Sparkly orb out to play on the green mile

350/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

The orb wanted to go out to play again last night, but wanted to take some more stuff along for the fun, so we had a lot of fun at a local church in the village of Monks Kirby, and really went to town with the light painting :D

348/365

348/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

A bit of eerie scene, this is a view of my local church that I've never captured before, but I had to have a go at capturing it with moon in frame as it made for such an interesting image..

I was a little disappointed not to be able to get an angle on the church that could avoid the tree but as some have said it sort of add's to the image :D

The Moon or is it :D

344/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

This evening as I was nipping out to do a few light trails in a location that I've used in the past I got rather distracted by the moon so I had to get a photo of it :D

I'm guessing that this effect has to do with the end of yesterdays lunar eclipse, and the thin wispy cloud that was shrouding central Warwickshire this evening but the combined aspects made for this rather spectacular scene

Matt

A story of a Light Trailer

328/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

My first love photographically has always been long exposures with a speciality in Light trails, I always said that my ultimate light trail would be one that contains blue lights of the emergency services in both carriageways in this case we have an Ambulance of West Midlands Ambulance Services and a Police car of Warwickshire Constabulary

To get this photo has taken me more than two years spending numerous cold occasionally lonely evenings on motorway bridges all across the Warwickshire and West Midlands

The cute factor is in town

268/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

My favourite image from the recent TalkPhotography.co.uk meet at West Midlands Safari Park, we had a great day even though it did get a little wet at times :( I took an absolute load of photo's and I'm still working my way through them but too see a few more from the day check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwhcvt/sets/72157627749984002/

257/365 (Explored)

257/365 (Explored), a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

Well after nearly two years of taking my photography seriously it has finally happened, yesterday afternoon a photo of mine was picked by flickr to enter explore, I'm beyond happy at the moment it was a real nice surprise and I'm pleased I did it with such a quality photo

Thanks to all my followers :D

Matt

August Review

With this post I'm going to try and do a review of my August 2011, August has been a very busy month for me with lots of photo's taken and lot's of editing to do, it's been  a long hard slog but I've enjoyed every last second of it

So this is how the month started for me..

This one of my best attempts a HDR to date, I'm trying though the year to teach myself a few new styles of both photography and editing, one of the styles that I would like to be able to say I'm competent with is HDR...About the photo, this is a potato field that is about a quarter of a mile away from my home, it's wonderful when inspiration is so close at hand

Then a couple of day's later I shot this photo of some small orange flowers in my garden, I first saw this flowers in Ireland about 8 years ago and the following year we planted some into our garden, they are a delight to me each and every time that I see them because they act as an instant reminder of summer holidays in Ireland

This photo was achieved with the aid of some manual macro extension tubes and my 430EX2 flash gun.

Moving on into the middle of the month I had a very busy day, I started the day with an early morning indulgence on my love of all things Land Rover, since before I could drive I've loved the LR product range, I think that it started with my dad brought a Classic Range Rover...So with the Land Rover Max Show happening at the NAC in Stoneleigh I knew I needed to attend but as I had plans for later that morning I could not justify the entrance fee as I only had a couple of hours and if I had gone in it would have proved very hard for me to get to next event I was due to attend, so I decided to take photo's of that Land Rovers as they arrived for the show.

I decided to try my hand at a technique that I've never tried before "Panning" now this is hard and I have a renewed respect for the talented guys and girls that do this type of thing week in week out but here is one of my better efforts from the morning

Later that day was the August 2011 Warwickshire and West Midlands TP Meet this meet was to be held at the Warwick Classic Car Gathering happening that day and I had a great time at the meet, I spent the entire meet playing with other TP member's lens which although fun has given me gear itch and I would like to treat myself to some new lens soon :D

This is a photo from the W&WM Meet taken using a Samyang 8mm Fisheye lens what a amazing piece of kit that lens is

Moving on into the month I had the please to be shooting the wedding of Gary and Leanne, a wonderful couple that selected me to be there photographer on there special day...

