Geneva At Night: My First Tripod Shot

Now that I finally have a tripod, I decided to take some time up on our roof in Geneva and get to know my new toy a little better. I’d been waiting a while to take some night shots up there and was eager to see how they looked. Having never used one before I thought it might be a bit cumbersome, but I actually I had no problems at all. It was much lighter than I was expecting and very flexible from a positioning point of view.

It was so great being able to take some stable shots in the dark! Even if it was a cold night. I’m hoping to get out to Lake Geneva soon and capture the Jet d’eau as it’s lit up in the evening. Now that we’re in winter, owning a tripod opens up a whole 12 hours of the day to photography which were never available to me before. It’s pretty exciting!

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Photographing An Icon: Big Ben

On my last trip to England I spent a great deal of time trying to find unique shots of various London icons. Big Ben proved a particular challenge, largely due to its height and the number of people in its vicinity. I settled on trying to find some red telephone boxes, another icon of London. A shot with both a phone box and Big Ben in had to be a good bet, so I started shooting with the entire phone box in the foreground and the famous clock in the background. But I really didn’t feel like it was working, the images didn’t have the impact I was looking for.

Revisiting Medieval Yvoire: 3 Ways I’ve Improved My Travel Photography

A few weeks ago I returned to medieval Yvoire having been disappointed with my haul of photos from last year. This time I was determined to accurately reflect the feel of the village, which I’d failed at miserably on previous visits. I was feeling much more confident with my camera, and by putting into practice some of the lessons I’d learnt over the last few months I ended up being really pleased with the results. In fact photography-wise I think it’s my best trip yet! So what are the three lessons that have helped me get there?

My First Black & White Landscape

This is the first black and white photograph I’ve published online! The photo was taken in the Bernese Alps whilst walking between Kleine Scheidegg and the Mannlichen. I knew that I loved the composition of this shot but it wasn’t working for me in colour. It was a bit bland as 2/3 of the picture was a boring shade of green. Turns out B&W was a perfect fit for the strong contrast between the grassy hills and the path I was following!

I’m not sure why but I never think B&W makes anything I photograph look better. Because I rarely use it in post-processing, I never ‘think’ in B&W when looking for the best shot. Maybe if I did that a bit more I might end up with more shots that look great in B&W. It’s hard to say! It would be an interesting experiment though so maybe I’ll try it one day.

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Silverstone Grand Prix In Motion

I don’t go very often, but I love taking photographs at Formula 1 events. You just can’t beat the colour and shiny-ness of the cars! When stationary they are at worst beautiful machines, and at best mesmerising beasts pounding round the circuit. There really is nothing quite like it!

I was lucky enough to be at the Silverstone Grand Prix a few weeks ago trying to get some good motion shots of the cars. I have to say it was very difficult! It was not something I could really attempt with my old compact camera so I had no prior experience of shooting moving objects in this manner. When I bought the NEX 6 this was one of the things I was most excited about – being able to take better pictures of Formula 1 cars at speed. I ended up with a lot of bad, blurry pictures but I also managed to get a few good ones!

Lake Geneva – First NEX 6 Shots

So I took the plunge and bought a new camera – the Sony NEX 6! And I’d like to share a few of the first shots I took whilst taking it for a test drive around Lake Geneva. When I reach the end of my road I normally turn left and head along the lake, but this time I decided to turn right toward the beach and see what I could find. I love taking photos around the boats here so I didn’t make it very far in two hours, probably only about 100m or so! They make great foreground subjects for wide angle shots and all of the haphazard vertical lines provide some interesting background material.

I am planning to do a more in-depth post on my first impressions of the camera from an amateur’s point of view. But in the mean time here are three pictures taken around Lake Geneva using the NEX 6.

My First DSLR Experience (And Why I’m Buying a NEX 6)

For the last 4 years I have been using the same point and shoot – a Panasonic DMC-TZ6. It’s a wide angle 25mm with a 12x zoom. I’ve had great fun with it and love shooting wide angle shots, they have defined my style and I rarely use the zoom or crop in post-processing. For me part of the art of photography is getting the composition right when you’re in the moment, on location with the scene right in front of you.

Tuscany – What A Difference The Light Makes

Oh how I wish to be back in Tuscany driving through those rolling hills. What an impossibly beautiful landscape! I’ve picked a couple of photos below to demonstrate the difference a bit of extra light can make to a photograph (and also because I couldn’t decide which one was my favourite of the two!). Both were taken from a very similar position in some fields just to the north of Siena. You can see in the second photo the sun is shining through the clouds a little bit more improving the definition of the hills and adding some brightness in the foreground. Just a little bit of light makes a big difference. It’s a shame my camera can’t cope with the glare very well, or maybe I just don’t know how to handle it properly!