Tree 2011

Tree 2011
Originally uploaded by stephenlamb

During 2011, I photographed a tree each month.  The tree stands in a field just off Barkby Thorpe Road on the border between Leicester and Leicestershire.  This photo mosaic is a collation of the results.  The individual photographs can be viewed on Flickr.

I did not make any attempt to take every photograph from exactly the same spot and with the same focal length but I tried to match the images at least approximately.  Most of the photographs had to be taken at the weekend - especially the winter ones.  I did sometimes leave it a bit late and some of the photographs were only just taken in the month intended.  Still, I found it an interesting exercise and intend to repeat it in 2012.  I am considering using this scene:

It is in the Watermead Country Park and about ten minutes walk from my home which would make getting to it easy.  The tree and the vegetation will change a lot through the year and I like the fact that the scene includes water.  This photograph was taken on a cloudy and overcast day but different weather conditions will change the scene considerably.  I put the photograph on Flickr earlier today with the comment that I might use it as the subject of a photograph a month project.  I have been surprised and pleased by the encouragement that I have received to go ahead - and so I probably will!

Project 365 - Part One

Photo Mosaic of my June 2008 Project 365 Photographs

Project 365 is a challenge - not a competition. The basic idea is that you commit yourself to taking one photograph a day for a year. You may choose to post it online but you can keep it to yourself if you want to. I completed Project 365 between 29th December 2007 and 28th December 2008. I started a second series on 1st April 2011. 

Apart from being fun most of the time, Project 365 has several benefits:

• It makes you get your camera out. 

• It sharpens your powers of observation and composition. 

• It makes you think more about making photographs. 

• It makes you find photographs in the most unpromising of situations - whatever you are doing and wherever you are, you have to take a photograph today. After you have done this a few times, you will never again say or think that there is nothing to photograph - there is always something to photograph. Your photography will improve. It just has too or you will not finish the project. 

You do have to rid yourself of the notion that you are going to try to take 365 masterpieces. Some days just getting a photograph taken - any kind of photograph is an achievement. It is fairly easy at first. There are probably lots of subjects easily available that will get you through the first month or so. Then it starts to get more difficult. Here are some of my coping strategies:

• Take a photograph early in the day. It does not much matter what it is like - at least you have got something that you can use. It takes the pressure off. You can try and find something better during the rest of the day. When I have not been able to follow this advice, I have sometimes found myself desperately looking for something to photograph late at night. One time, I was reduced to photographing a lamp in my hotel room. Taking a photograph early is especially important during the winter when the hours of daylight are short and you might be travelling to and from work in the dark. 

• Have a few themes. In my first Project 365 set I tried to take a self portrait each month and to photograph our front and back gardens from the same viewpoint each month. I also took photographs of doors and windows; churches; flowers and trees. In my present set, I have featured photographs of benches, buildings, sculptures and tombstones. These themes all make it easier to find a photograph especially when original ideas are hard to come by. If you already have an idea of what to look for, the photographic potential of your surroundings will become more obvious. 

• Take a camera everywhere. You probably cannot carry a DSLR all of the time but a compact camera or a mobile phone camera will enable you to take a photograph whenever the opportunity arises.

Photo Mosaic of my June 2011 Project 365 photographs.

Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, Leicestershire

Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, Leicestershire
Originally uploaded by stephenlamb

On Wednesday, this photograph had 18 views on Flickr. Today it has had another 7. All of them come from an "Unknown Source." according to the Flickr stats. I am baffled as to why. It is a simple record shot that I did not expect anyone to look at really. I wonder why so many folk have suddenly taken an interest in it and where are they being referred from?

