The First Four Months.

When I first started taking photos five years ago this month I decided to go for a mid range camera.  This camera was the Canon 40d and I got some great photos from it, like this sunset over Buchaille Etive Mor.

This June I decided to upgrade my camera and was split between the Canon 5d Mk 3 and the 6d.  In the end I chose to go for the 6d and this is the result of the first four months of using it.

I received the 6d on a wednesday and had to wait until the friday night to get out and use it properly.  Unsurprisingly my first trip was down to North Berwick to get a sunset shot (I really need to do a sunrise shot one day).

The next day I was off to Linlithgow to take photos of the Leon Paul Junior Fencing competition that was organised by by fencing club ( www.wallacefencing.org if you want to give it a go).  Luckily for me the hall is very well lit as flash photography is not allowed, however I did have to crank the ISO all the way up to 25600 ( the 40d went up to 1600 and had lots of noise).

All of the photos shot at the competition were at f4.5 - 6 and around 1/800th - 1/1000th of a second so I could capture split second  action.  To be honest I was amazed with the results.

My next photographic trip was down in to the Scottish Borders to shoot Smailholm Tower and then head back up to Dunbar.

After these photos I had to wait for a bit to get out again for a variety of reasons, luckily for me I was on holiday in Exmoor and I really got to try the 6d out in a new setting.

I was staying between Porlock and Lynmouth, so had a lot of lovely scenery to play with.

This photo was taken at the end of the car park in Lynmouth at the end of a day that had seen lots of rain followed by broken cloud leading to an amazing sunset.

I was also close to The Valley of Rocks which is an amazing place to visit ( the cafe there is also worth a visit).  As you will see I have one or two photos from here.

Due to lots of cloud cover I missed the Perseid meteor shower, however the sky cleared on the night after their peak so I thought I would do a star trail shot.  I will admit tight now that I was 100% lucky in getting North Star in to the photo giving the fixed point in the left of the shot.

 Watersmeet is another lovely place to visit and I was happy to get this shot below.  My shot on the other river ended up with me ripping my new Fat Face Rip-stop ( My arse!) shorts down the right leg when I was getting out the way of a photography tour.

The shot below was taken just after sunset at Porlock Weir and it was my fall back location to shoot as I could not get to my first choice.  I am so glad I went there instead as I love this shot.

 And, these two shots need no introduction.

When I got back to Edinburgh I had to have a minor operation so wasn't able to get out for any shots.

I did book a shoot with the lovely Zara Watson at Pavilion Studio in West Lothian.   I would love to shoot with Zara again.

As I have been unable to fence for the last 5 weeks I was asked to go out (well I was told nicely) and shoot the foil 48'er competition at my club.

Shooting the 48'er was good as some of the best fencers in Scotland were fencing and It allowed me to capture some great shots in a restricted environment and I am now hoping to be allowed to shoot at the Commonwealth Fencing Championships next November (fingers crossed).

So that has been the first four months shooting with the 6d and I am very happy with the shots it takes.  Here's to the next few years with my amazing camera.

Whoa

I have been thinking about writing another post for a while now.  Especially after removing my last one as I didn't feel it was well written.

Luckily for me I decided to have a play with a photo that I thought could be edited better.  The photo in question (below) was taken at about 11am on a cloudy day on the road between Lairg and Laxford Bridge.  It was processed in Lightroom 4, however I felt I hadn't really managed to make it sing and kept going back to it.

On One software have the Perfect Photo Suite package and I have version 6.  To be fair I haven't used it that much as it seemed to be a little fiddly and I didn't get it.

I have no idea why, but I decided to open the photo and run it through the effects part.  This allows you to add a variety of pre-set layers to the photo adjusting the opacity before compressing them and saving the end result as a psd (photoshop) file.  These pre-sests are essentially shortcuts to save you spending hours in photoshop getting the same results

 The photo below is my first attempt and whilst I feel it is a bit over the top I was amazed at the detail and colour that came out.

As many of you will now be well aware this got me thinking (never a good idea) about my other photos as I am my harshest critic and always feel like I could do far better.  Needless to say I started going through previous photo edits and others that I discarded for a variety of reasons.

First up for the edit was a photo of Laxford Bridge which had been lacking something.  The result below left me happy with it and made me think even more.

I then decided to experiment on a photo that I couldn't do much with. It was taken on a very cold, wet and windy day in Glencoe and I was stumped.  Whilst the photo probably won't win any awards the time spent tweaking gave an atmospheric photo.

Now, I have several photos of The Falls of Falloch that I felt I could do better with.  The results below speak for themselves.

I went through a lot of photos and re-edited a most of them, but I was in for a surprise.

This photo of Edinburgh from Calton Hill as taken in May 2009 and after some editing I left it as I didn't think I could do anything with it.  I was wrong.

Last Monday I opened up Perfect Photo Suite 6 and loaded the photo.  After several attempts I had a result I was content with.

To save syncing my Iphone (lazy ass) I loaded the photo to Facebook and then saved to the phone so I could post to twitter.

I posted the photo to Twitter and have had the most retweets of any photo I have ever put on it.  It also got a lot of likes on facebook as well.

What has this taught me?  

I need to keep pushing and trying new things so that I can get better at what I do.  Also, that sometimes I do get it right first time.

St Columbas Hospice, Edinburgh

As some of you will know my mum died on the 4th of November 2012 and had spent the last two weeks of her life being cared for by the wonderful staff at St Columbas Hospice in Edinburgh.

In the three weeks since her death, my sister and I have been clearing her house and giving a whole load of equipment that is no longer needed to the hospice as they can use it.  However, it really needs cold hard cash to provide what can only be described as amazing care through the worst period in anyones life and then support that persons family afterwards.

To raise some funds for them I am organising a sale of my calendars and 7 one off prints (two gallery quality framed prints and 5 canvas prints) at my home on the 1st of December between 1.30-6pm. During this afternoon 25% of the price paid will go to the hospice.  

However, if you are in or around Edinburgh and would like one of my calendars I will deliver it to you and 25% of the cost will go to the Hospice.

Here is the link to my site if you wish to order the calendar. 

http://www.jamiestoddart.com/photo_9727175.html

Please buy this calendar for you or someone who will appreciate these fine photos and to help raise funds for a truly amazing service.

January

July

 

September

November

Edinburgh Goes Boom

I had this long post all planned out about the hard part of photography, the rejection and how I dealt with it.  Luckily you can all thank my friend Steve who texted on sunday morning to say he was buying tickets for Princes (not Princess) Street Gardens so people could watch the end of festival fireworks.  After spending several years down in Inverleith for them I naturally jumped at the chance and said yes.

7.45 comes along and we all meet up and find a space to settle down in.  As the gardens fill up I take photos and before I know it I'm trapped with a sappling in the way but I decide to make the best of it and catch this photo before the fire works start.

The fireworks were spectacular and the obligatory setting fire to the castle rock was good too.

Anyway with out further ado here are the photos, thanks for reading this nice and short post.