picture 106

Little doll by the wall. Alone in a café. Tricky to get this one right as the lighting was very bright and harsh.

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More graffitti on the wall. I like the contrast and the texture of the wall. The painting has given us lovely sweeping shapes. I have gone for shooting the painting in an abstract way and using the shapes not as intended, but in my own way.

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Another picture of mints on black cloth. I like this shot a bit better. The depth of field is nice. The texture of the mints is shown of beautifully. There is a sense of the mints floating in space.

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An outdoor floral shot. Not to sure if this picture works or not. I like the colour and texture of the flower and plant. But I feel the composition is a bit weak.

picture 102

The tunnel leading to nowhere.

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A path in the green. Where does it lead? It looks lush and inviting. But in real life it leads into a back alley with loads of rubbish everywhere. People do not look after nature in England.

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The 100th picture to be posted on this blog. A fun picture of mints on black cloth.

picture 99

Boats moored at Wivenhoe. A beuatiful day, but tricky to get a good shot in the bright sunlight.

picture 98

Postcard view of the river Colne and the University of Essex. I've treated the shot to give it the look and feel of an old photoraph. I like the colours of old colour pictures.

picture 97

I haven't updated my blog for a while. Therefore I have a picture of old news for you.

picture 96

Another shot of the Unicorn Gundam model. This image was taken using my new flash. A sharp picture. But not everyone likes models.

picture 95

Living down by the river there are a lot of boats by the quays. There is also the wreck of an old river boat. It is just a empty wooden shell filled with mud and grass growing all over it. It's bow still stands proud.

picture 94

St Botolphs church and the ruin of St Botolphs priory. The priory was established in the 11th century and was left a ruin after the seige of Colchester in 1650. The new church was built in 1837. For me the ruin shows the rich history of Colchester.

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My latest model build. Shot using my new flash. Due to the limitations of the flash on my camera controlling the power of the flash is quite difficult. I used fabric to diffuse the light from the flash.

picture 92

A shot of the lights running along the ceiling in a tunnel. This was a tricky shot to get a good exposure of the lights and not underexposing the wall and ceiling of the tunnel too much.

picture 91

I have just recently bought a flash for my camera. Found a very cheap flash that is really meant for a Minolta film camera and not a digital camera. However, it works nicely with my camera although with some limitations. This shot is a test shot with the flash mounted on the camera. Some good light considering the room was very dark when taking the picture.

picture 90

Man walking in tunnel. The darkness of the tunnel contrasts well with the bright sunlight that is outside. The figure of the man walking a perfect silhuette against the light. Converted to mono and used a yellow tone for the light to make it softer.

picture 89

A very nice portrait. I love the softness of the picture. Very smooth looking. A beautiful shot of a beautiful girl. I used natural light for the ligthing. The desaturated colours really work in this picture.

picture 88

Colchester High Street as seen at night from the upper level on a double decker bus. Taken through the window of the bus. There are some reflections in the glas visible. They look a bit like ghost images. I used a red monotone to get the contrast i wanted.

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The inside of a double decker bus. I like the depth of field. This picture benefits from the soft character of the lens with the aperture wide open.

picture 86

The station at Hythe in Colchester. They recently did the station in Hythe up. It looks really nice now. The graphics on the boards are really striking. I wanted to get a picture with a bit of grit in it to suit the area and the graphics on the boards. I went with a two tone colour scheme to give the image a more graphic type feel.

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Ate this the other day. It tasted great whatever it is called. I used natural light for the lighting which turned out well. One of my better presented food shots. The composition could have been better. Rushed the shot as I wanted to eat the food. :)

picture 84

A woman waiting for a train looking very bored. The sun was shining brightly. Converted to mono to enhance the feeling of boredom. Used a tight crop because the background was distracting.

picture 83

A picture of how we treat nature. A lone monitor has been tossed on the ground. We can also see a metal pipe and concrete block, indicative of nearby construction. I wanted the grass to be really green so that it contrasts with the broken monitor and pipe. We need to respect our surroundings better.

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I love taking pictures of graffiti. The striking graphics make for great images. I got lucky when walking around Colchester and found this piece on a wall. It has a nice simplicity to it and the words "ruthless artworks" fit perfectly. Very raw.

picture 81

A hole in the wall. Nature reclaiming what it once possessed. A piece of urban decay. Probably this wall was put up to keep people from geting to close to the water tower.

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A dove in flight at the water tower in Colchester. Up the top of the water tower doves congregate. Lucky for me they are white doves and therefore stand out well against the dark background of the water tower. A nice picture, but it really needs to be straighter.

