Lately, this is starting to change. It’s not a conscious decision. I’ve taken a lot of sets of photos of young families recently, and I’ve found the children wearing deep, bright colours. In the dull, even light of late winter, these colours really seem to be jumping out at me, and I am enjoying embracing them rather than muting them.

We went to Nostell Priory yesterday (I’ve been before – see the muted colours of the photo I took then) in the early spring sunshine. I had my 50mm, f1.8, prime lens with me, and took some snaps of the family in the sun. I caught this one of Charlotte while she ws just messing around, being herself.

I love the pinkness of her coat. I adore the paleness of her skin and the twinkle in her dark brown eyes. I like most of all the green and blue bokeh behind her. It’s a lovely contrast to the pinkness of her coat, and I feel gives the picture a balance of colour; both drawing your attention to Charlotte whilst at the same time connecting it all together as a single image.

I have worked on this picture in Aperture more than I normally would have done. I have used a more definite S-curve to give a deeper contrast. I have darkened the luminosity of the greens and blues while at the same time increasing their saturation. I have added a full-image polarising effect, and I have enhanced her eyes a little.

The original, straight-out-of-camera, image is much more like my usual style, but today I felt like doing something a little different. I love this picture, but that’s not to say that tomorrow I’ll think it way over the top. There’s every possibility that I’ll cringe when I look at it in a week’s time but for now, and in celebration of the approaching spring, I love the colours in this image!

We didn’t know what it was, but it was very colourful and elegant. We’ve since learnt that it is a mandarin duck, and that they are quite rare in the UK, having all descended from birds imported from Asia and subsequently released or escaped. There is more on the BBC Nature’s page about the Mandarin Duck.

We spent some time in the park. I took some pictures of the abandoned play equipment in the frosty darkness, but wasn’t happy with any of the results. I spent a good few minutes on my back on the frosty ground though getting this shot of a basketball basket against the starry sky.

We ended the walk in the churchyard, which was brightly lit to show the church off to its full potential. I love the image at the top of this post. It is eerie and atmospheric. I shot it over 30 seconds with a tiny aperture of f/18 to enhance the starburst effect of the lights.  I was going to opt for a 16:9 aspect ratio, but I liked the contrast in the tree branches too much to crop them away. I am pleased with the 4:3 one chosen.

Post-processing, I have applied a fairly drastic S curve to give it a contrasty look (too much, perhaps?). I have also used a colour monochrome adjustment using a pale beige at 73% opacity to bring the colours close to monochrome whilst keeping it true to the strange, cold feeling of being there.

Matt lives in Düsseldorf and the severe winter weather meant that he couldn’t get over for the adventure. So this year, I was joined by Richard.

We set off from Leeds before 11.00, so there was not much scope for a drink in Leeds as most of the pubs were shut. We therefore settled for the station’s Wetherspoon pub, where we drank Santa Pants from Elland Brewery (we opted for Leeds Pale first, but it was the end of the barrel and tasted foul). The Santa Pants however was far too sweet and was indeed a little pants.

We used the Good Beer Guide on the journey to London to plan a seven mile walking route between Kings Cross and Euston that would take us up Grays Inn Road, through Clerkenwell, down Fleet Street, across to Waterloo and back up Tottenham Court Road to the newly-opened Euston Tap.

We found the first five pubs, The Gunmakers (Clerkenwell), Old Mitre (Hatton Garden), Hand and Shears (Smithfield), Castle (Fleet Street) and Devereux (Temple) completely shut up. In fact, these parts of the city were completely deserted. I know it was a Bank Holiday, but we were really surprised to see parts of the capital city resembling scenes from 12 Days Later (without the zombies).

We eventually arrived at the Black Friar (Blackfriars) for a welcome pint of Sharp’s Doom Bar. The pub was a vision in carved wood and dark, cosy atmosphere.

We moved on via a rubbish non-pub whose name I forget, past Somerset House where an outdoor skating rink was buzzing with life:

We arrived at the Harp (Covent Garden), a tiny, full, buzzing city pub full of life. Dark Star Hophead is one of my favourite pints. It used to be a regular at the Junction, the best pub in Baildon, so it was a taste of home!

The Cross Keys, also in the Covent Garden area, is full to the rafters of stuff. It was another full pub, but we got a seat to rest on while drinking our wonderful Brodies IPA and gazing around at the thousands of bric-a-brac items that cover every available space in the pub.

