There was an opportunity for a great number of photos today as there was a concert in my local park with quite a few bands, and despite some spoil-sports in the crowd it was a very nice day. Very sunny and not too hot.

The shot I chose for today is an example of things not going quite right and getting a better shot than you anticipated. I took the shot when it was stating to get a little darker and I had the flash enabled, but due to the rapid fire it wasn’t always charged enough to flash. So I thought I had some shots that might not come out. However it turns out that the shots with the flash were of course prone to red eye but the back of the stage was way to visible. The shots where the flash did not fire did tend towards the dark side but were much more atmospheric.

Here is one of the shots with the flash,

Although I like the photo because it has a little humour I feel the other is a little more sexy. Thanks to a very nice subject and a little luck on my part.

Okay so there might appear to be a gap in my picture of the day, it’s not that I’ve not been slacking off, I just can’t count!

Ironically this picture today has a numerical theme. I’ve often seen those challenges to take photos of numbers one to ten but never really saw the opportunity.

The lake was so calm and almost black, which makes a change since its almost always a little brown. I love reflections and managed to get two, well actually ‘3′ and and ‘8′ but I like this little better that the ‘8′

You Decide here’s the number ‘8′

When in doubt do what your familiar with. I had no real plan for this photo but that it had to be wildlife. This shot was just a perfect opportunity though the original was underexposed since I didn’t change the ISO when the light suddenly changed on me and I had it set to fixed time due to the subject. However the ever-useful Picasa managed to brighten up the photo and the colours came out quite well.

I had ho plan for todays shot, just the usual location of Rufford country park. I set off with the 18-200 lens planning some quite close photos or some wide angle around the lake. But on seeing a a nest with some chicks in the rafters of the abbey I went back and exchange for the 50-500 since i couldn’t get a detailed enough shot.

I managed to get some shots of the chicks but boy did they look evil, but thankfully i spotted this lone bird on the roof top and thought I’d give him a shot.  I quite like silhouettes and although this really isn’t it has that feel to it with the gray of most of the colors. think the orange beak is a nice contrast.

Today was a day for experimenting, and like most experiments it didn’t go quite as planned.

What was the planned photo? well due to the nice rainy overcast and slightly misty day, I was going to take a photo of these pylons I pass on the way home from work. Now everyone has seen pylon shots but with these you could get a nice perspective as they went across the field and to add to that at the moment they are mostly surrounded by scaffolding for some repair work, adding the to “linearness”.

Well it was a very busy day on the road and I had to drive about 1/4 of a mile past them and walk back in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin which wasn’t that difficult since I was only wearing a small summer jacket. The camera was wet and I was getting worried for it, since I’d left its new jacket at home not expecting this weather. I tried and tried to get the shot I wanted, a nice wide angle shot of all the steel running into the distance, but the rain decided it wouldn’t let this happen and drops on the lens spoilt the shots. So what do I do now? I still need todays’ photos. The plan was to drop in at a local country park and get shots of rain on the lake.

I had to exchange lens due the the previous one was damp and smeary and started to trudge down to the lake. Walking through the trees down to the lake I saw the shot I wanted, rain dripping from the leaves. So in the end you get what you can get, and I’m quite pleased at what I got. I quite like the way the sodden muddy grass is the background has a camouflage kind of feel, and that the leave is still quite crisp and the rain drop is nicely blurred. I just wish I didn’t have to get so wet.

Today was another day when i didn’t manage to find much to photograph. This was shot was just a quick snap as i thought the flowers looked quite nice. The resulting photo was okay, but he depth of field didn’t realy work and the background was still detracting from the flowers. I found however in picasa that bumping up the shadows seemed to level the background to a nice consistent black leaving the flowers to pop.

I jumped at the chance to take photos of birds of prey at the local park but I wasn’t quite sure what lens I should take, my 18-200mm lens or the more difficult 50-500mm. I took into consideration that I wanted to get close-up shots but without a tripod since the bird might be moving. Did I want to get wide shots? maybe not.

Well in the end I plumped for the 50-500mm “bigma” lens but up to the last minute I was still unsure I had made the right choice. I know I could have taken both but since I expected to be doing a lot of walking later I only wanted to select just the one.

To make sure I got the shots, I did something which is quite new for me and went more into the creative modes. Due to the long lens I chose “shutter priority” and picked a nice time that would cut down on shake while allowing me to have the best ISO possible.

I’m very pleased with what I got that day, well the birds at least. Later in the day I went “hunting” squirrels in the woods and forgot to adjust the camera accordingly. I came back with some very underexposed shots!

Unfortunately due to a mind lapse on my part my only photos from the day are the ones I posted to flickr; during a house-keeping exercise I deleted the original photos mistaking them for the exported and corrected photos. Damn! Oh well, I still have some great shots.

Boy it was hat when i took this. I didn’t really fancy  going for a long walk to get my picture of the day, so i had to find something interesting to photo that was something i hadn’t done before.

Well this wasn’t my first choice, i can’t remember what that was now, this just and experiment. The object was to do a detailed macro shot with the right amount of motion blur on the fan blades, it took a while to figure the right amount, i went from the blade looking stopped to so blurred you couldn’t really see it.

There is something about flowing water. I’ve never really tried to take photos of it before because I find it difficult to keep my hand steady enough for it to look okay.