I fought with this picture for an hour after making it HDR. I'm still not happy with the colours, but I thought I'd share and see if some kind soul (soul, church - geddit?) would help me out and suggest where it all went wrong.

I've been busy the last week selecting and printing photos for the Peoples Photography thing in Dublin at the end of the month. It's been an interesting challenge, not because I have so many great photos (I wish), but because sometimes what's important to me isn't what you would call "good". In the end I decided to use people's advice to a point and then to supplement with some photos which might not otherwise have seen the light of a printer. Once the dust settles, I'll list the photos I used here.

In the meantime, here's a shot that did make the selection even though I'd never shown it to anyone. I really liked this red door and the flowers. I took it while visiting Errigal in Donegal a few weeks back. It was the classic "Look at the view" moment, except I was pointing the other way taking photos of a door...

Still, I like the colours.

(f/11, 1/80sec, 33mm, ISO-200, 02/08/08)

I don't know if you've ever been to Donegal or the west coast of Ireland, but in my experience the kitchen is always the centre of the house. You're a visitor and a guest when you're taken into the living room and you'll be treated with courtesy and warmth, but you're a true friend when you're taken into the kitchen and handed a mug of tea.

This is the third shot from the old house in Donegal. It only exists because of the magic of Lightroom.

I only had about 30 minutes to explore the house and I'd got distracted by the amount of things to photograph. As a result I didn't pay as much attention to the camera settings as I should have and it cost me badly.

I did consider what I wanted and decided to try and keep everything in focus. I also decided I wanted long exposures to make sure all the ambient light would work and the colours would filter through (the living room picture for example).

What I didn't consider was the impact of trying to use f/22 in such a dark environment on a camera with an automatic shutter speed of 30 seconds. Being too wrapped up in seeing what I could see, I didn't actually consider what the camera was seeing and only later did I discover that a lot of pictures were simply too dark.

I always said this blog was about me learning to take pictures. This was a lesson I could have done without...

I'm hoping to make a final selection of the photos I'm going to use for the Peoples Photography exhibition this weekend. (I'm going to choose the photos this weekend, the exhibition is a few weeks away). As a result, I've been going through a lot of my photographs again trying to decide which were important for me over the last year.

It's an interesting thing to do. Whilst many would doubt it, I can see definite changes in the pictures I've taken and the way I approach things. I've a huge distance to go before I'd call myself competent, but at least now I have a better idea of where I'm going.

Anyway, whilst trawling through some of my pictures from Germany, my eye caught this one and I thought "Oh, what a lovely bunch of...."

(f/6.3, 1/60sec, 50mm, ISO-200, +4 close up filter used)

I was allowed to take a look around a house this weekend. I don't normally get into the emotional side of photography, but given the pictures and the subject I felt maybe it was time to try to supplement what I had rather than just tell you what I did.

I'd never been in the house before. I'd often past it and one summer years ago I stood at the door and talked to him about festivals and football. He'd lived there once, but even years ago it wasn't where he lived. But it was his home.

With his passing, the house was closed up. His children respectful of the memories and time was allowed to pass...

At the weekend, for too brief a time, I was allowed to intrude on those memories. I'm not a good enough photographer to do his home justice, but hopefully these pictures go some little way towards it.

Inside the house I could see the two lives lived there. On the one side, the home for a man and his family, on the other his place of work.

The family man with the memories laid out in the trophies and the religious items.  Whilst dust and damp had started to claim ownership, the family and the warmth of their love was still there.

He was a tailor in a time when people put value in clothes beyond the name on the label.The tools of his trade still present in the workshop, from the yellowing patterns to the hangers, its all still sitting waiting for the next customer.  Whilst in pride of place beside the window sits his Singer.

I took other photos in the house. Mostly they don't show the house well. Not because the house doesn't have a story to tell, but because I'm still not the photographer I'd like to be.

I'm not sure I'll be in the house again. I don't know if it's disrespectful to his family to tread on memories or if it's painful for them to open the house up to me. But if I am, I hope I can take something more from it.

It's been a busy week in camera world. Between an opportunity to try street photography with Andrew and then 4 days at the Mary from Dungloe festival in Donegal, I've had a lot of fun taking pictures.

I'm working through them and will pick some to talk about over the next few nights, though updates will be slow for the next while as the Peoples Photography thing needs sorted.

In the meantime, this caught my eye as I was doing the uploading.

(f/4.0, 1/60sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 29/07/08)

I think I've entered a black and white phase. I was happy with the boat shot the other day and it lead me back to some of the other photographs I took during that trip to see if they worked in monochrome.

I'm still not decided on these, but I thought I'd share and see if anyone felt like commenting.

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Old Row Boat

(Just in case it interests you, the Row Boat used to be much more blue. Most people seemed put off by the colours though, so I toned it back. I still like the blue version though...)

Ok, I'm sticking my neck out here and hoping for once I got something right.

Remember the HDR stuff from a day or two ago?

Well, I remembered one of the Chromasia tutorials talked about conversion to grayscale and it got me thinking...

If you'll excuse the pun, this picture floats my boat.

(The conversion here was performed using photoshops lab colour mode. the original plan to use the channel mixer worked well, but this seemed a little less contrasty and a little more light).

I'd put the process to convert this here, but you should really just check out Chromasia's tutorials as they're better than anything I could write.