Picking “music to my ears” was always going to be a bit of a risk!  So here’s a dozen of the pics from the good people in the mentoring service.  It’s a tricky time of year for photographers, with bad weather and poor light – but take a look at how they did!

We thought you might appreciate this! We’re not fans of Photoshop either!

It was so windy at Stourhead yesterday that the National Trust closed the gardens to the public.  Still, we got some nice pics over the wall and of the house.

This is Lady Penelope’s house from Thunderbirds, you know.

We’ve confirmed lots of dates for later this year and even into 2013 – if you’re planning to come on a photography course at Stourhead in the future we’ll be there well into 2013.

We have decided to give our students something to photograph that illustrates depth of field, and can be carried easily in a camera bag. Ligia came along to a photography course in Ashton Court, Bristol with her new Xmas camera.  So… ducks:

Great shallow depth of field!

We had a great day at Ashton Court on Monday…Lance, Elliott and Peter were thrown mercilessly into taking photographs of ordinary objects in extraordinary places, by Rachel…and after a brief moment of ‘Eeeek…what shall I do?’, they came up with some amazing photographs! As usual, Rachel promised that they would go home with several images that they would be proud enough of to hang on their wall. (It’s all about going out of your ‘comfort zone’…honest!!! :0) ).

Lance really got creative with this wooden fork!

Love the reflection!

Although the weather was dark, cold and awful, the three intrepid photographers were not to be put off by a bit of English, winter weather,….and there’s nothing you can do about it anyway!!! We think you’ll agree that they came back with some stunning shots…so very well done!

We like to make our themes vague but at the same time specific, if that makes any sense.  The hope is that you have to stretch yourself to take the kind of pictures you may not have thought of.  This month’s dozen pictures show the kind of diversity we really like to see:

Although photography is not a team sport, we think that this month’s pictures were substantially better than last month’s, possibly due to the more involving theme.  Looking forward to the next set at the end of the month!

Jo came on the photography course at Charlecote wanting to learn to do two things – to blur the background and get silky water on waterfalls.

So:

Using a low f stop blurs the background

Or the foreground if you prefer

As far as the camera is concerned, both these shots are identical, just focused in different places.

Jo’s other wish was to do a waterfall shot, and Charlecote has a genuine Capability Brown waterfall.  We didn’t have a tripod, so used the camera’s timer with the camera perched on a stone.  Using a tiny aperture of f36 and the lowest sensitivity of 100 ISO gives the longest possible exposure – in this case 1/4 of a second:

Easy when you know how

A couple of Jo’s pics have also ended up in the Ask PMS section of the website, illustrating the effect of changing white balance in yellow evening light.  Why not have a look?

Peter came on our photography course at Chatsworth a few weeks ago, and has been experimenting with long exposures:

Great start Peter!

We had a lovely day at the Severn Valley Railway yesterday…Phil was teaching DSLR and I was teaching the Creative photography course. As always, the ‘job’ for the day was to go home with several images that you’d be proud enough of to hang on your wall… also two long shoots on a given theme. I like to get people out of their ‘comfort zones’ and flex those creative muscles! Dave has already done DSLR and our Landscape course, and his photography is coming on in leaps and bounds! In fact, the one of the train is the best I have seen from the Severn Valley Railway! I suggested that he send the Railway a copy. (See above photo!)
I’m also of the opinion that it’s really important to be by yourself when you are serious about coming back with worthwhile photographs….and it doesn’t need to be for longer than an hour. Dave really proved this point, as he only had 20 minutes for photographing objects I thrust at him, and an hour for the others. Also, it became evident as we reviewed his photographs that we did little or no cropping/editing…they were what he saw in the viewfinder! So extremely well done Dave…we are proud of you!

Our photography course gift certificates are selling well, and like last year we’ll be be producing them right up to Christmas Eve.

We look forward to meeting all those people who’ve been given gift certificates in 2012. We are grateful to do the jobs we do and teach interested people in beautiful locations.