If you read about landscape photography, you'll always hear about the golden hours. Those times around sunrise and sunset when the sky is perfect, full of colour, the sun low in the sky.

The annoying thing about this is that those golden hours are also at the most inconvenient times of the day!

Well, I made myself a promise this winter that I'd try to get out once a week during those golden hours and see if I could make anything of them.

This week I tried around the Harland & Wolff, Belfast ship yards and the Titanic Quarter. (Remember, when the people of Belfast finished her she was unsinkable, it took an Englishman to wreck it!)

(f/16, 1.6secs, 20mm, ISO-200, 28/10/2008)

Halloween is coming and the photographer has gotten fat,

and while he was sorting dinner he spotted the wee girls trike (OK, it doesn't rhyme.).

With winter arriving with vengeance I was cooking dinner tonight and looking out into the back garden. My daughters trike was sitting abandoned and I couldn't shake that "Here's Johnny" line. After saying it four or five times my wife cracked up and made me go and take the picture.

I think it's kinda sinister, but you maybe just think it's badly lit.

(f/8.0, 6secs, 100mm, ISO-200, 29/10/2008)

This was deliberately lit down low on the right side of the image to try and give it that partially lit appearance. To do it, I stood just out of shot and remotely fired the camera, then during the 6 second exposure I fired the flash manually from low to the ground and pointing up.

This is kind of a lead in for me to a concept known as 'off camera strobing' and something I'm hoping to do more off over the next while. There are a few good sites that deal with it, but the defacto best blog on the subject is The Strobist.

The club phase of the NIPA round 2 competition was last night, and as anyone who's read anything here over the past few weeks will know, the theme was "Water".

I ended up submitting 7 entries, 3 in the beginners mono section and 4 in the beginners colour. I thought I'd post, showing you the final choices and the comments they received.

But first...

The entries to the competition where quite varied, ranging from some lovely waterfall shots through to droplets similar to pictures I'd been trying. There were a few "loose" interpretations on the theme, but all in all I thought the pictures were pretty impressive. I counted around 20 mono and 30 - 40 colour prints.

Within the club, points are awarded to the top 4 colour and top 4 mono pictures. The best 3 expert photos and best beginner photo in each section go through to the NIPA inter-club phase.

The judge on the night was very thorough, giving a critique of every shot. I felt he was maybe a little critical at times and tended to concentrate on the problems in each picture, but as I said to one of the members - "I wasn't putting photos in to have people blow bubbles up my bum" (No, I'm not sure what I meant either).

During judging he reiterated a few points

• The majority of the picture needed to be water
• Still water was lifeless and bland unless reflections or some such set it off
• Horizons really needed to be straight
• The context needed to be clear
• Division of interest - there being multiple subjects in the same show

I was going to be in for a rough night...

The Mono Pictures

The three mono pictures I ended up submitting were:

 Dripping Tap. (Names are such transient things!)

Droplet

Ice

I know these shots have issues, and after printing the strongest was the "Dripping Tap" photograph. I'm not going to try and quote the judge here, but in essence.

• Dripping Tap - Possibly a little tighter drop to remove the dead area to the right of the tap.
• Droplet - The judge wasn't sure what this was, wondering aloud if it was the ripples of a sinks drain or something similar.
• My Little Iceberg -Recognised as ice, he summed it up along the lings of "it's just a photo of ice on a plate"

The Colour Pictures

Splash on Silk

Droplet on a Leaf

 My Little Iceberg

 Lake in the Mournes

Again, without trying to quote the judge.

• Splash on Silk - He wasn't sure what this was and wasn't keen on the colour, saying he felt water pictures should be water coloured
• Droplet on a leaf - Whilst there was water in the picture, there wasn't enough of it and it wasn't the main subject
• My Little Iceberg - (I'm not even getting into it. I shouldn't have submitted this...)
• Lake in the Mournes - Almost monochrome landscape, quite dull and lifeless

My Thoughts

I've heard it said a few times now that you can't read a judge before the night. There's always an element of luck to it. But having seen the winning pictures in each round, they deserved to win and the  judge did get it right.

