It’s somewhat hard to believe that here we are in June already.
Usually I don’t want time to pass too quick, mainly because this means I’m getting old. With all that has happened this year I think time quickly passing is a good thing. Here we go with my first fortnightly post for June!
Keeping it Simple
A quick fact about me is that I can eat the same foods every day and never get sick of them. This doesn’t go for all foods but a particular few. One of those foods I can’t get sick of usually is my home made fried rice. I usually make 5 days worth and take it with me to work daily.
As I mentioned I don’t get sick of this meal when its cooked properly. Sadly our oven microwave is quite useless for reheating food so to say it’s been a hassle to make each day is an understatement. This prompted me to pick something new to each day for lunch but I wasn’t sure what. So as per my girlfriends recommendation, I’ve started to eat fried eggs with plain rice for lunch. As a kid growing up she’d always eat it and figured I’d love it too since I’m just a big kid when it comes to food. I hate to admit it but she was right and I absolutely love it!
As I’ve mentioned I’m not much of a food photographer but I thought it would be fun to give it a try. As you can see I tried a few different angles with the top down look being my favorite in the end. Being at home every day is really pushing me to not only be more creative with what is around me but also to use my camera more for fun. The more you shoot the better you’ll be which is always the end goal.
Keeping it Still
Despite being allowed out of the house, I have been trying to ensure I keep up with my still life shots. Recently I decided to start a personal blog more focused around my day to day activities like gaming and something separate to photography. I used to have something like this in the form of Tumblr which I would post on frequently.
Since that platform is mostly dead, I figured I’d be better creating something on WordPress. I wanted an image to use for the blog section so I thought the above photo would fit well. Recently it seems my 85mm has becoming my go to product photo lens which makes me wonder if it’s worth keeping the 90mm. In relation to that, if I could get an 85mm lens that had a really close focus distance I’d be in heaven.
As you can see from the image above our flowers are still going strong. I wanted to do another shot with them and had a top down shot in mind but couldn’t make it work with what I had imagined. After a bit of experimentation I managed to get this shot which I was really happy with. I’m becoming more happy with the FE 35mm f/1.8 and it’s making me miss my previous 35mm lenses a bit less.
Keeping it on track
Since moving to Sydney I found a spot that is easily my favorite for city views. That location is Milson’s Point.
I’ve actually been here to shoot quite a few times and even though I’ve got images I was happy with, I never got my amazing shot that I was really proud of. I had given myself the goal of getting an image I was really proud of during this winter season from this location.
With us Sydneysiders being allowed out again and it not raining, I couldn’t resist heading there. As you can see above there was quite a few people out and about. I was actually expecting it to be dead quiet there so I got quite a surprise.
I made sure to get there about 50 mins before sunset so I could scout and try out some different viewpoints. I wanted to try something different this time so I explored closer to Luna Park.
This was actually my first time out and about using the 24mm GM for cityscapes too which was a new experience. I didn’t really feel that limited either which was good. The thing about using a UWA lens for something like a cityscape is, the further you are the more you’ll have in the frame. I personally prefer to fill the frame as much as I can most of the time and if you go too wide, you can have too much negative space. In the first spot I tried, there was too much empty space even with the city and opera house in the frame. I really feel this spot is perfect for a panorama with a 50mm or 85mm lens so I may come back one time and try it.
I ended up finding a spot I liked then waited for the lighting to be just right. The result of this was the featured image at the top of the page. At first I was really happy with this and felt I could simply pack up and go home. I decided to try a different spot first and I’m glad I did. Below is the result I have wanted for a long time.
For the above image, no ND or CPL filter was used. It had got quite dark already and to use my 6 stop I would have needed a several minute exposure at f/8 which I didn’t want to do. This is where a 3 stop filter would really come in handy.
Overall this was one of those days I was lazy to go out but I’m really glad I did. I may try and do a B&W edit of it too later on to see how it works. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you did, make sure to subscribe to be notified when I release a new one.
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