Richard Thomas' Photo Blog

OK, when I started this blog I fully intended to update it regularly, as I guess most people do when they start out. I have no excuse for not updating this since November, except laziness, procrastination and always having something else to do.

Today’s selection is really to publicise the fact that following a massive scanning session I’ve just added 9 new photos to my main site – some from a trip to Australia in 2002 and a couple of even earlier ones from Greece in 2000. So click here to see which sections have been updated with the latest photos.

The photo I have selected shows the Central Business District of Sydney, Australia in January 2002. In front of the office buildings you have Circular Quay, in the foreground there is a replica of the HMS Bounty which takes tourists on trips around the harbour and to the right of the skyscrapers is Darling Harbour. The day before I took this photo I did the Bridge Climb (more of a walk than a climb, but definitely worth doing if you ever get the chance) but was disappointed that I couldn’t take my camera. Fair enough, you can’t have anything being dropped from that height onto the traffic below, but still annoying for a keen amateur photographer like me But the next day I discovered the museum in the south eastern pylon of the bridge, and found that the open top floor gave a fantastic vantage point for photos of the city like this one, as well as an unusual angle onto the bridge itself.

The main reason for picking this photo is to discuss breaking the rule of thirds. For those of you who haven’t heard of this, it’s a theory on composing photos that says you should try to place the main focus of your subject at the points made by imaginary lines dividing the photo in 3 vertically and horizontally. In its simplest form it says don’t put the horizon in the middle of the photo for a landscape shot, put it a third of the way from the top or bottom, and you will have a much more visually pleasing photo. But don’t take my word for it, the link in the first sentence of this paragraph explains it much more clearly than I can.

So, having said all that, let’s look at my photo. The horizon goes straight across the centre of the photo, so the rule has clearly been broken. But I think that it needs an expanse of clear sky above it to contrast the busy city, so putting the horizon on the top third is ruled out, and with the horizon on the bottom third I would have reduced the effect of the road which leads the viewer into the photo. Speaking of the road, the left hand lane of traffic is pretty much on the vertical third line, so I haven’t completely ignored the rule…

What this shows, as far as I’m concerned, is that the rules are good guides to bear in mind, but don’t treat them as written in stone – if you feel a shot would be improved by breaking them, go for it!

As always I welcome your comments, apart from people trying to sell viagra and other crap. Don’t bother, almost all the spam I get is caught by the filter, and any that does get through has to be manually approved by me so it never appears on the page

Taken with a Nikon F60 and a Nikon 28 – 80mm lens at 28mm on Kodak Royal Supra (or was it Royal Gold back then?). Shutter speed unknown, Aperture unknown.

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This was one of a number of photos I took one day at Dungeness in Kent, UK. Although it is the largest shingle beach in Europe it is best known in the area for its pair of nuclear power stations. Apart from these (which dominate the otherwise flat landscape) there are a few very small single story houses, a couple of pubs and a lighthouse. I went there with my family one Sunday in December 2006, it was a cold day but it was dry – perfect for wandering along the beach taking a few photos before heading back to the pub for fish and chips.

I got some nice photos of the sea and the beach, clouds in the sky etc, all standard stuff, but this is my favourite from that day. The tide was out and the formation of the beach meant that the steeply shelving pebbles soon gave way to a huge expanse of flat sand. On the sand I spotted this pebble and had a closer look. I took the photo because I liked the way the water flowing around the pebble had carved out the sand around it, it wasn’t until I looked at the photo on my computer that I really noticed the pattern on the pebble. It reminded me of some of the photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope – the orange area looks to me like one of those clouds of star-forming gas that NASA reliably tells us are billions of light years across, and we are seeing them as they were hundreds of millions of years ago.

So, over to you – Hubble simulacrum or am I just going mad?

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Tokina 18 – 35mm lens at 31mm. Shutter speed 1/160th sec, Aperture f/5.6

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So far all the photos I’ve added to my site have been ones I’ve taken at various times over the last 7 years, but today I have something different. I spotted this large Praying Mantis sitting on the flower stalk of my banana tree on Saturday afternoon. I took some photos straight away but the light wasn’t too good and I didn’t get anything I could use. It was still there on Sunday morning, in bright sunshine, so I grabbed my camera again and this was the result. I have to admit to a strong liking for these insects (despite their close relationship to the cockroach family!), and was pleasantly surprised to find them reasonably abundant where I am living in Spain. However, this is by far the biggest example I’ve seen outside of a zoo, it’s approximately 10cm from head to tail (excluding antennae). I’ve just checked again and it’s still there, 48 hours after I first saw it, if it sticks around much longer I’ll have to give it a name and everything!

One thing that strikes me is that my lens (Nikon 18 – 200 “superzoom”) isn’t strictly a macro lens, but I’ve been able to get really close at the maximum focal length and get a clear photo with loads of detail. I’d appreciate comments from people into macro photography as to how much difference a “proper” macro lens would make to shots like this.

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 200mm. Shutter speed 1/250th sec, Aperture f/8

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Here’s the second photo in my occasional review series. Most people take a couple of seconds to work out what this is due to the unusual angle… I was on a balloon trip with my family in September 2007, we took off from Ronda at about 8.30 on a Saturday morning but there wasn’t much wind so we didn’t go very far. Another balloon (the one in this photo: Balloon over Ronda) that took off with us went pretty much straight up and straight back down again, but as we were paying customers and our flight had been postponed several times (ironically because it was too windy!) the pilot persevered, changing height until we got some lateral movement. After waking up half the population of Ronda by flying just over their flats (cue lots of sleepy, half-dressed people coming out on to their balconies to find us waving at them), we crossed the main road and headed into the campo.

After a while the wind dropped and at one point the altimeter and GPS confirmed that we were completely motionless, just hanging in the still air. We couldn’t land where we were as the ground was covered in trees, so we had to descend to pick up some momentum from the wind nearer the ground, then ascend to give us enough height to reach a clear field we could see ahead behind a couple of houses. As we were doing this for the third time I could see a couple of cyclists coming up the track that was just ahead of us. I thought that if we kept moving I might be lucky and they might pass directly beneath us so I got the camera ready. And this photo was the result! Being early in the morning the sun cast long shadows which I think look really effective from this angle. I wondered why they were going so slowly as the track looked flat from above, but once we had landed I realised it was a reasonably steep incline.

Our balloon trip was with Gloventosur.

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 200mm. Shutter speed 1/250th sec, Aperture f/8

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(Updated as some of the text was missing from the version originally published. Still getting the hang of this blogging lark!)

OK, let’s get this blog on the road – literally. Since my friend started selling prints of my photos on her market stall this is the most popular one by far. First some background. When I left the UK last year I had been working for my then employer for nearly 10 years, and when I left I was given a fantastic present – a ticket to the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona earlier this year. Obviously I took my camera, and from my vantage point in the stands attempted to take the kind of photos that you see on all the F1 websites and in the magazines, you know the ones where the car is in sharp focus but the wheels and the background are slightly blurred so you get a sense of movement. I must have taken nearly 100 photos of fast moving cars over the 2 days I was there, and this was the best one. The rest were either blurred, off target (car moving faster than the camera!) or someone waved a flag or stood up in front of me just at the wrong moment – especially true when it was Alonso going past, given the fantastically partisan nature of the crowd.

So there you have it, the first featured photo on my blog, I await your comments (good or bad)…

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 150mm. Shutter speed 1/400th sec, Aperture f/7.6

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