Time to use the Christmas pressies

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. 

The big man in the red suit didn't bring me any photographic equipment, but after dropping some hints I did get a load of Amazon vouchers for me to buy what I wanted. I love that freedom :-)

My old camera bag was a cheap one that I bought when I first got into photography. It was just meant to tide me over until I got something better. Three years later it's finally time to get a new one as it was getting too small for my needs and was starting to fall apart. 

I ordered a Lowepro Vertex 200 AW, and I can easily say I am very impressed. It is much bigger than my old one and takes all of my kit very easily. Its shoulder straps are extremely comfortable as well. Loads of little pockets to hold odds an sods, and a dedicated compartment to hold a laptop or tablet if you want to carry one with you. 

Why else did I buy? I also got a second flashgun and wireless receiver so I can produce much better lighting for portrait shots. 

I'm looking forward to practicing with different lighting set-ups. I just hope the wife and kids are going to be willing models :-/

Wishing everyone a really great and happy New Year. Best wishes for 2014 :-)

Going for the Fine Art look

I haven't been able to get out much and capture any new material due to an old shoulder injury which flared up just before Christmas. Nerve damage has meant I've been holed up at home feeling sorry for myself and on a cocktail of painkillers. 

In the last few days I've started to feel more human so have started to go through my back catalogue and see what can be processed in a new way. 

With the image below I've have gone for the Fine Art black and white, square crop look. I'd really love to know what you think. 

Don't forget you can sign up for email alerts on the right hand side of the blog page. 

Hope you all have a fantastic New Year :-)

Going through the archives - new abstract additions to Kevin Browne Photography website

I've been watching some photography related pages on Facebook lately and seeing what they are requesting for their weekly theme competitions. It made me think that I had quite a few images that would meet their requirements, so off I went to my external hard-drives to dig out these images.

It really made me happy looking back at these ones because when I took them I was learning so much and had never tried shots like these before. I was so happy with the results that I got them printed onto acrylic and have them hanging in my house. These images look great on the shiny surface of the acrylic print.

I have now also added these to my website: www.kevinbrownephotography.com
I'd love to know what you think.

Long exposure fibre-optic light

Water drops on a CD

Olive oil on water with red food colouring

If you like these images, please pass on the link to this blog to your friends. You can also sign up by email to get notified of new blog posts.

Many thanks

Kevin.

www.kevinbrownephotography.com

National Parks England - Twitter competition winner

Over on Twitter @NationalParksEngland, @NorthYorkMoors and @NewForestNPA were doing a "Tweetathon" this evening, asking for people to tweet their favourite pictures taken in some of the countries National Parks. So, I tweeted a few I had taken...and was selected the winner :-)) This was the image that got it. Don't forget prints of this are available from my website. www.kevinbrownephotography.com 

The prize is a voucher to be used on Derek Fogg's website (www.britishlandscapephotography.com), but for me it's more about the buzz that a professional photographer and large organisations that run our #nationalparks selected my image as winner. 

I'm glad I stayed in tonight instead of heading to the local pub quiz with some neighbours as I usually do on a Tuesday :-)

Certainly makes up for missing out on that sunrise opportunity this morning :-)

Don't forget to comment or share with your friends and family. 

Kevin. 

Location Frustration

Sunrise this morning was one of those clear, crisp and colourful affairs. There were beuatiful colours in the sky and a bit of light frost on the ground. With those ingredients all coming together I headed off to work a little earlier than usual (at this time of year you don't need to be up at stuipd o'clock to get a nice sunrise photo), knowing just where I wanted to shoot.

On the route I take to work there is a gap in the hedges of the narrow country lane that, when you drive past it, you can see through and down into a nice little valley. The plan was that the sun would have been behind me and I would have been shooting down into the valley to capture the first rays of light hitting the tops of the trees poking out of the frosty mist. I had checked The Photographers Ephemeris a couple of days ago, so knew which way the sun would be shining, and the weather conditions were perfect. It was all falling into place.

There aren't a great number of places to park along that road as it is a narrow single-track lane with areas that you can pull in to pass other vehicles if you meet one coming in the other direction, but I was able to park up in the wide area just in front of a gate into one of the farm fields. I was feeling confident at this stage.

