B241 – WHY DO IT?!

Today Ive spent my time involved in some manual labour, Ive basically been scraping wall paper off my hall way and then painting it white, this has taught me two really important lessons, that I will definitely carry with me for the rest of my life.

Lesson one, if I ever need to scrap wall paper off a wall again, pay someone else do it, there nothing nice, easy or rewarding about scraping that stuff off. Ive been there and Ive got the medal now its time for me to sit back and in the future let someone professional do it properly.

Lesson two, painting a white wall white again, its properly just as fun as taking the wall paper off. I also managed to literally blow up a light bulb socket with my head so I’m not really sure if my paint job was even and will have to wait till day light or a new light gets fixed to actually see if my job is even. by the way it wasn’t on purpose, I stood on a chair and moved really quick and my head just made contact with the light bulb thing.

apart from those two extremely good life lessons its also been a good day, the hall way has been on my list of things to get done for a while and today I knocked it off my todo list. I’m now completely nackered but need to power on till 3/4am as Im working on an over night job Friday and need to try and get used to being up at night and asleep during the day, my thinking is 3/4am is a good time go to sleep.

When I was in the mist of completing the painting I was thinking of things to photograph, it was way to cold outside to venture out for some street photography so my idea was to show how a photo looks before its edit and also how it looks after a few changes. I wanted to use a boring photo as it makes it easier to see the difference as theres no “WOW factor”.

the photo you see below was shot in .RAW which basically means you can do a lot more editing and manipulation. how that happens is by the camera sensor remembering all the information collected when you press the capture button, meaning you can change the white balance, the thing that makes either white, white or makes white that weird egg shell colour you some times see.

If  a photo is really dark, say you shot inside a house at night and were trying to take a photo of your family and when you looked at it back you noticed the only thing you could see was the light on the fridge door, well because you shot .RAW you would be able to bring the exposure up in Lightroom or photoshop and be able to see what is going on. The files are slightly bigger than .jpegs but if you camera can shoot .RAW. do it! you really wont regret it.  just buy  a bigger memory card, and back your photos up regularly.

have a look at these photos below and see the difference, they were shot in .RAW. look at the different shades of white on the paint pot and see if you can tell the different.  If it was .JPEG they would near enough be the same colour depth and not looks as good.

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– this is the original photo –
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– I have changed the white balance to 28k and done a few other things with the contrast / exposure / highlights and cropped in a bit –
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– this has a 55k white balance and is obviously back and white –

 

B182 – LETS DO SOMETHING COOL

three hundred words that all I have to write each day, I love taking photos, but the writing is the hardest thing on this blog. I’m sorry for the lack of energy on these posts these past few days, Im just fighting through the Jet lag and trying to crazy amount of work, to get out the other side. but today has been a really good day, Ive started making plans for a really cool project. something I can properly sink my teeth into, Ive got a plan and all I have todo now is stick to it and make sure I can put everything in place before I go away next week. So not a lot todo at all.

what I like about doing this blogging thing is my plan that Im just going todo what ever I like with it. thats basically my plan, not think too much into it and just see where I end up. I really want to start upping my content and put out some cool photos that aren’t just everyday stuff. like jumping a car or shooting fireworks over a lake, something incredible and completely not the normal, thats my kind of project. If I can just get through the next month and stay dedicated to making stuff happen theres no reason why those projects wont come to life. Obviously those arent my project idea’s but they follow the same line, something which has an element of risk but with a massive reward. I started this blog to improve my photography skills and its about time I started to test my self and see what I can do with a camera.

again im sorry for the lack of content but unless I stay awake 24 hours a day, I don’t have enough time. but I will I promise you.

In other news I picked up my new blinds tonight, went to put them up and found out I don’t own a drill. so if anyone lives in bethnal green and has a drill that would be really helpful.

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– this is a photo I took this morning, god I love my coconut tree –
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– one of my favourite places in the past months, Historic Downtown St. Charles –
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– Missori, America, everyone should go and see St.louis its a really cool city –

B142 – My mini Rain forest

because of the whole decorating the flat this weekend your going to have to see more pictures of the work, I would love to show a picture from the streets of East London but thats not going to happen.

In the flat theres this big window ledge that sticks out like a foot by 6ft long, my plan is to cover the whole thing in plants, I want to have a mini rainforest! so every chance I get i’m buy more and more plants, im not sure if its becoming some sort of un health obsession, but plants actually make a flat better.

I have no idea about plants, I just like green ones, about 5 months ago I started a Catcus farm but that seems to be slow work, nothing has really grown. So I don’t think that is going to take off any time soon. Im not giving up on the whole little mexico cactus farm in my flat, just need some other plants so I can work on the rain forest, does anyone know what are the best plants that grow indoors? any tips would be welcome.

Anyway I came back last night and was talking to amy and she said that I should try and take some flat lay photos, Ive never tried it before and its actually pretty good, my idea was to take a flat lay and then see if I could take different angles of the same subjects and see what turns out better. this was this vinyl record in the corner of the shot thats got this girl on it, I really wanted to concentrate on her, sometimes have her in focus, some times not. The thing I enjoy about shooting faces and people, it gives the person looking at the photo something to think about, try and guess there emotion of mood. Im not sure if you get that from a illustrated cartoon on the front of a Whipped Cream and other Delights vinyl but its still adds something to these photos.

Theres definitely room for improvement, I want to try flat lay photos with other objects that are more flat instead of plants. Basically plants aren’t flat, so it makes it hard to get the correct focus point, in a way though that has added something extra to these photos as a one time thing, now I’ve done this style though I really do want to try it with complete flat objects and see what the results are like.

Its quite I good Idea for my blog, on a day that not much is happening, I could take a couple photos of some flat lay’s and still manage to keep this interesting.

Anyways heres my snaps from last night.

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– my attempted at a flat lay –
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– there she is –
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– I’m a fan of this photo and the colours –