We walked onwards to Soho next, past the art deco looking Foyle’s bookshop:

We enjoyed a pint of Yorkshire’s finest, Tim Taylor’s Landlord, in the Dog and Duck. There was a great atmosphere here, with friendly staff and customers.

We started our walk back to Euston via the Hope in Fitzrovia near the BT tower. The Flowers IPA was OK, but the pub lacked the busy atmosphere of the previous ones.

It was a challenge finding the Euston Tap, a pub that I really wanted to see, but when we eventually did find it, the tiny building was closed. This was a down point to the end of the day.

At Euston, we boarded the 21.15 ScotRail Caledonian Sleeper bound for Inverness. We had a berth aboard, which was the tiniest room I’ve ever seen. There was just enough room for the two bunks and the sink. There was no room to pass each other without one of us getting onto the bed. There was, of course, plenty of room for drinking the bottled ales we’d just bought in M&S on the station:

We awoke at about 7.00 the following morning. We were travelling through the total darkness of the early morning Cairngorms. The attendant brought us our morning coffee at 8.00 and told us we were running an hour late. This was a good thing, as it enabled us to catch the sunrise from the train and see some of the beautiful landscape we were travelling through:

We eventually got to Inverness at about 9.30. We’d originally planned to stay four hours and grab a pint in one of the pubs there. We walked around the city and along the banks of the river Ness, crossing the river a few times on the many bridges, gazing off to the distant hazy hills:

After walking around for three or so miles, we decided to head back to Edinburgh a couple of hours earlier than planned, so were on the train again in time for lunch. The glasses came out and we had a few bottles of ale that Richard had bought back in Leeds. We played cards and gazed out at the countryside of the Cairngorms. We passed bright plains:

The next minute, it was swollen rivers and distant mountains:

And the next, everything was white as the world became enveloped in snow and fog, just the occasional detail standing out of the whiteness:

We arrived in Edinburgh with four hours at our disposal. We went straight up the steps to the small, cosy, friendly pub, the Halfway House. The Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted is another favourite of mine and it tasted incredible in this lovely pub.

We took a stroll around the damp but buzzing streets of Edinburgh towards Grassmarket and the one-roomed, large, Bow Bar on West Bow. We opted for pints of Deuchars IPA, one of the best ales money can buy. Richard loved it as ever, but I thought it didn’t taste its best on this occasion. I took some photos of the interior, my favourite being this one of a man totally absorbed in the book he was reading:

The whole of the city centre seemed to be taken up by a colourful, noisy, exciting fun fair. We took about an hour just meandering around, taking in the atmosphere and snapping loads of images of the rides:

We eventually arrived at the Café Royal, a heaving, large Victorian pub with central island bar. The Guildford Arms, next door, was just as busy. We got accosted by a very drunk man calling himself Billy Seagull who talked with us for ten minutes, each ‘S’ pronounced with enough spit flying into the air to keep our pints topped up for free.

The ride back to Shipley was uneventful. We were too tired to grab a sneaky half in the 30 minutes we had at York while changing trains, so our five-city, 1200 mile pub crawl ended up only being a three-city one. But it was certainly a Grand Adventure!

Thanks for all your brilliant and encouraging comments on my photos during 2010. I can’t wait to take more images throughout next year and to keep in touch with all of you in 2011. I’m looking forward to sharing more pictures and to seeing more of your excellent photos.

This chap lives on our mantlepiece, and was a good excuse to get some seasonal fairy light bokeh in the background. The tree’s lights are reflecting off the window and picture frame next to it, which gives a nice spread and different intensities. I have desaturated the whole photo and darkened the red to give a bit of an old-world feel to the picture. I undid the desaturation on the big red nose to make it stand out a bit. He was lit from directly above by a ceiling light with the dimmer switch as low as it will go. Two wall lights from behind camera-right, and behind the character, have given a nice highlight on both sides of his face. It was also the first time I have used my camera’s live view mode to check that the face was crisply in focus in the low light.

Best wishes,

Mike.

Despite the drizzle, I took the camera out for some shots in amongst the trees. I took loads of photos and I’ve not yet processed them all, but this one really jumped out at me.

We found a deep section of gorgeous yellow and orange trees. There was an even light and the whole place seemed to be glowing. Despite my best efforts, Charlotte was not in a modeling mood and was doing her best to avoid me. My luck came in though when she found this spiky seed pod (what is it – do you know? Use the comments and educate me!) She was captivated by it for a few seconds and I managed to compose and get this shot. It is completely unposed and this was her natural reaction to finding the thing on the floor. Half a second later the spell was broken and away she ran, determined not to be photographed.

