Sailing to Arran

These three shots were taken on the ferry to the Isle of Arran in Scotland.

The late afternoon light was fabulous and the scenery stunning but taking photos from the back of a boat presents its own set of problems.

The most infuriating one is that the boat keeps moving no matter what and you can only do much about the angle you can shot from. I was quite high up on the observation deck an the view was passing by me at quite a speed.

With this shot I would have loved to be able to move around a bit an get the composition just right but I only had seconds to snap it as we left the harbour and once it's gone it's gone!

There is always an element of luck with photography as even the best can't control everything. The trick is trying to anticipate things and be ready when that lucky moment comes along.

The Devil is in the Details

I was playing around today with some studio flash units and some wireless triggers.

I took photos of a number of things that were lying around: fruit, spices, bottles, a glass of fizzy water and some coloured chalks.

I didn't have a lot of room to work with an had a pretty basic white backdrop created using a large piece of paper.

When there a so many variable involved it is easy to lose site of the important aspects of photography. I was so busy trying to get the flash settings right (there's no TTL on these triggers) that I didn't spend nearly enough time thinking about the composition or every placing the glass carefully.

As a result you can sea that the glass is twisted in a not so pleasing way, there are specs on the paper background from a previous shot of glitter and I'm not happy with the angle of the shot.

The same can be said for this shot. While I'm happier with the composition (I might try an top down shot next time) it is the state of the chalks and the paper that bother me here. While I was setting up the chalks rolled around and coated the paper and each other with flecks of colour. You can see brown flecks clearly on the yellow chalk.

This was just a trial run but it really does show that you have keep these little details in mind if you want to get the perfect shot. Next time around I will be doing things quite differently.