Flurry

YAY SNOW!

I wanted a photo of something a bit more interesting than an all-white park or road (I have plenty of those).

As the sun went down and I decided to go home the snow began to fall heavily after a brief pause. The snow falling around the street lamps reminded me of bugs attracted to bright lights. I really wanted a total freeze-frame, but alas I had to sacrifice shutter speed. There's also a bit of lens flare, but seeing as I was shooting directly at a lightbulb it gets a pass.

Stone lion

I'm not usually a fan of photos with selective colour, but in this case I decided to give it a try.

I took this photo last year when I was still noobing it out with my new Nikon and kit lens. That's not to say that I'm "pro" now, but I think I know my camera a little bit better than before (and I might have used my 35mm prime in portrait orientation this time around). I liked the texture of the statue, as well as the lichen patches that had formed on it which gave it a nice splash of colour. When I looked at the picture later on my computer the features that I liked were lost in the background distraction of green leaves. Naturally I wanted to make the photo black & white but doing this would obviously remove the lichen patches, hence my decision to use selective colour.

It was just a case of overlaying the original colour image on top of a black & white version in Photoshop, then erasing everything from the colour image except the statue.

I then played with the blending mode of the colour layer and chose pin light. This had the effect of turning the lichen a bit more orangey-red instead of the original yellow tone, but it also added some definition to the lichen edges, as well as making it look less like a quick hack job using hue and colorization adjustments.

A few more adjustments with contrast and brightness to bring out more definition and a quick blur of the sides (to soften the spiky tree in the foreground which really distracted my eye) and it's done.


I suppose it's one way to rescue an image that's missing a certain something (or has too many distracting subjects), but I don't know if I'd use the effect often.

Sunset in the city

Happy New Year, etc.

I totally forgot about the New Year parade in central London, so when I walked into the area of the event I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately - and because I forgot about the parade - I caught the tail-end of it and only managed to take a few photos of the event (which I'll probably post another time).

Walking back through Piccadilly as the sun was going down was pretty dramatic. I snapped this sunset with the warm, yellow light reflecting off the buildings. Sunsets in the city rarely involve a real horizon.

The roads in the immediate area were closed, hence the lack of general traffic. It kind of gives this image a 28 Days Later, post-apocalyptic feel (always good), and the people frozen in time look a little like zombies aimlessly wandering around, looking for brains... brains.

Now I feel like watching a zombie film. Any suggestions?

A dog and his balloon

So far December hasn't disappointed at all. It's cold and dreary, and everybody is bundled up in big dark coats, gloves and scarves. So it's always nice to see something more cheery, colourful and a little different around this time of year.

And to think I was going to put my camera away because my fingers were getting cold... pfft. Moment almost missed.

...and buses might fly

In the future, maybe. We already have hybrids, flying ones shouldn't be too far away.

Pigeon or dove?

The internet says they are similar: "doves are white pigeons", "pigeons are a type of dove", "pigeons are crusty, grey and dirty but doves are clean, white and pretty", blah blah blah. All I know is that this white pigeon decided to sit on the bench I was sitting on and I had my camera with me.

I had a white carrier bag with me at the time, so maybe he (I shall refer to it as a "he" from now on) thought I had food. He was quite content with just perching near me.

I rustled the bag a little, and he got closer. Then I noticed the tip of his beak was overgrown and curling inward. He probably isn't that used to scrounging and fighting over crumbs. This along with his more friendly temperament lead me to believe that he might have been a hand-reared pigeon which was released during a ceremony (wedding?) and that instead of finding his way home, got lost and ended up in a park, joining a bunch of other "normal" pigeons. I offered him a piece of a nut and he pecked it out of my hand.

Naturally I wanted to see how close I could get the camera...

Almost into his face actually and he wasn't too scared of it, but my 35mm lens only focuses from about 30cm so this was about as close as I could get and still get a good picture.

Then he was joined by a friend (up top), but she (yes, the other one shall be referred to as a "she") had some black parts on her tail-feathers. Maybe she was also a hand-reared bird, and whoever released her coloured the dark bits white so she looked like an "all-white dove", and the white colouring washed out after living the street life for so long... Yeah, that's right, I created backstories for a couple of street birds.

A final "Hey, what's that ya got there?" pose.

Lego jacket

Strange fashion choices ahoy:

I won't knock it, I think her style is kind of interesting. But I don't know how comfortable it is to have a bag strap over the Lego blocks. Surely the weight of her bag is digging the blocks into her shoulder...?