I was using the lens wide open at f2.8 to get the background as blurred as possible while focussing on her nose. I love how it has turned out. I love the colours and the way her body and arm point through the photo making it look nicely balanced. Her pink hat and blue spotty coat make for a nice contrast against the natural “autumness” of the background.

The background is very bright. If I’d had a Speedlite with me, I would have underexposed the background a little to make the girl really stand out a bit more. Having said that, by the time I’d set up the flash, the moment would have passed and the image would not have been possible.

I’ve done some minor post processing on the image. I’ve added a small S curve to add a little contrast and I corrected the white balance. I boosted the saturation of the yellows and then undid the adjustment on the yellow spots on her coat by using the ‘brush adjustment away’ feature in Aperture. There was a small part of completely blown out sky which I brought back a little in the top right. It’s still blown out, but won’t stick out as pure white if the image is printed. I added a little bit of sharpening too to really emphasise her outline, but that’s only really visible at 100% magnification.

The extension tubes give a ridiculously shallow depth of field and it is very difficult to focus with them attached, so it was a lengthy shoot to get some images that were worthwhile keeping. I love the one of his hairy leg, but the three of the whole spider are brilliant too.

I’ve not had to do much post processing. The images are a little noisy because despite the bright light shining only a few centimetres from him, the extension tubes are light hungry and I had to use a high ISO (400 on some, 200 on this one). I corrected the white balance and sharpened them ever so slightly. I am really pleased with the outcome. My first attempt at macro wildlife photography!

By the time I’d processed them, Incy was long gone. Sarah would still have preferred me to have put him outside!

See the other images in the Spider set on Flickr.

The adults were wary but let me creep quite close with my camera, hissing at me to let me know where the boundary was (I was about 1 metre away). With only 55mm of lens to play with, I had to get extremely close for this shot.

I have tried photographing swans so many times, yet have never achieved a shot that was any good, so I was really happy when I saw this one come out of the camera. Although I was crouched as low as I could get without actually lying prostrate on the grass, I was sufficiently high enough to ensure that the only background was the water of the canal. At f5.6 at this close, the water is nicely out of focus. The drip of water falling from the end of the swan’s beak was a complete accident of timing. I in no way attempted to capture it, and the first I knew of it was when it downloaded onto my computer.

I have sharpened the image a little to make the swan stand out even more from the background. My first attempt was way over the top though and I ended up with a black line around the neck that was very obvious at full size. I also had a bit of blue/yellow chromatic aberration around the beak and neck. This is the first image that I have really noticed it on, and that I have ever tried to remove it on. Using the sliders in Aperture, and not fully understanding the cause of it, I think I did OK. I am still not entirely happy with the top of the swan’s head though; it’s not quite right.

If you view the image at full size and look at the swan’s eye, you can see a reflection of the sky and the Dockfield Mills building that was behind me when I took the image. I’m really pleased with this!

My boy Ted is now a hefty, chunky, mobile one year old, but he was twice the weight of Daisy when he was born. She fits into the palms of two hands and is the most delicate little thing I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I have found it hard to comprehend how much a baby changes in the first year. In adult life, Daisy and Ted will be considered to be the same age, but right now they could not be any more different. It is a cliché that you hear time and again that “it all goes so quickly”, but looking at Daisy has made me realise for the first time that it’s true. I simply cannot remember a tiny Ted, despite the photographic evidence.

I took this photo at a recent family barbecue. I wasn’t particularly prepared for shooting a new born baby, especially one that does little other than sleep and feed, but I got a few snaps when the opportunity arose. I am happy with the set of photos I got, especially the black and white ones. This one here is the best example; I think I have captured her delicateness and the protective love of her mother.

I also love this one in landscape orientation, mother and child nose-to-nose. I chose not to use it though as Daisy’s yawning mouth makes it look like she was crying. It amused me that today’s release of the first photo of PM David Cameron and his new born is almost identical in composition!

With a little more time or preparation, I would do this shot a bit different as you can’t see much of Daisy’s face, but I think the emotion is there anyway. I tried several different black and white conversions at different levels of contrast. I found this one to be the best. Not too contrasty, but keeping enough contrast on Mandy’s face to enhance the delicate look of Daisy’s.

This is the first time I have tried to photograph someone else’s child, and I am happy with the results. Congratulations again Mandy and Stephen!