50/50 Project #5/50 Blue wins! (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 5. Blue wins

50 days with a 50mm lens

Technical stuff: Canon 350d, 1/1250, f/2.0, ISO 100, manual exposure.

I wanted to take a shot today that embodied how good life is when the sun shines. The kids had been playing boules on the front lawn and left them out (!)  and I thought this might work. We only ever play boules a) on holiday and b) in the summer. Also our front lawn is particularly dried out and yellow - another sign of a long hot spell.

There was some dappled shade courtesy of an enormous pine tree, but I've blown the highlights on the distant red boule. Did a bit of warming up in Photoshop and was tempted to patch the chip on the blue boule but managed to suppress the urge! 

50/50 Project: #4/50 Poor Ferb (by Cheshire family photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 4. Poor Ferb

50 days with a 50mm lens
Technical stuff: Canon 350D, 1/160 f/2.8 ISO 100 Aperture Priority

Have you ever seen such a sorry sight. Poor Ferb went off to be neutered today and has to wear this collar for three days. He's so frustrated and unhappy as you can tell. I know this collar looks enormous but he was still managing to lick his wounds with the first one he came home in. And to add insult to injury this one is pink - as if he wasn't already feeling emasculated.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

50/50 Project: #3/50 Rainbow Sharpies (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 3. Rainbow Sharpies

50 days with a 50mm lens

Technical stuff: Canon 350d, Shutter speed 1/15, f/1.8, ISO 100. Aperture priority

As ever I had to play around a bit before I got the final shot. I did lots of different angles but found it hard to fill the frame with a long thin line of pens. This final angle has allowed me to capture every pen with no empty space in the frame. I've put a few of the rejects at the end of this post.

Working with the fixed 50mm lens is certainly making me work. With a zoom lens it would have been easier to just zoom in to fill the frame. But I would not have got this incredibly shallow depth of field with only 2 pens in focus.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

50/50 Project: #2/50 Windswept man (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 2. Windswept man

50 days with a 50mm lens

Technical data: 1/400, f/3.5 ISO 100. Aperture Priority.

We went shopping in a very hot Manchester city centre today and came across this strangle windswept man - especially as there wasn't a breath of wind! He's a street artist - what a strange way to earn a living. Perhaps his wife thinks he's actually going out to work in an office each day!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

50/50 Project: #1/50 (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 1. Seedheads

50 days with a 50mm lens
Technical data: Canon 350D, 1/500, f/1.8, ISO 200 and manual exposure.

I really enjoyed taking the 350D out today - it felt like a little compact compared to the 5D mk II that I've been lugging around lately. And of course the 50mm f/1.8 mk II lens is very light too.

This was taken whilst we were out walking the dog at an area known locally as the Flashes and we chose a route along the river Weaver. I was spoilt for choice really but settled on this image because it was "cleaner" than some of the others - less clutter from stray grasses and leaves in the background and a nice contrast between the lighter seed heads and the darker background of ferns.

F/1.8 is a very shallow depth of field (most of the image is soft focus apart from the small focal area) but it does allow a faster shutter speed. I had to be really careful about picking the point of focus out and also waiting for the plant to stop swaying in the breeze.

I did a little processing afterwards to slightly emphasise the contrast between the foreground subject and the darker background.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

A new photography project - 50/50 (photography course Cheshire)

I've really missed doing the 366 project I did right through 2012, when I took and posted a photo every single day. It wasn't always easy (at times it was a downright chore done at 11pm at night!) but I learned so much and enjoyed swapping comments with other people in 365 forums.

I was chatting with another photographer a few weeks ago and he suggested that I do something else this year that wasn't such a big commitment but would give me scope to be creative - a 50/50 project. My brain was trying to work out how a project could be half and half of anything but he put me out my misery and clarified that it was 50 days using a 50mm lens. I was hooked straight away as I have a 50mm lens that I adore using but haven't had out the bag much recently.

(Pic taken on my lovely HTC One camera phone)

This is a Canon 50mm f/1.8 mk II prime lens and cost me around £90. To cut through the jargon / numbers it is a lens that doesn't zoom (to get closer to your subject you move yourself), it isn't very wide angle and is often used for portraits. The low aperture of f/1.8 means that you can get very creative with soft focus and also it lets in lots of light so is good in low light conditions. Not bad for £90 and a favourite of wedding photographers.

I used this lens a fair bit last year for the 366 project until I bought a new telephoto 28-300mm lens from Tamron which quickly became my favourite toy. So I'm looking forward to pushing the boundaries a little more this time with the 50mm lens.

366 photos taken in 2012 with 50mm lens

I hope you'll follow my daily photos for the next 50 days and let me know what you think of them. If you're doing a photography project at the moment I'd love to hear about it. And don't forget that I run courses in digital photography and offer one to ones designed around your needs. Find out more about my photography courses on the website.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

How to take great summer photos - Tip 7 (Cheshire photography course with Jane Burkinshaw)

And here's the final installment for this series on how to take sizzling summer shots:

ENHANCING, ENJOYING & SHARING YOUR PHOTOS

You haven't taken all this trouble to take some great photos only to leave them languishing on your hard drive, so the next step is to edit them and create stuff. If you're not very confident at image editing - or you just don't have the time, then you should consider using some of the straight forward software that's available. Two great examples are Picasa and Picmonkey and they are both free. I prefer Picasa because it's the one I've used for ages and has been developed by Google. Lots of people love Picmonkey and it looks good but certain features are only available if you upgrade whereas Picasa is 100% free.

I'm not going to go into loads of detail here on how to use these applications - they are both straight forward and intuitive so the best thing is to play around with them. You can crop, straighten, change the exposure, recolour, add great effects, make collages, share on line and by email and lots more. Although I edit all my professional work using Photoshop I often use Picasa to show images to clients and I am a HUGE fan of collages. See my earlier blog on how to make collages.

If you want to try more sophisticated editing but feel a bit intimidated by Photoshop you should try Photoshop Elements and if you know someone who is in education or at school then you can buy it more cheaply. Also you can try before you buy by downloading a 30 day trial.

To see the difference between a non edited and an edited pic see below - it really is worth learning how to use editing software if you're keen on photography.

I'm a big fan of photo books too and can't remember when I last used an album (all those plastic pockets and pics that fall out of them!). Photo books are really easy to do and there's a huge choice of companies doing them now. My favourite is Bobs Books for quality and great colour reproduction but they are not the cheapest. I've also used Photobox and Albelli for cheaper options and many people swear by Blurb for really great value.

This book on our holiday in Cornwall was made with Bobs Books and you can read more about how I made it in my blog.

And why stop at books when you can share your images on mugs, key rings, jigsaws, placemats - you name it and I think you can probably get a photo printed on it! I use Snapfish for travel mugs (love my coffee whilst I'm travelling!) but again there are lots of companies. Look out for all the offers and you can get some really great deals.

I hope I've inspired you with this series of blogs on Top Tips for Sizzling Summer Shots. If you need any help I offer one to one tuition tailored to your requirements (in the Cheshire, Manchester area).

May this weather last into August when I'll be heading off to South Wales with my photobook half visualised in my mind!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!