Another one of my shots from the Good Food and Wine show. I find that human subjects make more interesting subjects, although I hardly seem to get them to pose for me.

Heh, it’s probably because I like people to look like film stars, so maybe it’s difficult to get them to look good in colour. I have discovered my style of sorts, as I like to shoot things with vibrant and warm colours. I can’t really photograph people like that unless they look picture perfect, otherwise there seems to be a hint of imperfection in the shot. Hence the conversion to black and white, so you only figure the outlines and shapes, as I can’t convey the subject matter in colour.

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It’s just so easy to bang away at the keyboard and produce words, but there’s this jumble of ideas in my mind with very little cohesion. They sort of revolve around each other and I’m not quite sure which to give precedence.

I’ve been trying black and white pictures, but it was only in the last few days that it hit me on how I’d be able to manipulate the original colour images and get the type of monotone pictures I wanted. There is this ‘magical’ slider in Lightroom that allows you to point to a part of the picture you want to darken (or lighten) and drag it so you can achieve the effect you want. I used to need to know what the underlying colour was (which was difficult to know once you converted the picture to black and white) and move the slider for the colour. A quick search on the web taught me what I needed to know.

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Spend a bit of time looking at other peoples’ images and I do learn quite a bit through countless viewings. You subconsciously figure out what draws you to certain kinds of pictures, as when you do sit still and contemplate what you’ve seen, it starts to gel in your mind.

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Again I complain about the cold. It’s the rain and hail that annoys me more than the temperatures. Heh, but you have to admit, it’s soothing to hear the rain drops outside while you are snugly tucked under your blanket in your own bed.