STORM CLOUDS, SUNRISE and SILHOUETTES

Well it's a day later than I like to publish but sometimes other things just have to come first.

It never ceases to amaze me how people love to take pictures of the sun. Be that sunrise, sunsets or for me the sun shining through storm clouds and it amazes me even more the feedback photographers get from having taken them.

I certainly like taking the pictures, I think you can get some stunning effects with the sun in the right place even though you sometimes have to play with the exposures the point where your family has got bored and wandered off into the distance.

The joy of the modern camera phone is that it's possible to get very good shots without having to lug your dSLR around with you so I wanted to share a couple taken with my Pentax and a couple taken with my Samsung Galaxy S2.

These first two are taken in Cardiff Bay, Wales and are from the 'mobile' set on my Flickr site taken on my Samsung Galaxy S2.

For me the low sun on both of them gives the opportunity for some nice silhouettes. I liked the sun coming through the light fitment on the top of the lightship and on the other, I was keen to capture the silhouettes of the tree, church and cranes in the background. Neither of these shots used any special settings and were just taken 'point and shoot'.

This shot taken on Brighton Beach, Sussex one overcast and stormy afternoon was the last of a number of images I took in manual mode trying to get the balance between the contrast of the bright sun and dark clouds.

And finally ... this one has been around before and featured in my blog of 11th January based on around Clevedon.

I'd be really interested if anybody has any advice or guidance for me on taking this type of image I'd be really grateful for your feedback.

THE RETURN OF THE PHOTO BLOG!

It's baaaaack. Well the photo blog is anyway After a break of a few weeks I thought it was high time to get back to the basics and bring the photo blog up-to-date.

So much has happened in such a short while I thought I'd start this week with a brief resume of events. My photo blog may have been quiet but looking back I seem to have been quite busy.

There have been photo shoots and events to capture, air-shows and a news article with my pictures. The Flickr app for Android made an appearance on my smart-phone which has led to some new work on the Kevin Leighton Photography Flickr site and I've been busy with my dSLR trying to shoot ever more awkward subjects in a manual mode.

When so much has been going on it's difficult to know what to concentrate on so I thought I'd just bring you some of my favourite images and just go with the flow. I hope you enjoy them.

Taken in Cardiff Bay, Wales. This was taken with the new Flickr app on my smartphone using the Tokyo filter and is one of a recent set of mobile phone images on my Flickr site.

I've been trying to capture seagulls in flight and have found it and extremely difficult task to get the exposure correct especially with the autumn skys being so changable depending on where you point your camera.











And finally November 5th and the inevitable fireworks displays were another photographic challenge and is one I'll write about in another blog.








So what's up and coming? I'll be writing about some of the photographic challenges I've encountered over the last few weeks and asking for some advice.

 I've also been in touch with  Darcy from my3boybarians and Kent Weakley from kentweakley.com who run very successful Twitter #photochat Q&A sessions in North America and they have agreed to run one for the UK & Europe hopefully in December. I hope to be able to confirm dates & times for the UK & Europe Twitter #photochat session shortly.

See you all again soon.

Music and Furniture - Quite A Combination For One Week

Wow what a week - there seems to be no let up in the opportunities I've been presented with in the last few days to update my albums. It has pretty much got to the point where I've started to fall behind with the editing, cataloging and writing so now it's full on to start to catch up some.

Over the last week I was allowed to take a small photoset of keyboard and flute duo  Tranquillo as they played and was invited to shoot a Furniture exhibition being put on by a collective called Furnish.

OK perhaps not the sexiest of shoots (the furniture that is) but it was  great opportunity for me to get involved in something very different and have the challenge of photographing objects under exhibition hall lighting.

The images below are samples from both of these sets.

These girls busking at Cardiff Bay were a duo called Tranquillo  and were kind enough to let me take some shots of them as they played.

There is something about the Black & White of the keyboard that just lends itself to being reproduced in a Black & White image.

 
Perhaps my favourite shot of the set. Shot with a Pentax M50 lens I love the clean lines of the furniture in the foreground whilst the background start to dissolve away behind it.

Again, shot with the Pentax M50 I think great lines, good lighting and to me the intricate shadowing below the seat just adds to the picture.







As always I hope you have enjoyed these and that you'll visit my Flickr stream to see more.

Kevin


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A review of The 3rd Floor Gallery - Cardiff Bay

When the day job takes you to the same location day after day it becomes quite difficult to find something different to do when you decide to take a break outside.

It was both a pleasure and a surprise to come across the Third Floor Gallery tucked away by a busy cross-roads in the heart of Cardiff Bay.

The gallery, called that because it is situated in the 3rd Floor of an old office building, can be accessed only by using the entrance buzzer and being buzzed through the front door.

After tentatively making my way up the stairs was greeted by a lovely lady who offered me a cup of tea and I started to look around what was on show.

The gallery is very airy and quiet with just a hint of traffic noise from below. It is in an excellent location and well suits its purpose.

The website outlines a number of activities going on within the space and via twitter and facebook I saw details of a photographic 'show and tell' event where you were invited to take your own images along to show them off.

The collection showing currently, and through to 12th June is 'The North' by John Bulmer. In brief, it is a selection of images taken in the North of England during the 1960's and 1970's .

The gallery is well worth a visit and I certainly enjoyed the images on display in the current collection. If you are in the area then do drop in and show your support.

See my own growing selection of Cardiff Bay images on my flickr stream.

Waiting to click

I drop into The Kat Eye View by Kat Saloma from time to time. She always has some great ideas for images to grab and the latest, which I've almost missed the window for, is no exception.

The current theme is 'Waiting', the idea being is that the shot you grab is one you've had to wait for rather than just taking something that's there already.

As soon as I read the topic I knew there was somewhere I might be able to grab a shot if the timing was right.

This main road in between the city of Cardiff, Wales and the Cardiff Bay area is usually quite busy at 9am but, on occasion, the road empties out because of the way the traffic lights are sequenced. I purposely started to walk this route on my way to work and eventually the road cleared as I was almost at one end of it, giving me a clear shot right up its entire length.

The Rule of Thirds (or not)

I'm posting this in response to a great piece over at thekateyeview about "The Rule of Thirds" and the focal point in an image. The focal point itself is never one of my considerations when composing an image, I just like to capture something that's a little bit different so I guess I generally always go with the rule of thirds, to a point.

It made me think about this series that I took a couple of weeks ago, one of which was my Sweet Shot Tuesday image last week.

An icy Cardiff Bay in the fog.

It's so unusual to see such a thick freezing fog here so I just had to take some shots as I passed.