Another autumn, another visit to The National Trust's Sheffield Park and Garden. I was here last year, so forgive me if the photos look a little familiar to the previous set.A truly fantastic place to walk around and enjoy the colours, the landscapes gardens and the lakes. A passing thunderstorm was kind enough to leave behind a rainbow, and cleared the skies to provide some blue.All the shots below were taken with the EM5 and mainly the Panasonic 20mm F/1.7 and Olympus 45mm F/1.8.The swan in the last picture nearly amputated my fingers off - I should have been paying attention to it rather than trying to take its picture! Enjoy.
Finally a dry sunny day today, so I ambled off and through Epping Forest taking in what I could of the seasonal colours.Focused more on close shots of leaves than on wide shots of the forest floor, just waiting for the sunlight to pierce through the canopy.Used the EM5 with mainly the Panasonic 20mm F/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm F/1.8.Hope wherever you are, you're having better colours.
From every selection I chose for my blog posts, there are always one or two images that are culled from the list, either because they don't add anything to the selection or I simply do not deem them good or interesting enough. Here is a random selection of those outliers taken on recent excursions. I have decided to post them because I think they may still be decent enough images to show on their own merits. Most were taken with the OM-D EM-5 and a couple with my phone, the Nokia N8.
So Jena and I spent an afternoon last week around London's financial district photographing Leadenhall Market and some of the nearby buildings. I'm no expert on architecture, and some of it was a little garish and brutal, but there were some interesting lines and geometry to study and capture. Leadenhall Market is particularly aesthetic and I enjoyed the flags and the lighting. The last few images aren't of architecture but they were captured on the same shoot and I couldn't resist adding them here.Both Jena and I used the OMD EM-5, and I captured what you see below with one of my three primes, the Panasonics 14mm F/2.5, 20mm F/1.7 and Olymous 45mm F/1.8. Hope you enjoy them!
The second castle on our radar after Caerphilly was Castle Coch. Literally the 'red castle', owing to it's red brickwork, although I have rendered it here in black and white. The interiors were beautifully restored to ornate and opulent glory, and were utterly vibrant with colour and artwork. Some of it is still being restored but we still thoroughly enjoyed our visit there.I hope you enjoy the photos below.
After our epic hike around waterfall country (at least, it felt epic!), the following day we wanted to take it easy. So we made our way firstly to Caerphilly Castle, the second largest in Britain (after Windsor Castle). Really quite an amazing structure, first built in the 13th Century and gradually restored between the 18th and 20th Centuries, the castle is known for its scale and for the impressive moat around it.I have rendered many of the images in black and white as it seemed befitting of such an historical building. And having lived in Wales for a couple of years, I feel a certain allegiance to it, and was keen to capture the Welsh flag.Again, all images were taken with the EM5 and one of three primes: the Panasonics 14mm F/2.5, 20mm F/1.7 and Olympus 45mm F/1.8. I hope you enjoy the images.
This weekend past, my friends Bizhan, Linda, Natalia and myself embarked on a terrific adventure in Wales. We navigated through waterfall country on an almost 9 hour hike, slipping, sliding and falling on our quest to capture photos. Below is a selection of my efforts, all taken with the EM5 and one of three primes: the Panasonics 14mm F/2.5, 20mm F/1.7 and Olympus 45mm F/1.8. Some were taken on the Gorilla Pod (a revelation to me; I even wrapped it around tree branches to get shots!), but many were taken hand-held at around 1 second thanks to the EM5's excellent IBIS and Anti-Shock system. I was the only one in our group who had done this hike before, and back then (last year) I had used a DSLR. The fact that I feel I captured better photos this year with the EM5 surely proves that not only are doubters of this system misguided, but that it ultimately doesn’t matter what type of camera you use to capture half decent images. This time around, too, the autumnal colours may have helped with the vibrancy of the photos.The following day, after leaving the fantastic Beili Helyg guesthouse, we explored two of South Wales most popular castles, but photos from them will be presented on separate posts. After our trek we were exhausted but triumphant, and I hope you enjoy the photos below as much as we enjoyed capturing them.
Both Bulgaria and Greece have an inordinate number of stray cats, so I thought I would pay tribute to them here. Most of them hang around restaurants and other eateries looking for scraps. Almost all of these photos were taken on the fly with my phone, the ageing Nokia N8.
I have been to Plovdiv so many times and photographed most of it, so this time I wasn't as inspired to take any new photos. Hence the few you see below. One new addition was the Amphitheatre which had been excavated below the street level of the town, and furnished with a visitor centre. I have captured Genka sitting there, with the Mosque overlooking the scene.My previous photos of Plovdiv can be found here and here.