I don't necessarily agree with some of his comments in regard to "Splash on Silk" and "Droplet on a Leaf", but given he doesn't read this blog he might have been right. I'd be keen on other peoples thoughts.

All in all I'm happy with the night and the round. I learned a little more and saw some brilliant examples of thematic photography. I also managed to achieve 4th overall in the mono section with the "Dripping Tap" and the "Droplets on Silk" picture was picked as the best beginner colour photograph. Both go through to the inter-club round.

I have problems with backgrounds quite a lot. I tend to see the subject in the viewfinder, like what I'm getting and press "snap" without ever considering the background of an image.

Take a look at this picture to see what I mean.

(f/3.2, 1/200sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 09/10/2008)

The water droplet is nice and sharp. I quite like the colouring effect I put on the image. I even kinda like the fact the tap is quite grubby and out of focus.

But the shadow of the tap forms a dark stripe across the picture and it just annoys me when I look at it now. I've tried cropping the picture to remove the head of the tap, but I felt it lost context when I did that.

So, lesson for today. (and one I'm still trying to learn dammit) is don't just look at the subject, look at the background before you press 'snap'.

Oh, and I have no clue as to what the strange pear shape reflection is in the water either!

One of the things I've tried over the past few weeks is to capture a water splash frozen, sharp and in focus. I'd tried this last year and got some OK results, but they weren't fantastic and it was very hit and miss.

This time I wanted to be sure I understood the principles, and thanks to a few people I think I'm getting there, and I thought I'd share.

First some simple things to remember.

• Water is transparent. (No shit Sherlock...). No, this is really important and I didn't consider it with my first attempts. I was more concerned with a clean splash and it was only when I reviewed them that I realised the cloth under the water wasn't particularly photogenic
• Water is reflective.  (again, with the Sherlock remark). Seriously, take care of the background lights (and remember to wear some clothes if you think you'll be in the reflection)
• Water is wet. (OK, but still....). Make sure you don't have anything valuable sitting where it will get wet. If you're fiddling with positioning of lights and bowls and backgrounds, make sure your camera isn't around your neck and dangling in the water. It's obvious, but I found my camera remote (my new one) in a puddle after one session

And if you ever needed proof that water was transparent, the splash is lost in a poorly conceived background choice.

OK, here's what you'll need.

1. A clear bowl or some other water receptacle (preferably with water in it) - I used a shallow casserole dish
2. Something to go under the bowl if it's transparent - I used place mats, card of different colours, paper and a few other things while playing
3. Something to drip the water into the bowl - I used a syringe, but have read about people using plastic bags with pin holes, pipettes, basically anything that allows you to control the flow of water at drip level
4. Light
5. An empty memory card (you will take a lot of pictures)
6. Tripod
7. Camera remote (optional)

The first three are pretty straightforward and what you use is entirely up to you. Different containers and colours will have huge impacts on the final picture and you really should consider the background as it will make or break the image.

Light is important. Remember, the aim is to catch a splash. To freeze it in motion you'll need to use a pretty fast shutter speed and unless you happen to be shooting outdoors on a nice day, you're already climbing a lighting mountain. You have two options, either a fixed constant light source or a good flash gun. I'm not going to try and tell you to use one over the other, but remember a typical flash will have a maximum synchronisation speed of about 1/200 and that might limit you somewhat.

Right, so assuming you've all the bits above, you need to do the following...

1. Position your background on a solid stable location
2. Place the water (in the bowl) on top of the background and make sure there are no specs of dirt in it
3. Set up the camera on the tripod pointing at the water
4. Make sure your camera is in manual focus mode
5. Use the end of your dropper (or something thin like a pen) to pre-focus on the water roughly where your drop will hit
6. Try to get as narrow an aperture* as you can get away with without reducing the shutter speed too far. I found 1/200 was the absolute slowest I could get a sharp(ish) image at. (your mileage may vary)
7. Finalise the settings on the camera, set up your lighting solution (if you're using a flash a few test shots to make sure you have a decent exposure wouldn't go amiss). Put the camera on continuous/burst mode
8. Holding the dropper above the water, aim for your chosen spot
9. Fire the camera as you squeeze water droplets out of the dropper. I started by using the remote, but found it was as easy to just use one hand for the dropper and the other for the camera button
10. Refill, repeat until the card is full

*(Why the narrow aperture? Well, the likelihood of you hitting the right spot with every drop is slim. With a narrow aperture you get a bigger depth of field so are more likely to get a good sharp drop in another region of your picture, allowing you come latitude for post process cropping.)

