Friends

Simple as that.

Ten years . . . .

Ken

Kras & Klaus, Kindred Spirits

The Photographer Klaus Tamm has won the GDT Nature Photographer Of The Year 2015




Klaus's Work

Kras's Work


Sean

Old School Editing

The 2nd picture shows the lost craft of improving a portrait by hand

Tip to Dee for the inspiration

Sermon from the mount

(you may need headphones)

Have a good one

Trevor

It's all a blur

For some Canon shooters the most prised set of lenses amongst primes shooters is knows as.
'The Holy Trinity'.

The lenses are:
The 35mm F/1.4 L
The 85mm F/1.2 L
The 135mm f/2.0 L


You're going to get lots of talk about ultra sharp at one end and buttery smooth at the other. They are very traditional focal lengths. My 35mm and 135mm hasn't been updated in years, and predate digital. the 85mm has been updated but not dramatically. I have the (none L) 1.8 version of the lens.

I began to take photography more seriously when I started looking in to its history. I was drawn to pictures of peopleor things that pertained to the human condition. I found my heroes and my guides and bought the tools that I thought would help me make my own statements. I guess you'd call the shooters that I most idtentified  with the ''F8 & Be There'  photographers. The Street shooters and the PJ's where content and context is everything.

One of my very favourite photographers is the late W Eugene Smith who famously said.
"What use is having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling"

I'm not much of an Ansel Adams fan but he had a point when he said.
"There's nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept"

I can't find a insightful quote about the current obsession with  blur.

Zzzz

Not A Matter Of Life & Dof

I typed four paragraphs about Bokeh (aka the Out Of Depth of field area of pictures) before thinking better of it and deleting it. That's 60 minutes of my life I won't get back, but I've saved anybody reading this a boring five minutes. I'm not going to write about it

I'll show you what I mean

Ohhhhh Buttery Smooth Bokeh. Shame about the model

 Grave of my parents

Diane getting in the way of my blur

Grave of Diane's parents

Sean


Update:

Famed Bokeh Lens

The 135mm F/2.0 L that I used for these pictures is a famed lens with Canon shooters. Lot’s of people like to get ‘Background Separation' with this lens by opening up the aperture to F/2.0. 

I  just  like to be able to still shoot in tough light. If I take somebody out to shoot them and then begin to separate them from their background, I usually conclude that I must have taken them to the wrong place. If It’s a found picture, say in a bar or on a street, I'm obviously there because that’s the environment where the things I like to shoot are to be found, that's the environment I love. Why would I want to blur that away?

The camera and lens is a heavy old 5.5lb combo . It was twilight in late December, the light was fading, I’m not muscle bound. I shot at F/2.0 so I could get  comfortable shutter speeds. The 'Bokeh', 'Background Blur' 'O.D.F' area in the pictures are a consequence of the conditions I was shooting in, not really an aesthetic choice at all. 

A good read on depth

Testing old lenses

By far the most popular things I sell are vintage lenses. I like to test them all out if I have the time. I gave some time to a Russian 500mm mirror lens and I'm not quite sure I like it. My instinct tells me that I should love it. It's a bit of a beast with manual focusing at such an extreme focal length.

Took it out today and I'm still not sure. The Bokeh (I'm not keen on that word) is unusual in the way it does circles, which I like. Usually fixed at f8 there are some good results to be had with these lenses with a subtle approach.

Six feet away this blackbird had a bath while out testing, is he telling me something?

Ken

In Search of Bluebells

First cycle trip in to the woods with Angie's new bike.

Ken

(Edit: 17th, a recent discovery Julie Fowlis, I like her.)

Gorillapod has lost his grip

Ruskin's View - My View

Diane - Church Brow Cottage - overlooking Ruskin's View - Kirby Lonsdale

I took this picture from the grounds of St Mary's Church, in the beautiful Cumbrian village of Kirkby Lonsdale. I was stood in the same churchyard where turner stood to paint, Kirkby Londsdale Churchyard 

He did this after reading Wordsworth's advice:
"By no means omit looking at the Vale of Lune from the Churchyard"

Diane is stood at the gate of Church Brow Cottage with The Lune Vally In the background. It’s a partial view of what is famously known as Ruskin’s view. Ruskin described the view as: "One Of The Loveliest Scenes in England, Therefore, the world"

I failed to come away with a good picture of the beautiful churchyard (but then who would dare to try after Turner?). Nor did I come away with a good picture of Ruskin’s view. But I had another view in mind, one that I happen to think is one of the finest in England.  


Sean

John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes

I've known about this for a while, I think this one will please you, Ken. I recall Angie being as a fan of The Pre-Raphaelites -  so maybe Ange to.

John Ruskin wasn't a Pre-Raphaelite, but he was a patron of that movement and major art critic of the period. He was played by Tom Hollander in Desperate Romantics on the Beeb.

Some lost Daguerreotypes of a trip to Venice taken by Ruskin were recently put up for auction by somebody who had no clue of what they had in their possession. The starting price was £80

Read More Here

Venice-Ducal Palace-By John Ruskin Circa 1851

Sean

Cracked Bat Box

We were given a cracked bat box from a good friend, Yve. I have repaired the crack and have placed it high on the Eucalyptus tree.

The early days we'd see many bats, last year we only saw two.

Welcome many more bats!

Ken

It's never too late

Man, I got this in just in time.

New shoots

Congratulations on being an Uncle again Sean!

From the garden today

Ken