Digital Lomography with Vignette

Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Originally uploaded by stephenlamb

I recently upgraded my mobile phone and chose the Motorola Defy. The main reason for choosing this rather than any other phone was that it is supposed to be able to withstand being dropped, banged and drowned - and it is claimed that the screen cannot be scratched. I wanted a robust phone. It is my first Android phone - the previous one was a Nokia and so ran Symbian. An unintended consequence of getting the new phone has been my discovery of apps that mimic lomography cameras such as Holgas and Diannas. I have been interested in trying these cameras for a while but been put off by the cost and inconvenience of processing film.

In common with most mobile phones, the camera on the Defy is not great but that means it lends itself well to this kind of lo-fi photography. I have been using the Vignette app to produce my photographs. it does a very good job of imitating the colour shifts, light leaks, vignettes and distortions which are characteristic of lomography. The range of options available is bewildering. For now, I have set it to square format and random - so that I do not know what is going to come out when I press the shutter. That is part of the fun though - if I do not like the result, I just take another photograph.

The Vignette App is available in the Android marketplace. There is a free version which is limited to 0.3 megapixel images. The full version allows images up to 5 megapixel although the instructions recommend not going higher than 3 megapixels. This is adequate for this type of photography. The full version also has GPS tagging enabled.

Calendar 2011

In each of the last two years, I have made a series of calendar pages and posted them on Flickr. I have confined myself to photographs taken in Leicester and Leicestershire which is where I live. I decided to create some calendar pages again this year. This time I have used photographs taken anywhere during 2010. The photographs for each month in 2011 were taken in the corresponding month of 2010. I chose photographs that I thought would be most effective in the calendar templates - sometimes cropping them quite tightly.

The calendar pages are produced using the Big Huge Labs website. The site allows photographs to be transferred from Flickr for use in the calendar. The calendar pages can then be transferred back to Flickr.

You can see all of the calendar pages for 2011 here.

There is a county park near where I live called Watermead Country Park. This year I am going to try to take one photograph per month that I can use in a calendar for 2012. It will give me an excuse to get out more often and get some exercise and some fresh air - as well as take some photographs.

Leicester Marathon 2010

Leicester Marathon 2010
Originally uploaded by stephenlamb

The route of the Leicester Marathon passes within a couple of hundred yards of our front door and so my camera and I went to have a look. I misjudged my timing - the fast runners had already gone by the time I made an appearance. Still I was able to get some photographs of the runners as they passed through Thurmaston and Watermead Country Park. I have been surprised at the large number of views the photographs have received on Flickr. All of them had received over a hundred views each with three or four days. If I had known that they would be this popular, I would have got up earlier and taken more and better photographs. I have started a Leicester Marathon Group on Flickr as I was surprised that there was not one already. I will be looking for opportunities to try this type of photography again - preferably before the next Leicester Marathon.

Concord, Massachusetts

Concord, Massachusetts
Originally uploaded by stephenlamb

We visited Lexington and Concord after hiring a car in Auburn. These towns are the places where the American Revolutionary War - or War of Independence broke out on April 19th 1775. The British troops set out from Boston with the intention of finding and capturing the weapons which they correctly thought were being stored at a farm near Concord. They encountered their first resistance at Lexington where the first shot of the war was fired - but no one has been able to find out who fired it. The British troops overcame the minutemen at Lexington and marched on to Concord where they met much stiffer opposition - especially at the Old North Bridge. Here they were forced to beat a disorderly retreat to Boston. They were harassed all the way back and suffered heavy losses. The war was on.

The Old North Bridge pictured above in a reconstruction from the 1950s. There have actually been several bridges on the site since 1775 - and for a while there was no bridge at all.

There are several historic sites, commemorative statues and monuments in Lexington and Concord and in between. I photographed this statue at Lexington and edited it in Showfoto. I like the effect - although I hit on it by accident.

There are also sights to be seen that are not related to the Revolutionary War. Both Concord and Lexington are attractive towns. I was surprised to find a copy of the Michaelangelo's Pieta on the green at Concord.

Unfortunately, the fall was not very advanced during our stay. I was hoping that the leaves in this photograph would not be green!