It takes some patience, and a lot of trial and error. But hopefully you'll get a few decent splashes captured.

(This is also a decent example of the need for a small aperture as the splash is way off centre. The high spot in the splash is from the flash gun - and that was with a diffuser on it!)

Now I've managed it with water, I'm planning on trying it with milk and a few other liquids. I'm also going to give it a god with a different lighting setup - possibly off camera to see how that impacts it.

Hopefully this has been of some use. There are a few of these guides on the web. The best I found was on Caz Photo.

Also, if you want a better understanding of why flashguns have a maximum synchronisation speed, you'd be well advised to read Paulo's explanation.

OK, I've just sent the chosen pictures to the printer for the water competition. I'm not hugely enamoured with some of them and there of my original list of planned pictures, I think I managed 1 or maybe 2.

I'm not going to list them just yet. I want to see the printed articles and collect my thoughts on the subject before getting into it again.

So in the meantime...

Here's another "Dam View" from my day in the Mournes.

(f/8, 1/125sec,  22mm, ISO-200, 27/09/08)

One of the biggest problems I face when shooting freehand is getting horizons level. It's even harder when nature conspires to put mountains in your way (and then doesn't even make them flat). It's certainly one of the times I love the capacity of digital for post processing, turning a simple mistake into an acceptible picture.

It's different when shooting on a tripod. For the sake of a few pounds, it's worth investing in a camera spirit level. Whilst loads of tripods come with a level, it's pointless if your head allows any sort of tilt. And besides, when people see it, they'll get a laugh out of it if nothing else.

OK, so a week or so ago I posted the picture of the water drops on the sepia coloured rose. I've kind of decided not to use that picture for the water round of the competition. (Not because I don't like it, more because it's a rose bud with water rather than water on a rose bud).

... Anyhow, I was playing with the picture in Photoshop and decided to raise the exposure of the right side before removing the highlights from the water droplets to see what effect it had on the picture. It's left me in a dilemma about which I prefer.

So, which is better?

Thanks to some advice from Paulo, I was able to re-examine how I was taking some of the water shots. Whilst I'm not convinced I'm up to this standard yet, I did repeat the water droplet experiment using some of the tips from his blog.

Suffice to say this is the first of lots of much improved drop shots that I got. More will follow.

It's hard to imagine that less than 2 weeks ago I was wandering around a mountain in a pair of shorts...

(f/11, 1/125sec, 70mm, ISO-400, 27/09/08)

You'd think with a water theme competition coming up I'd be happy about the rain. You'd be quite wrong.

Can you imagine the feeling of dread as the lookout on the Titanic yelled those words?

Well, that was probably a lot more intense than the dread I felt as I popped open the boxes with my latest attempt at clear ice cubes.

However, like the Titanic, it seems I too was doomed to failure.

This time I'd tried to use de-ionised water. It was the closest to purified I could find (if anyone knows where I can get some, please tell me!). The ice was clearer, but still not great. I guess for round three I'll boil the bugger and see what happens.

Anyway, after lots of fruitless cursing at it I smashed it up so it would melt faster and not lie in the sink with an accusatory glare all night. As I looked at the pieces, I decided to have a bit of a play.

(f/3.5, 1/250sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 06/10/2008)

OK, this has been toned quite heavily to give it that odd blue glow. It's not great. In fact it reminds me of the turkey giblets quote from last year. But since I share the good and the bad, I thought I'd show you my lack of progress with ice.

I think I'm beginning to appreciate the club competition on a new level now. Never really having to work to an agenda before, I've always just taken pictures of things I like or things I thought might look nice. If I got a picture out of it, that was great. If I didn't, it was no big loss, like buses there'd be two just round the corner.

