64

Today I woke up with my photo of the day staring me in the face. Sandra yelled "What the hell is that?" so I looked up and saw this little fella hanging from the lampshade. I'm not sure if the cats brought him in, but I suspect that was the case. Luna was at that very moment trying to bring in a swallow friend for our bat. See that photo here.

So two choices for photo of the day before it was even 7 o' clock!

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 55-200mm f4.0-5.6 VR @180mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 800
Notes: SB900

63

After Monday's failed trip to Carlisle I went back again today while the banks were actually open. The weather wasn't very nice so I was limited to taking shots in the Lanes shopping centre. These three chaps were just hanging around having a rest and a chat. I guess it's not just teenagers who like to hang out in town centres.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @70mm
Aperture: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 400

62

I did some work for UPM Tilhill today photographing some logging in Ae forest. They were using horses which is pretty rare these days as they usually use some pretty mean looking machinery. I wish I'd taken a photo of that too, it looked like something out of 'Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors'!

This horse was pretty amazing. Nothing fazed it whatsoever, whether being chased down a steep incline by one and a half tonnes of logs, or having a small Border Collie biting at its back heels.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f2.2
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 500

61

Having no HSBC here in Dumfries or anywhere near, I went to Carlisle today to pay in a couple of cheques, and to see if a camera shop there would offer a good price for a couple of lenses I'm selling. Unfortunately I failed to remember that it's a bank holiday in England so I had a bit of a wasted journey. At least I managed to get my photo of the day while I was there.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @34mm
Aperture: f4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 200
Notes: Circuler Polariser Filter

60

We went out into the back garden this afternoon and I made Sandra blow the seeds off this dandelion clock while I took photos. God knows what the neighbours who were all sunning themselves in their gardens thought we were up to.

Actually I cheated on this shot. It's a composite of 2 photos. Can you see the join?

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 200

59

Another wedding yesterday. It was pretty tiring but a good fun one. Right at the end of the night everyone went down to the beach to release these paper lanterns. It was pretty difficult to get good shots, being so dark that I could barely see the camera controls but I managed to get a few photos.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 3200

58

I spent this evening taking portraits of the ever loyal and obedient Sandra. This is the seventh 365 photo she's appeared in so far, and I very much doubt it will be the last. Maybe I should have set her as the theme for the whole thing.

Camera: Fujifilm S5 Pro
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 @75mm
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 1250
Notes: -1/3 EV

57

Wow, I've never had so many possible candidates for photo of the day. I couldn't make up my mind which to choose.

Today I went to meet the couple who's wedding I'm photographing on Saturday. I was a little early so I stopped to take a couple of landscapes and photos of some bullocks in a field. I was quite happy with these and thought I had my photo of the day all wrapped up.

On the way home I stopped at the hospital to pick Sandra up, which turned into a 2 hour wait. Why can't people get sick during set office hours?? It wasn't all bad though because the long wait meant we were driving past Whitesands for a magnificent sunset. In the end I had about eight photos which I couldn't decide between for this post. I plumped for this one in the end because of its simplicity.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 VR @300mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 200

56

In search of inspiration for today's photo I went up into the attic to see what I could find. At the far end in a box was this hefty school exercise book left by our Landlord. So I photographed it!

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @105mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 0.8 seconds
ISO: 200

55

Day 55 in the 365 Project house: Matt is in the living room getting increasingly frustrated every time his card house collapses. These things are so much harder to build than I remember! When I was little I used to be able to build them 4 or 5 stories tall but I couldn't even manage 2 now. The cards just seemed too slippy. This was supposed to be a lot more impressive but in the end I just gave up. I have lots of wedding photos to process and could see the time ticking away with every failed attempt.

Camera: Fujifilm S5 Pro
Lens: Sigma 24mm f1.8 Macro
Aperture: f10
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Notes: SB900 + TTL chord

54

I made pizza for dinner tonight. One of the few dishes I can cook well. I'm not really happy with this shot. I should have taken a little longer but I was hungry and didn't want it to get cold.

Camera: Fujifilm S5 Pro
Lens: Sigma 24mm f1.8 Macro
Aperture: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Notes: SB900

53

I thought I'd take a picture of something colourful today, so what could be better than clothes pegs? It rained earlier in the afternoon too so I had some nice water droplets to work with. If you closely you can see a tiny spider hanging from the pink peg. I tried taking a macro shot of it after this and had just set everything up when it decided to jump off. I guess it was camera shy.

Camera: Fujifilm S5 Pro
Lens: Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 200

52

Another wedding today. I'm going to be very busy this week getting all the photos processed. In fact for the next couple of months I think I'll be doing nothing but weddings and photoshopping. Still, at least it means I don't have to hunt for 365 subjects.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 @40mm
Aperture: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 250
Notes: Jessops 300AFD Flashgun

51

I photographed a wedding today for a very nice Canadian couple who had come over for a Humanist ceremony. Since they were looking for somewhere cheap and it had been sunny for a couple of weeks I'd suggested a beach near Gatehouse of Fleet. This lead me to feeling very guilty when it poured down all day. At least they were able to see the funny side.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 200

50

Made it to the half century! I went up the hill out the back today to try some long exposure landscapes again, but it was just too bright even with 4 filters stuck on the front of the lens. While I was up there I took this photo of the cool tree stump in the middle of the field. I liked how you can see the stages of a trees life in this frame. The new shoots coming through the top of the stump, the tree in full leaf in the middle ground, and of course the big dead stump.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @18mm
Aperture: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Notes: +2/3 EV, Polariser and ND4 Grad filters