After the excitement of Pirin and Kavala, we left our apartment on the third day to travel back to Plovdiv. Petar drove us through some stunning countryside where the autumnal colours were just appearing in the foliage, and I couldn't help but grab a few shots from the car. Not easy shooting through a car window at 80 kph!Anyway, here are a few of the shots I managed to take. Enjoy.
Genka and Petar’s second surprise for me (after Pirin) during my trip was a visit to Greece, specifically the port town of Kavala.You wouldn’t think that Greece was in the midst of economic meltdown with all the bustling cafes and restaurants, but the streets weren’t the cleanest, and I’ve never seen so many stray dogs and cats anywhere.That said, we enjoyed the Byzantine Castle atop the hill, and the aqueduct erected by Suleiman the Great in the 16th Century. Petar indulged in a spot of fishing at the harbour while Genka and I took some promotional shots for her jewellery.By nightfall we venture back to Bulgaria, navigating through one the worst thunderstorms I’ve ever encountered. Still alive, though.Again, all the images were taken with the OMD EM5 and one of my three primes.
And now for some blatant advertising, but this is my blog so why not. Think of it as an exercise in product and advertorial photography.My dear friend Genka has developed a wonderful jewellery brand called Orenda Art, and I happily offered to help with some promotional material by taking the photos you see below. Genka and Petar both modelled the jewellery (of which there are products for both men and women), and even though the photos were taken on the fly, I think we captured the beauty of the products and a sense of place, colour and emotion from wearing them. All the photos were shot with the Olympus OMD EM5 and one of either the Olympus 45mm F/1.8 or the Panasonic 20mm F/1.7.Please visit Orenda Art if you like what you see, and contact Genka directly; she will be happy to take your orders.
Although this was my seventh trip to Bulgaria, and I thought I had seen everything, my dear friends Genka and Petar still managed to wow me again and surpass my expectations. We drove up a long and winding mountain road into the Pirin Mountains, and then hiked on foot for another hour and a half, eventually reaching a beautiful lake at around 2000 metres up. Along the way we were overwhelmed by the breath-taking scale and beauty of our surroundings. We were dwarfed by the mountain ridges and amazed by the vistas they created. The stream that led to the lake was teeming with trout. Pirin is one of a trio of large mountain ranges in Bulgaria, the others being Rhodopi (which I have also visited) and Rila (which is next on my list).On this trip, I only took the Olympus OMD EM5 and a trio of primes: the Olympus 45mm F/1.8 and Panasonics 20mm F/1.7 and 14mm F/2.5. Most of the images below were taken with the latter two. Petar is in some of the images, providing a sense of scale. Well, I hope the photos speak for themselves and demonstrate what an incredibly stunning country Bulgaria is. I am eternally indebted to Genka and Petar for showing it to me.
A break from the rainy spells allowed me to dragoon my good friend Bizhan for some night shooting around St Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge. Once again, I used the Olympus EM-5 and one of the Panasonics 14mm F/2.5, 20mm F/1.7, and the Olympus 45mm F/1.8. One ingenious feature on the EM-5 is the LIVE TIME function, which allows you to see the long exposure develop as you are taking it. This allows you to stop the exposure when you are happy with what you see on the LCD, instead of waiting for the long exposure to finish and starting again. A great time saver.I must also pay tribute to the brilliant image stabiliser, which allowed me to take hand-held exposures down to 1 sec in duration with perfectly sharp results!Another revelation for me was the gorilla pod, which Bizhan recommended to me. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get one! They can attach to anything, allowing a wealth of compositional opportunities to open up.The shots below aren't particularly creative or original for the most part, but the exercise fulfilled its objective in continuing to impress me with this little camera.
I wanted to try some long exposures out with the Olympus OM-D EM-5, and since I hadn’t seen many on the web I ventured into town on a rainy night and captured a few shots. Not all were long exposures; some were just killing time while I was waiting around.Not ideal to shoot in the rain, but the wet ground always makes for some interesting reflections. And thank goodness the EM-5 is weatherproof!The shots below were taken with one of the Panasonics 14mm F/2.5, 20mm F/1.7 or the Olympus 45mm F/1.8. I think they all did pretty well.Some images I have rendered black and white, and they range between ISOs of 200 and 6400. One useful feature is the Anti-Shock, which starts the exposures at a designated time (e.g. 2secs) after you press the shutter button in order to avoid blur from the act of pressing itself. I found this particularly useful since I didn’t take my tripod with me (having shot in London many times before, I knew there would be an abundance of surfaces to rest on).Anyway, I hope this enlightens you as to what a small but highly capable camera system can do, and perhaps, like me, you’ll think about leaving the heavy gear at home for a change.
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