However, a subject as simple or as varied as "water" forces you into looking for shots which fulfil a brief, the sense of the clock ticking in the background is ever present. It took until today before I got past the deadline doom of the competition and realised that I wasn't actually that bothered about winning or losing or even just doing OK. I was in it for fun. Even if nobody liked my stuff (and believe me, the last photo I showed them got hammered), I was doing this to try and improve.

Funnily, right around the time I had that thought, I took the picture of the rose (see previous post) and the picture below.

In all honesty, I don't know if they'll be permitted in a competition where the theme is "water", but I like them and that's pretty much all that matters.

(f/5.6, 1/1000sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 05/10/08)

(f/5.6, 1/2500sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 05/10/2008)

I've no idea if this will be allowed as an entry for the "Water" round of the competition, but it's grown on me over the course of the day so it may well get an outing regardless. Maybe the top right is a little dark, but I'm not sure.

Sometimes it's a blessing that you can enter multiple prints.

This started of life as a yellow rose, but I just really like the sepia toning on it. It kills off the yellow in the flower and lets the water drops stand out a little more. And no, before you ask, these are natural water drops!

I've noticed what WingedMonkey seems to concentrate on macro flower shots in a lot of his updates and whilst I'm still a long way from some of his stuff, I am starting to see the attraction as you can end up with some lovely pictures.

(f/8, 1/1000sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 05/10/08)

I've kind of fallen into flower mode because of that water challenge. "Raindrops on roses" and all that... I'm still just shooting flowers in available light and I wonder what difference it would make if I was to start using reflections. Honestly, light is getting ever higher on my list of things to play around with. Maybe one day...

Nothing to say about this really. I was messing with the camera and liked the colour on a Friday night was all...

(f/2.8, 1/100sec, 100mm, ISO-400, 3/10/08)

Between mountains and models, the water project had taken a little bit of a back seat the last few days, but I got back onto it again tonight and after an hour of shooting, I'm growing to hate it.

I decided to move away from the ice idea for a while and try simple things like water filling a glass. I also decided to try and use a flash to light it as I wanted something a little 'ethereal' as a result.

Well, after an hour, this is the best I've got.

(f/4, 1/200sec, 100mm, ISO-200, 2/10/08)

It's still blurred, or at least not sharp enough for what I wanted.

I think this is probably down to the shutter speed of 1/200 (which is the fastest sync speed for my flash). I did try one at a faster shutter speed with the flash on manual, but it blew everything out and I needed to pack up.

So, according to my calendar I have 2 and a bit weeks to shoot something decent related to water and get it printed. I'm not panicking yet, but I'd getting a little frustrated.

Ah well, at least I have the weekend to try a few things and go back to my ice experiments!

I've mentioned the camera club I've joined a few times now. (And every time I've forgotten to link to their site- so here's the CPA Website). It's roughly week five of the season and to date we've had one round of the annual competition, two talks by visiting photographers and the opening night talks by some members.

Last nights talk was from Jim Crone, a professional fashion and beauty photographer. He spent the first half of the night talking about his work and his experiences, being candid and helpful in the face of questions and sharing some fantastic lighting and framing tips.

Then, while we drank tea, he set lights and with the aid of a local model gave us a practical demonstration of how to take pictures in a studio environment. After showing us how the professionals worked, we were able to take some photos ourselves.

It's quite a surreal experience taking photographs of a model. You see the professionals on TV having a dialogue with them but when it's your turn you just freeze. Fortunately for me, Lisa, the girl modelling was brilliant. As a result I managed to get a couple of shots I'm really pleased with.

(f/3.2, 1/160sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 30/09/08)

The setup was pretty simple. It consisted of a plain roll in the background with two tungsten lights. The main light was sitting directly in front of Lisa at about 2 metres off the ground and contained in a soft box. Directly under it was a silver reflector to provide some reflection. The second light was off to the right, just behind her shoulder. It was shining onto a piece of the roll which had a few cuts in it to give that pattern of light and shadow on the background.

(f/3.2, 1/160sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 30/09/08)

One interesting tip Jim provided which you can (hopefully) see in these images, is the use of white balance. In the first image, the camera is set to tungsten and as a result the picture is a nice natural set of colours. In the second picture, the camera is set to Daylight. As a result, the colours are much more creamy and warm.