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A picture of a tower. I like this picture for it's surreal quality. It is difficult to see exactly what kind of tower or building this is. All we see are arches, windows and dark places. This is a picture that has grown on me. I like the dark mysterious sensation it invokes.

picture 78

This is the back of the old roman wall right in the town centre. I wanted the picture to look more like an ordinary landscape shot rather than one of a wall. I like the lovely green colours. It is quite fascinating how the roman wall has been standing there for more than 1500 years.

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Colchester water tower as seen through a portal in the old roman wall. We can also see a statue in front of the water tower. The statue is on the roof of a theatre. A somewhat strange composition. Could have been better.

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I have tried to use a lead in line to the pub and the name of the pub. This then forms the lead for the other half of the picture which is the roman wall with it's gateway. I have used black and white as the weather was overcast. I find it easier to make pictures black and white in those conditions. Otherwise they just look a bit dull.

picture 75

The roof of a theatre in Colchester. A very strange modern architecture. The roof in this shot looks a bit like the head of the robot. There is moss growing on the roof giving it a fuzzy texture. I still need to work on my architectural shots.

picture 74

I find this picture to have an unrealistic quality to it. I don't know if it's the lighting or if it is the blurring in the picture. Maybe it's a combination of the two. I like the filmic quality of the picture.

picture 73

I found a new church I'd never seen before. As it was an old church it had an old graveyard as well. I went for a black white photo as it would bring out the grim side of the subject. The interesting part of this picture is the carved in grafitti on the grave.

picture 72

A view of a street in Colchester. It is hard to imagine that this street is in the town centre in colchester. I like the nice pink tones on the buildings. There is a colourful mural by the bend. A rather typical English streetview.

picture 71

Things you see on trains could be the title of this picture. There is always rubbish on the floor or on the seats. Anywhere but the bin it would seem. The cup seems lonely all by its own.

picture 70

Walking around Colchester I saw this door. It is a door on one of the churches in the town centre. I wanted to lift out the stones in the wall of the church and the darkness of the door.

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I found this door whilst walking. It's old and faded, but still in use. We can ee that somebody still lives here as evidenced by the rubbish that is outside. The colour on the door is a nice faded shade of red. It now looks quite pink as most of the colour has faded away.

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We don't always closely examine our surroundings. I like how this shutter looks like a strange metallic landscape.

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Someone is sending us a message. On the ruin of a building somebody is telling us that the war needs stopping. It's an important message and one that is quite graphic here. Although some of the paint is chipped and faded the message still rings true.

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The painting peeling off a wall. I like the texture it provides. I also like the faded colours of the old paint. The beauty of ruin.

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An old abandonded building. Nobody cares about the building as a tree is growing on its' wall. However, they do care about intruders and therefore have a camera watching the building. For me this is a strange contracdiction.

picture 64

It was a bit cold for people to sit outside and drink coffee when I took this picture. Converted to black and white as there were no colours in the shot. I wanted to enhance the contrast in the shot that was already there.

picture 63

The alley leading to the castle. I had to wait ages for the alley to be clear of people. The weather was quite nice and there were lots of parents with children going to the park. I would have preferred the shot to be clear of people, but that isn't always possible. It was either one man in the shot or a dozen people in the shot. The colour on the building is really vivid. The shot could possibly have been improved with a person that was walking towards the castle as opposed to from the castle.

picture 62

An image where light is the main subject. The big floodlight-like lights gives the lighting of this railway crossing a quality of being theatre ligthing. Giving a sense that we are not seeing a piece of real life, but something that has been staged for us.

picture 61

I live in an old industrial area. There are quite a few old abandonded buildings around. This one is on the corner of the road. I think it makes an interesting subject with its' metal sheets instead of windows, graffiti, and old posters that have been long torn down. An urban ruin.

picture 60

With this picture I have tried to make something boring into something interesting. The aim with the image is not beauty in any traditional sense, but rather beauty from how the picture has been taken and how it has been processed. Please let me know if I have had any success in achieving my aims.

Picture 59

I must admit that this picture of a train is my favourite of my train pictures. It draws you in to the picture. I have been reading a book about photography and I have drawn upon what I have read to create this picture. In post processing I made the image bleaker than how it was originally shot. This has made the strong blue colour of the train and the painted yellow line on the platform stand out more.

Picture 58

Another train! This time in colour. I really liked the colours of the train and on the platform. When everything else is bleak and grey it is nice to see such vibrant colours.

Picture 57

A plate of macaroons. When I got home on Friday I was greeted by these lovely treats. I must admit though that taking picture of food or anything edible is really tricky. Get it wrong and the dish looks horrible. Lucky for me these macaroons were more tasty than my picture. Definite room for improvment on food shots.