Wednesday 4 November 2015

...and the sky...

...is a hazy shade of...autumn...yeah I know that is the wrong lyric, but we haven't reached winter yet; in fact the temperatures make it feel like late summer...even though it is foggy, misty and damp. Photographically it can be frustrating - sometimes it seems good others not so good...and when do you get the chance to get out? Yep...when it's not so good... ha! ha!... And amidst all that what has been happening for Alex JP Scott Photographer?  Frustrating is a good word...I have had several enquiries that lead to nothing- people phone up, ask about images...look at samples...express admiration for them...like the quoted price...then disappear... I have done some more insurance shoots - not the most exciting photographic assignments but they are regular income...also I am continuing to supply Dreamstime - see my portfolio here... - remember all these images are for sale...In addition, my Flickr account is still going strong - images can be found here. I expect many of you have seen my two websites - this one... or this one. Feel free to give them a visit...

So with that self promotion out of the way - what have I been shooting this past month? Well many landscapes and details from the countryside...




























A selection from the fens around our home...mainly flat arable fields but some trees scattered about...if you look hard enough! Plants and insects are fast disappearing...you have to look for those...







Dark bush cricket...







Common darter...becomes a spider's meal...















House sparrow...




Perennial sow-thistle...














Red admiral...




Of course the rise in humidity leads to dew...and this can lead to...



















...the usual prettiness of autumn...Now, an important development this past month has been my development of a new preset in Lightroom...this is a series of settings used on an image to give it a certain look...It was developed whilst processing an image of a common poppy (seen above). I so liked the result that I have started to use it on a number of images...and revisited older images to see the difference...
















I really like the extra punch given to the colours plus the increased intensity...most of the images in the blog have been treated in the same way - except the dewy webs/grasses...I think it gives my images something extra...

Whilst driving across the fen on the school run we are lucky to observed birds starting to congregate for the winter on the arable fields...They make a great spectacle...





First series - greylag geese...











Second series starlings...











Finally - mute swans and a grey heron...




Always makes the trip more interesting...no matter what your 7 year old is listening to on the stereo!



Finally, I was trawling through my files and found these...they are old scans of slides taken on my now departed Rolleichord TLR medium format camera...shooting on the square format 6cm x 6cm...When you get the exposure right the quality is just unbelievable...these are poor quality scans...the original slides look amazing on the lightbox...I wish I still had the camera and could occasionally shoot like this...










And that is that...hope you like Novembers issue...it will soon be Christmas (after bonfire night of course)...I will leave you with some Halloween pumpkins...

TTFN...