49

Cutting it fine today. I took this at 11.20pm after a search of the house for something to photograph. It took a fair bit of juggling keeping the flashgun in position as in order to get enough distance to focus, the ttl cord linking the flash and camera kept pulling it out of place. I would have preffered to use my studio flash kit but this room really isn't big enough to be faffing around with that.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Notes: SB900 and TTL cord

48

This is one of the first shots I took with my new Fujifilm S5 Pro. I have a couple of memory cards on order but needed to practice with the camera before the weddings I'm booked to shoot this weekend, so we went into town looking for the cheapest Compact Flash we could find. This turned out to be pretty difficult with all the obvious places selling them at a minimum of £40. Luckily Argos had one for a mere £15 so I spent the rest of our short shopping trip taking photos of Sandra. This is one of her in a photo booth because she wanted even more photos of herself (also because she needed to renew her passport)!

Camera: Fujifilm S5 Pro
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 800

47

Today my Fuju S5 Pro arrived. It's a couple of years old now and the price has dropped considerably. Mine is a mint condition second hand one so even more or a bargain. It's a fantastic camera for portraits because it captures a much greater tonal range than other digital cameras, so I was going to take a portrait for today's photo to test it out. However, I stupidly failed to realise it takes a different type of memory card to my D90 so am unable to use it yet. Maybe tomorrow...

Anyway, Charlie was basking in the sun looking very content so I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos while he wasn't moving around. The cats are usually very good at ruining any photos you try to take while they're awake.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100

46

On Sunday we looked around residential areas for places that might be nice to live. I hadn't taken many photos so we made a quick stop in Blackpool on the way back so I could take a few photos of the pleasure beach. I had a nice shot lined up with a sculpture and 'The Big One' rollercoaster in the background but I guess they must shut early in May because at that point the cars stopped going round. I took a few shots along the promenade too though so all was not lost.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 VR @300mm
Aperture: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 400

45

We went to Sheffield over the weekend to see what it was like before we moved there. Very happy with it we were too. In the evening we went to see 'Star Trek' at the Odeon in the town centre. There are a few cinemas in Sheffield so no doubt we will be checking them all out soon enough. 'Star Trek' incidentally was brilliantly ridiculous. The over the top self references were hilarious.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @21mm
Aperture: f14
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Notes: Polariser Filter

44

I had to fight a battle with the changeable weather today to get a photograph. It seemed that every photo I tried to take was met with the exact weather condition to make it difficult. When I tried taking macro shots of some flowers in the garden the wind blew them around so much it was impossible to even keep one in frame. Then when I tried to take a photo of things blowing around in the wind, it suddenly died. I tried a long exposure landscape but it started raining. It wasn't all bad though. The intermittent showers had left our unmown lawn covered in water droplets. I liked this shot because there are so many of them (view it large). It's like water droplet city.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro
Aperture: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 400

43

I thought i'd try something new again today. This is my attempt at an action freezing shot. It gave me quite a work out jumping up and down until I was happy with the composition. Our cottage is tiny so we don't have any decent clear walls to use as a background. I chose the one where the paint is peeling due to previously being where the electirc radiator was.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Sigma 24mm f1.8
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 800
Notes: SB900 & TTL cord

42

I was going to try out something new with a landscape today but the weather turned against me and I didn't end up doing it. Instead, Sandra suggested I take a picture of the copper kettle in our living room. The best photos were of it silhouetted against the street light outside our window. This one was out of focus purely by mistake but Sandra convinced me it looked better like this. Charlie tried to convince me it would look better with his tail in shot but I disagreed.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 800

41

These are my glasses. I have another pair but I haven't seen those since we moved to Scotland so these are pretty vital to me. It added a little extra challenge taking a photo of them because obviously I can't see as well without them.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 50mm f1.8
Aperture: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Notes: SB900 + TTL chord. -1EV

40

A trip to Glasgow today led us to The Lighthouse which is 'Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City'. We didn't have long because it was closing, but a very interesting building it was. This was taken from the top of the tower with good views of all of Glasgow.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 VR @18mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 800
Notes: -2/3EV

39

Today we went to Whithorn because Sandra insisted that I get some photos of bluebells. We stopped at a place called 'Blackcraig' and climbed a hill which was covered in them. Sandra fell onto her bottom many times (which was funny) and once onto my 55-200mm lens (which was less funny). Good thing it's insured.

After all the struggling we did climbing the hill, this photo was actually taken somewhere else, on the path to St. Ninian's Cave.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 @75mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 200

38

Yesterday was an extremely long and tiring day, as shooting weddings tend to be. It was also incredibly sunny which is great for the wedding party but sometimes a little difficult for photography. I was a little stressed as I couldn't see the screen to check how the pictures were coming out, but fortunately everything seems to have turned out fine. With a polarizing filter the light came out very nicely in this photo and I liked the way the wind was blowing her veil.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 @28mm
Aperture: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Notes: Polarizing filter, -1/3EV

37

Like yesterday we had rain for most of the day here which cleared up in the late afternoon just in time for me to go outside and take a photograph. This time I dragged Sandra along for some portraits while I struggled with the settings on the incredibly complicated SB900 flashgun. This photo was in fact taken without it because I didn't figure out how to get it to do what I wanted until we got back inside.

We'd gone into the field behind our cottage again and I'd only taken a couple of shots before we heard a distant mewling. Charlie decided he didn't want to be left out of the action and proceeded to run the length of the field (remember I mentioned it's a pretty huge field) to us yowling at the top of his voice. Then he ran off to shout at a tree.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro
Aperture: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100