I changed into my walking boots, grabbed my camera bag and tripod from the back of the car and set off into the gap in the hedges, visuallizing in my head what the finished image would look like and getting excited about uploading it to my website, Facebook page, Flickr and 500px accounts. It was going to be all misty and atmospheric with cool dawn colours leading upwards to the warmth of autumn leaves being lit by the first rays of morning sunshine.

Walking through the hedges onto a public footpath I was faced with an eight foot high fence all the way along the side of the path that I wanted to get through!!! I hadn't planned for that had I. Doh!

The moral of the story? Sometimes a quick spur-of-the-moment shot can produce a stunning image, but if you've gone to the effort that I have as described above then I really should have stopped there on my way home one evening to take a little walk to ee what the view would be like. I then could have saved myself the time this morning and headed to another location without the frustration of wasting a beautiful sunrise.

Be warned beautiful sunrises of the future...I'm coming to get you!

My images now selling on Photo4me.com

Since launching my website I've been looking for suppliers that can provide me with quality prints on acrylic, aluminium and other formats so I can provide the full offering direct from my website. However, this has proved quite hard as a lot of suppliers prices are very high, so by the time I add even a very small margin for me it would put the cost up to a level that no one would expect to pay.

So, I have recently uploaded some images to Photo4me.com who offer sensible prices and have a good reputation on quality. To view my images and buy as prints (framed or not), acrylics or phone cases you can follow the link below:

http://www.photo4me.com/canvasprints/Kevin-Browne

As usual I'd love to hear any feedback. You can email me as well.

Many thanks

Kevin.

Ooh to have some more spare time!

I have sooo many photographic ideas that I want to try out at the minute that I am finding it really frustrating that I don't have enough spare time to do them all. The reason...life! More specifically my job, my kids...and everything in between.

Don't get me wrong, my job is interesting and exciting (a little too exciting at times with things going wrong just days before we are due to launch a big new offering to the television viewing public), and I adore my kids and would do anything for them.

I suppose this post is just me pouting my lips like a toddler and stamping my feet wanting more time for me and my camera to get out and about. I'll calm down over the weekend when I've relaxed after a hectic week at work...honest!

Anyway, last weekend I did manage to get out with my camera...and my eldest son for a few hours. We headed out in our campervan to Milford-On-Sea in Hampshire for lunch at the Needles Eye cafe and then a wander along the beach. Surprisingly, for mid-November it was actually very mild and calm. We didn't even need to zip our coats up, and the sea was really flat.

I took my Canon 70D with me, but also took along my old Canon 1000D for my son to take some pictures if he wanted to. We walked from the car park at the cafe out along Hurst Spit which leads out to Hurst Castle. We didn't make it the whole way as my son started complaining about walking so far and all he wanted to do was clamber over the rocks that make up the sea defence.

I had recently bought a Lee Big-Stopper ND filter and thought this was the perfect chance to see what I could do with it. Now when I say I bought a Big-Stopper, that bit is very true, but I haven't managed to but the holder system for it yet, and it is too big to fit in my Cokin P-Series filter holder. So, there I was with my camera on the tripod, set up for a 25-second exposure at f/11, and I was stood crouching over the top of the camera holding the Big-Stopper against the front of the lens trying not to move too much and keep from making the camera move and ruin the photo.

It may sound like a bodged attempt at doing this, but I really am quite happy with the results. I am now really looking forward to getting out again (whenever that might be) and doing more work with the Big-Stopper. Filter holder will be ordered very soon.

I'd love to know what you think of these images.

AS usual, these have been added to my website where you can buy copies as canvas prints:
www.kevinbrownephotography.com

Many thanks for looking (and I'd love to hear your feedback).

Kevin.

New image added to website

I've had some very nice comments about my photo of the tree at Brately View in the New Forest, including enquiries about it in portrait format. Seeing that the last canvas I sold was of the portrait version and it sounds like there may be another order coming for the same one I thought it was about time I actually added it to my website. That way, potential customers will have the choice :-)

http://www.kevinbrownephotography.com/#!Bratley-View-Portrait/zoom/galleryPage/image1n2l

 
I'd love to know what people think of it, so please feel free to comment (or share with your friends).

One of my images is being printed in a magazine :-)

I got an email this morning telling me one of my images is printed in Issue 32 of Photography For Beginners magazine (on sale from 14th November if you fancy buying a copy...and no I don't get anything for it).

