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Friday 17 April 2009

Dance Photography

A few weeks ago I was asked to photograph a dance school. Dance has always fascinated me because I'm one of those people who can't. I have all the natural rhythm of a frog in a tumble dryer. My style of dancing has been described as a cross between Mr Bean and the Pink Panther, which might sound a little harsh but I have to admit is fairly accurate. So it's interesting to meet people that have a real talent for it, although some of the warming up exercises they do really make you wince!






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Thursday 16 April 2009

Beautiful Demoiselle

From metal giraffes lets go to dragonflies, or rather a damselfly in this case. I don't photograph insects as a rule, it is a specialised area of photography that I'm not really geared up for, but I was out in Ashdown Forest last year and came across a number of these and was determined to get something. As luck would have it I had a Sigma 105mm macro lense in my rucksack, which I normally use for wedding ring and jewellery closeups, but was also ideal for this.

I watched them for a while and they seemed to favour a couple of particular ferns to stop for a rest on every so often, so I mounted the camera on my tripod, focussed on a likely looking leaf and waited. Unfortunately this meant standing knee deep in a rather cold stream for the best part of an hour (with unseen things nibbling at my legs I discovered later). After a short while they ignored me completely and I finally got this shot. Strictly speaking the light is too contrasty to call it a great shot, but I'm quite pleased with it.


From looking at the British Dragonfly website I am pretty sure this is a male Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo), although if anyone knows better please feel free to correct me.

If you would like to know more about dragonflies and damselflies have a look at their website http://www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/ it's very informative, with a lot of useful information. They should be out again in the near future, so I'm looking forward to having another go at photographing them this year.


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Wednesday 15 April 2009

March of the Metal Giraffes

One Sunday morning couple of weeks ago I went Rochester to see one of my clients from last year to discuss the wedding album they wanted. After the meeting Nina and I went for a drive along the coast, looking for somewhere to have a picnic and found a spot looking over towards the Isle of Sheppey, where I took this photograph. Admittedly it's not the most romantic view in the world, I can't imagine that many nervous boyfriends have chosen this spot to pull a ring out of their pocket and ask the "Big Question" but I do like the shot. It reminds me of a herd of giraffe coming down to the water hole at dusk:


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