a bit of fun. It recreates your images in a Polaroid style and the images develop on screen. You’d get a little frustrated if you were doing loads, but it does put a real time factor back into the process and the effect isn’t bad at all. But what was originally seen as an instantaneous process becomes one were you now have to wait, all be it for a bit of fun. – thats computers for you! It’s a free download from www.poladroid.net available for PC amd mac
There is a lot written about the rules of thirds on the Internet as an aid to photographic composition, much of it giving sound advice with regard to applying the rule, its origins and the fact that it must not be seen as the ‘holy grail’ for the creation of fine images.
Going up to Liverpool to see family over Christmas always offers the chance to visit the Lancashire mosses. Phil and I managed a couple of afternoons on this occasion. The expectation is always as enjoyable as the event. Having a few hours ahead of you not knowing what may turn up is as good as it gets. I remember in my teens cycling out on weekends to these flat expanses and although they have changed since those days they still offer a good days birding.
I’m talking to Neath and District Photographic Society this evening and will be giving them a new presentaion that I’ve been recently working on. It explores the wildlife of Wales and is broken down into two parts. Part one, this evenings presentation, looks at farmland, woodland, meadow and mountain. Part two considers the estuary, rivers, Islands and the coastal fringes. For other presentations I am currently offering click here.
Sometimes you get what you don’t necessarily expect. On New Years Eve, whilst having a cup of tea at my mums, a Wood Mouse leaped from the ivy on to one of the feeders. A moment of wondering whether or not to extract, and it feels like that at times, the camera and 500mm lens from the rucksack, or simply watch and enjoy the spectacle followed. You really know what the outcome of such wonderings will be!
Between Christmas and New Year we had, at last, a couple of bright days. December being one of the dullest on record. At the farm it was a chance for the buzzards to use the thermals. They would welcome this opportunity to use these currents for a spot of static soaring as the energy they save whilst hunting in this way is substantial. A Buzzard will reduce its energy consumption by as much as three quarters by soaring rather than conventional flying using flapping flight.
The sun shone on Christmas Day and raised cheers in our house. It has been particularly dull over the last few weeks, not much rain but just those drab flat days that close in a good hour before the official lighting up time. Boxing Day dawned without a cloud in the sky and saw me heading off to the farm.
I had been watching the BBC weather forecasts for a few days before deciding on which day it would be best to pick my daughter up from Aberystwyth University. The plan was to meet her late on in the day after I had managed a few hours photography on the way at Nant y Arian, about ten miles east on the A44. I was then due to drop into the town and photograph the Starling roost at the pier. With a setting sun over Cardigan Bay it would all be set for a well planned and organised days shoot.
We decided to spend our last day at Pensthorpe near Fakenham. An interesting choice and one governed by a number of factors, not least of which it being a convenient place to have a hire car delivered! We had traveled from South Wales together in the same car, it gives a chance to catch up and plan the days ahead and have a laugh and joke, as brothers will! Traveling over night, as we always do, alleviates the traffic, although I was amazed at how busy the M25 is at 4.00am! On the way back we were going our separate ways, Phil back to Barrow and me to Llantrisant. Pensthorpe would also give the opportunity of working with some British birds in the aviaries at the reserve.