This is a photo from that special day

You can see a small selection from this special day on my facebook page HERE

Getting towards the end of the month now and we have a photo that can brighten up even the dullest of days, just down the ancient Roman road of Fosse Way I found a field where they was a nice large patch of Sun Flowers, the day was dull and grey but the sun still shined bright here

I ended the month with a bit of photography that first sparked my love of photography, my mum had been over to see my sister in Ireland for a few day so I had to go and pick her up from the Airport. I went a few hours early to get it a little aviation photography here is one of my photo's from the day

a couple more aviation photo's I have taken in the month of August

Not to shabby for 1/60 @300mm by hand

A close call

Thanks for taking the time to read this post I hope that you have enjoyed the time it took

Matt

Colourful Canal the Art of Recycling

212/365, a photo by mwhcvt on Flickr.

This photo or maybe I should say photo's was taken for my 212th photo of the day as part of my on going Challenge 365 for 2011.

This is actually made up of 59 exposures each lasting 15 seconds, I know 59 is a rather odd number but what can I say I lost count, it was meant to be made up of 60 exposures :D

So how did I get these colours, this is where the recycling part comes into play, the colours come from plastic salvaged from empty drinks bottle's, I think it worked very well....

The lighting was done using my Canon 430EX2 in hand fired using the pilot button, the flash was set to 1/16 power as I found if full power was used it just burned the colour out of the filters...

I have to thank Darrell for his hard work running around doing the lighting under my direction :D

If you want to see a bigger version please check it out here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwhcvt/5993698374/

Matt

TalkPhotography.co.uk - Hagley Falconry Meet

I had the pleasure this last Sunday of attending the Hagley Falconry Centre for a photography meet of members of the TalkPhotography.co.uk forum, there were a around 20 members at the meet, and with the fantastic weather that we had it was a great day...

There were some brilliant photo's taken by some of the members, these can be seen on the forum HERE

My own efforts from the falconry centre

Thanks for reading..

Matt

Today's Thoughts

Well today is Day 200 in my 365 Challenge discussed in my last post, and I sit here typing this post out and I'm thinking what do I do for photo of the day today, I think given the fact its the 200th day of the challenge it needs to be something a but special, but what???

Weather Watch

I'm keeping a real close eye on the weather at the moment, on Sunday I'll be heading off to The Hagley Falconry Centre for a day of photography fun with fellow members of TalkPhotography.co.uk

We need nice weather for this meet to be a real success and as I look out my window right now all I can see if grey and miserable weather...But the good news is that the weather is so far looking to improve just in time for the meet YAY

If your into your photography, you should check out http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/ the friendliest photography forum on the net

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Challenge 365 - The year so far...

I have been doing a photography challenge since the beginning of the year that involves taking a photo for each and every day of the year...The challenge is going well and the results can be seen over on my flickr page in the collection dedicated to this challenge CLICK HERE

Here is a brief selection of some of my favourite images from the year so far.

From January this is a photo I took of my wonderful little niece when we were out at the park, I just love this image each and every time that I look at it...
 

From February this is photo of some wonderful Crocus's that were in my front garden, I always like taking photo's of flowers as I just find the colours so vibrant...

From March, this was a really hard photo to get right, I love to create ghost images but this took nearly two hours to get the light right to a level that supported the image in a way that I liked...

From April, this is a rather tragic photo as it is one of the most popular photo's that I have ever taken, but this is mainly due to the recent crash landing of this airship over Germany with the loss of it's Captain

From May, Its not often as a photographer that you get to see the inside of the card that lets you store your picture so on breaking this card by mistake it seemed like I should take a photo if it to share...

From June, well only just June as it was the first of the month but I love to have a play with photo's, on this one I think that they must have missed out a few stages of the production process...whoops!!!

and so far in July this is my favourite photo...

This is a very important photo that I shot earlier this week while at St. Thomas' Hospital where I spent a number of weeks last year recovering from pneumonia, without the hard work of this hospital and that of my local hospital of Coventry it would not be here right now...

Thanks for taking the time to read this...

Matt
MWHCVT

New to the World of Blogging

I'm new to the idea of a blog but  thought that I would be great to have a blog going as part of my on going photographic development.

I'll be publishing regular blog's so watch this space

Matt