This is the image:

http://www.kevinbrownephotography.com/#!Sunflower-Field/zoom/galleryPage/image1otg

Happy days :-)

Another happy customer

I've just delivered a canvas print of sunset at Bratley View in the New Forest to one very happy customer. A few more like that would be very welcome :-)

I've also been doing some minor fettling with the website today and have now added PayPal buttons to the Pries page to make it even easier for customers to place orders. 

www.kevinbrownephotography.com

Beautiful light on the way to work this morning

The office I work in is located on the outskirts of a picture postcard village in rural #Hampshire, and the route I drive every morning to get there takes me through some lovely countryside. This morning, was one of those mornings when everything just fell into place...my wife was taking the kids to nursery and school, I managed to leave the house a bit earlier than I have been able to lately...and the sun was just peeping over the horizon and it was looking like a truly beautiful morning.

I drive past this #vineyard every day on my way to work but I have never stopped to photograph it as I have either not had my camera with me, or I've been rushing in to the office for some meeting or other. This morning was different however.

When I am able to take a peep over the hedge while driving along the road beside this field I obviously realise that it is a vineyard, but I was pleasantly surprised at how big it actually is. I think I may be stopping here a few more times to try and capture it at different times throughout the seasons.

This image is for #sale as a #canvas print on my website: www.kevinbrownephotography.com

Thank you for looking.

How can I follow other blogs from my own blog?

If anyone can tell me how to follow and link to other blogs from my own Blogger blog I'd be very grateful!

Canvas order

Well, that's another order for a canvas print received today :-)

Only a few more thousand of those each week and I'll be able to give up the day job.

#canvas #photography #landscape #customers

It all turned out nice in the end

Yesterday morning, Sunday, when it was my turn for a lie-in I was up at 5am getting ready to head out to the New Forest with Mark Linton. Our aim was to try and get some sunrise shots through the trees on Ornamental Drive near Rhinefield House Hotel, and then hunt for some visually interesting funghi to shoot.
As it happens sunrise was a pipe-dream as we had some of the heaviest rain I had seen in a while. In fact, while we were in the forest a mini tornado caused a fair bit of damage on Hayling Island, which is only about 20 miles away from where we were. It was windy with us, but not that windy! Anyway, you get the idea that it wasn't a lovely morning!

After a conversation which included the option of just giving up and going home we decided to head to the Boldrewood area and look for mushrooms. Donning our wet weather gear we headed off into the trees and looked for areas where there would be some fallen trees and branches which mushrooms tend to grow near to. We found a nice little opening which had some very interesting mushrooms (to my VERY untrained eye).

This is where the buil-in WiFi capability on my Canon70D came into its own. I was able to set my camera up slung underneath my tripod and control it directly from my iPhone. It meant I didn't have to get down and dirty in the mud :-). It did present some different challenges though. Namely trying to compose the shot while looking at the screen of my phone and moving the tripod very gently and slowly until I was happy. I was doing #macro shots of the mushrooms so I ended up crouching over the camera to manually change the focus so I could then stack multiple images together when I got back home.

All-in-all I was very pleased with the outing. It was nice to get out into the #NewForest so early in the morning, the rain eventually stopped...and we saw two beautiful deer jumping through the trees, with full heads of antlers. We weren't able to get our cameras in time to take any pictures of them, but they were a beautiful site.

I'll be posting the #funghi images online in the next couple of days.

Why not sign up to my blog for updates: http://kevinbrownephotography.blogspot.co.uk/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/KevinBrownePhotography
Website: www.kevinbrownephotography.com

The things we do

Alarm went off at 05:15, so I could head off into the New Forest to catch sunrise and then hunt aroun for some decent mushrooms to photograph...in what is forecast to be heavy rain.

Remind me again why I do this?!?

