Always look both ways when taking photos

I was taking photos of the Forth road bridge and didn’t take make notice of the Forth rail bridge. It’s been taken to death BUT when I turned around I got this image.

I loaded it up on Viewbug and got into that month’s featured photos.
My best results so far on a single image. 50 peer awards and 120 likes as well as having 6 Photo Trifecta awards.

The actual image I was there for that night was this one.
I took a walk on top of the road brigde to see the sunset and new bridge.

Thanks for the visit.
Jacques le Roux

City secrets

We should investigate our cities better when it comes to it’s history and hidden secrets. I only had glimpses of Glasgow’s hidden gems. I was one day there for a specific reason and had a few hours spare. This was the result of a walk I took trying to find the gems.

A combination of the 5 bridge legs under the railway bridge at the river.
I was playing around with long exposure and traffic. This was a post office truck going across my shot.
I used two photos over each other to end up with a split of both.
A portion of the wall mural, well known and worth a visit.

Thanks for the visit.
Jacques le Roux

Leith walk

We visited Edinburgh Leith walk in February (sorry about the absence, been a tad busy with life things).

Initial idea was to get some nice photos and this changed as we went further into the night into a Steelwool spinning session. I learnt to always have a bottle of water on hand as I nearly set the old rotten wood on fire on the bridge. A large ember got into a crack and I couldn’t get to it, a bottle of water saved the day or should I say the old bridge.

Thanks for the visit
Photographs by Jacques le Roux

Revisiting sites with new eyes

I saw a photos which tweaked my interest and I knew I have to go back to visit a site I have been at a few times BUT with a new goal in mind.

It was a misty evening and I phoned someone I know who lives close to the location, he confirmed it’s misty there. I jumped in the car and drive the 30 min and arrived very disappointed as the mist didn’t look great at all. As I have learned with photography don’t give up to quickly.

I walked down and spend the rest of the evening getting these photos.

 

My favourites of the evening.

I think this came out looking great with the spotlights at both ends of the eye.
The landscape photos looks great when the photo is full screen.
As I was leaving I tried to get a few photos of the Kelpies reflecting in the water.
Normally this would be red or blue but as I started the photo it was blue and the photo ended in red
the Kelpies came out as pink. Great bit of luck and I prefer the pink over the red.

I have realised not to give up on a location as you could always get a fresh idea to run with and test out.

Thank you for viewing my photos
Jacques le Roux …

Glasgow transport museum Part 2

Second part of the Glasgow transport museum tour.

Slowly it has dawned on me I might have found the part of photography I like the most. People say look at the bigger picture, I think I prefer to show the smaller part of the bigger picture. Everyone’s seen the bigger picture but the small things in life pass us by!

Camera: Canon 1D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 24-105 L IS USM
All indoors photos:
Aperture: F4
ISO: 3200
All outdoors photos:
Aperture: F4 or F8
ISO: 200

Description are below the photo to first give you chance to decide for yourself what it might be.

Easy one, a train lantern.Front of the train with the lantern. The side of a tram.A classic truck radiator and radiator cap.Norton motorcycle.
Fire engine’s pumps.

Now the outside of the Glasgow Transport museum.
Small conclave on the right hand side of the building.
Love the way the angle of the connecting plates draw your eyes to the roof and onwards to the sky.
Just had to take this photo. Another excellent example of the brilliant art around the building. This is the bicycle racks.This is a curved window, see if you can make out the landscape reflected.
If you are ever in Glasgow made a point to visit the museum. In part 3 I will show you the Glenlee which is moored behind the museum.

Photographs by Jacques…

 

 

The King is dead, long live the King!

Smartphones vs point and shoot:
A high street chain has gone into administration and it’s partly blamed on the smartphone. Love them or hate them Jessops gave us something we sometimes needed. A local shop to pop in at a emergency and get some photography equipment or parts. To be honest I browsed there a few times and even spent my hard earned cash at one or two occasions but where once Jessops were and another will fill the gap.

I don’t know why they think smartphones are the death of point and shoot cameras. The smartphones cameras quality is poor compare to the new breed of point and shoot cameras. My Canon SX200 is 2 years old already and quality I am able to get are amazing (and with operator error atrocious) compares to my 1 year old HTC phone.

There will always be a market for point and shoot cameras and the market leaders will keep pushing the boundaries but as the sales slow drop the prices will creep up.

Trust your instincts:
On one of the photographer’s blog I follow the photographer mentioned to always have a camera in your bag. You never know what you will miss if you don’t. I already experienced this a few times and I could kicked myself for missing some unique photos.

A quick example: Walking down platform 7 at Edinburgh train station there is a gap in the wall. The gap is in the form of a archway. On the other side there was a train engine (diesel type, big nose and a cab high up). In the window of the cab there were a pair of shoes, the driver were having a relaxing time with his feet up. I saw it, I hesitated, I thought about taking the smart phone out and then continued to walk on. This must have happened 2-3 months ago and I’m still thinking about it. Bad decision at the time!

Because of this simple example I decided that if my instinct tells me to stop and take a photo I should to do just that. If it means while driving I have to turn around and go back to a certain spot I just passed then so be it. Don’t miss out on that one photo of a life time because of either not having a camera with you or hesitating. Remember that if you hesitate it’s almost already to late, trust your instincts!

Firstly camera phones, these photos were taken with a Sony K800i or a HTC Desire Z:

And then point and shoot cameras, Konica Minolta DiMage Z5 or Canon Powershot SX200 IS:

Photographs by Jacques…