November

November is over and I guess that it is time to let you know how last month's photographs went. I was having a simple competition with Tom to see who could take the best photos for a month. His underlying reason, was to try and get me to take better photos.

The competition well and truly failed after Tom managed to take 1 photo on day 1 and that was it. I continued to take photos throughout the month but have once again slipped into the process of taking a photo merely for the sake of taking a photo.

I am now halfway through taking a photo everyday for a year. Things are slowly improving, the number of blurred and out of focus photos has reduced as I am now spending just a few seconds more retaking a shot.

Here are my favourites from November

Home

I have seen in the Kenilworth newspaper that they would like people to send in photographs of Kenilworth for the new civic building. I had a look through my laptop and have found the following photos.
I need some help in deciding which files to send to the paper, so please let me know your comments asap.

Thanks

 

After uploading these I can see that I have far too many snow scenes. Ideally I would love to get the number of photos I submit down to about 10, so comments are more than welcome.

Descent

A few weekends ago I went to see my first kayaking decent race in Stratford Upon Avon. This descent race was 10 miles long over 6 weirs, in wobbly boats              ( http://youtu.be/3F2A0q2xeGU ). There were a variety of boats taking part in this race, race boats and also plastic boats. Tom managed to finish the race after falling in 5 times and sinking his boat.

Here are some photos from the event

I was amazed the K2 managed to stay upright

Kodak Retinette

I have just picked up a set of prints from my Kodak Retinette.

This time I had better results than a few months back. I learnt from my previous results:
       This camera does not like to do close-up shots.
       That film is expensive and I have to think about a shot before snapping anything.

I still have things to learn though:
       This camera/film likes contrasting colours to create sharp(ish) photos.
       It is difficult to line things up.
       That  faces in most shots won't be as clear as I hope.

Here are my favourite shots from the film...

(Ok, yes I have messed with the contrast of these after scanning them in and yes, they are all from Paris)

2 nights in Paris

Tomorrow marks the start of a photographic competition between Tom and me. We will both be taking a photo a day for a month and posting them on a website called 'shuttercal.com'. This will be part of my year long project of taking a photo everyday (so far have had mixed results, taking some good photos, some ok photos and some photos that are so poor that I really shouldn't be sharing them with the world). With this being a 'competition' between Tom and me I will have to ensure that every photo that I take and post is a good one. Tom has a natural talent for composing a good photograph (perhaps he has been spending too much time with me).

In preparation for the start of the competition, I tried to take only good photos throughout my lovely 3 days in Paris.