Facebook page

It may have taken a while but I've finally hit 100 likes on my Facebook photography page. Phew :-)

I hope it's a bit quicker to 200:

www.facebook.com/KevinBrownePhotography

Don't forget my website is at:

www.kevinbrownephotography.com

Tonights waxing gibbous moon

I had obviously taken photos of the moon with my old camera (a Canon 100D), but I wanted to see what the resolution difference would be with my new camera (Canon 70D) and the same lens, a Tamron 70-300mm. The answer...considerable :-)

Resisting temptation

I've done some macro shots lately using my Tamron 70-300mm which only has limited macro capability between 180-300mm. While it does the job, to a degree, I'd still love a dedicated macro lens. However, I must resist the temptation to buy one. Having recently bought a campervan and a new camera body I must save the pennies to pay for more urgent stuff...like major structural work on my house.
If anyone would like to donate a good quality macro lens, that would be a different matter :-)

Another Project52 - 31 Seconds

This was supposed to be the Milky Way! Pah!
To the naked eye it was very dark in the grounds of our holiday hotel in Menorca, but as the theme that week was "31 Seconds" it shows that there was a lot more ambient light around when the shutter was left open for so long. Yep, you're right...it's a rubbish photo.

This one means that I am now 10 shots behind on the Project52. I've actually got 5 more photos already done, so I'll upload them over the next day or two.

Don't forget to have a look at my website:
www.kevinbrownephotography.com

Catching up on my Project52 (I'm a little behind)

When I started my Project52 (one photo per week on a specified subject) I stuck to it religiously and didn't miss an upload date. But then I went away on holiday for two weeks to Menorca in August and obviously couldn't upload anything from there. So that meant I was two weeks behind. But then I got back to work and it seemed that the whole world had gone crazy and I didn't get 5 minutes to myself for weeks on end.

It's still just as crazy at work, but I'm now about 11 weeks behind on the Project52. I know you are supposed to take the photo in the actual week that the theme was set for, but rules are there to be broken sometimes so I'm now playing catch-up.

This photo is for Week 30, when the theme was Texture. My 3 year old son found this shell on the beach at Milford-On-Sea in Hampshire and handed it to my wife, saying "Pretty shell for you Mummy". It now has its own display area on the dashboard of our campervan.

I hope to catch up completely with the rest of the outstanding themes over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out. I may even put a dedicated page on my website (www.kevinbrownephotography.com) for the project photos.

Website officially launched!

I'm feeling quite nervous about this, but I've finally pressed the "Publish" button on my website.
So that's it, it's now live and open for business.
I really hope everyone likes my images and signs up to this blog as it would be good to get feedback and conversations going.

Keep watching this space :-)

Look what's just arrived :-)

I ordered the new Canon 70D on Monday from HDEW Cameras and it arrived today, Thursday. 

The battery is charging and I can't wait to get started with it. Why does it take sooo long to charge a battery! :-)

Ok, so I've been REALLY busy at work over the last few weeks trying to get a new project off the ground and running, so I've been very tardy about updating my website and this blog, but things are beginning to calm down at work now (I hope) so I will be able to get the website (www.kevinbrownephotography.com) finished and officially launched very soon.

Some positive news - I've just ordered a new camera, a Canon 70D. I'm really looking forward to it arriving so I can have a play and start uploading images from it.

Keep watching this space :-)

Sunflowers

As it is that time of year I went out last night with a few other people to shoot a sunflower field in Stubbington, Hampshire. Unfortunately we had missed the sunflowers at their best as a lot of the flower heads had started to lose their petals and were starting to die off.

We managed to find a patch within the field that still had a lot of flowers intact, so we waited patiently to see what the sunset would bring. I also took some shots of the flower heads that were dying off as I thought I could work something with them...probably a high-contrast monochrome image to emphasise the decay.

I'm still working on the edits so will upload them this evening hopefully :-)

Getting this thing off the ground

Well, I've been thinking about building a website for ages now and I've finally taken the plunge and started building one. I had put it off long enough, thinking it was too daunting and it would take too much time to do.

Daunting? Yes, definitely.
With so many suppliers out there my first brain wracking decision was which one I should use. After speaking to loads of people (who all suggested I use different ones) I settled on using Wix. Why? Because it seemed as good as any of the others and it looked like there was plenty of help available for a complete novice like me.

So, I'm in the middle of building the website and hope to have it published soon and will announce it on my Facebook page as well (www.facebook.com/KevinBrownePhotography). I will hopefully work out how to link this blog to the website as well.

My reasoning for wanting a website?
I wanted somewhere I could use as a showcase for my photography hobby. I've been into photography for about three years now and have learned a hell of a lot in that time. I've picked up a lot of knowledge and experience through reading everything I could get my hands on, websites, magazines, blogs, facebook pages etc. And now I want to show off what I've learned.

You never know, somebody might want to buy one of my images! I hope so :-)