matthewboyle.net

Katharine

Matthew — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:08:28 +0000

I was fortunate enough to be meeting with the delightful uberteacher-in-the-making you see before you yesterday. Katharine thought we were just talking education, but when the conversation turned to portraiture, oddly enough I had a suggestion…

Sigma 24-70 f2.8 (f6.3)

West coast landscape?

Matthew — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:16:08 +0000

Canon 5D Mk2 f9 at 32mm on Sigma 24-70 f2.8 constant.

But where is it?

Hannah

Matthew — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:07:34 +0000

Fave 28mm Sigma at f1.8

Graham

Matthew — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:27:22 +0000

Graham: Cyclist, Social Businessman and Conversationalist

While out riding today I met the gentleman you see in this picture. We rode together and chatted for a few miles before enjoying a coffee together in Tayvallich. Graham was on holiday in Argyll and tells me that every time he has stayed in Tayvallich over the years he has had dry weather. I believe my Argyll friends will happily club together to buy him regular stays here; it will be so worth it! Graham is a good photographer himself, and showed me some lovely, depth-filled landscapes over coffee on his Canon G10; perhaps that’s why he was so relaxed and understanding about me asking if he minded me photographing him.

Photographically, the sun was high overhead and to Graham’s right, resulting in dark eye-sockets. Not wishing to take much of Graham’s time I quickly forced the flash on to fill shadows and pick Graham out of the background; what I didn’t anticipate was the incredible effectiveness of the two wheel-reflectors and under-saddle-bag reflective strip in chucking the S95′s tiny fill flash straight back at the sensor. I tried for a while to clone the saddlebag reflector in Photoshop Elements but while I was reasonably successful, a side-by-side comparison in Lightroom left me liking the more natural reflector-dominated picture a little more. Sometimes cloning just doesn’t get the lighting natural enough, even on a tiny patch. The strong reflector distracts a little from the main focus of Graham’s face, but thankfully the trees and the seat tube of the bike provide good counteracting leading lines. The bike, (very lovely piece of engineering) is kind of a supporting subject, so a bit of artificial photo bling might be a forgivable error. Anyway, watch out for reflectors as the tiny screen of my S95 in bright sunlight didn’t reveal the problem at the time.

Jura from Kilmory Chapel road, Argyll

Matthew — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:15:24 +0000

I went for a cycle today crossing the Kintyre peninsula twice. While on the Loch Sween road, overlooking Jura and the paps, I used my tiny Canon S95 in bracketing mode to take 3 exposures, handheld, of the glorious view. Photomatix software blended the three exposures into a dramatic HDR. The light wasn’t particularly beautiful, so there was more appeal for me in the drama of the monochrome treatment. I have never been on Jura, but I would really like to go sometime, it looks amazing.

More Tulips and an Interloper

Matthew — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:09:53 +0000

Just a few more flowers from early this evening. The raindrops on them seemed worth catching, and then once the macro lens is in your hand, you cant help but try a few shots. Spot the odd one out!

The light in this one struck me as looking like a candle flame. The sunbeam through the overlapping petal really does it.

Spring

Matthew — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:05:09 +0000

It’s been a while since I broke out my trusty 60mm macro, and got my tripod out of the bag, but spring tulips like this, on my own doorstep were just irresistible. The problem was the opening and closing of the flowers which required a wait for some bright late afternoon sunshine. Th wait was so worth it though, as every vein of colour just vibrated in the warm sunlight.

Gerry

Matthew — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:13:49 +0000

My friend Gerry by the Crinan Canal. Taken with my Sony Nex 5 and the standard 18-55 lens.

Hannah-Banana at 67 days.

Matthew — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:45:56 +0000

I have promised to post a picture or two of Hannah, and with her now being about 10 weeks I thought I should fulfil that promise. (Actually Julie reminded me). Don’t judge my tardiness on this too harshly, Julie is a dab hand at capturing Hannah with her trusty Canon 500D and her 50mm f1.8 which she wields frequently.

Anyway, here’s Hannah revealing that one day she will be the first female bond villain; I suppose we better get a cat soon for her to practise on.

Here she is on the sofa waiting for mum to find an outfit that doesn’t render socks redundant.

Here she is in her favourite place, watching the world from the safety of Julie’s shoulder.

She’ll grow into this one too. She has, due to the kindness of our many friends, 349 outfits, and we managed to pick two that she needs to grow into. Hence her “do I look like XXL” grumpy expression. I love Julie in this one, she really is delighted with Hannah and her smile pretty much says it all.

Anyway, black background, natural light from one side, Canon 5D and my lovely 50mm f1.4.

My Beautiful Bike

Matthew — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:23:37 +0000

Another Sunday run today. (30 miles in case anyone cares). At the turning point I pulled my Gorrillapod out and shoved it on a rock with my trusty S95 on it and set it to auto and self timer, leapt in front and grabbed my bike for a fun self-portrait. The pose is probably because I recently looked at one of my favourite cyclist’s, (Victoria Pendleton’s), portrait with her under a bridge holding her track-sprint-bike like this. Anyway, Vicky Pendleton is a sport goddess in my view and I’m an unfit plodder, unworthy to even consider holding my bike in mimickry of her pose. I want to draw people’s attention to the failings of automatic mode again. The camera here seems to have treated the difficult backlit scene as a landscape, where an intelligent photographer would have tried a little fill flash to lighten the subject’s face. No flash fired in this case!

Paps of Jura in the background.