Macro Photography.

When I take photographs for myself I prefer to do macro photography or abstract. You know when you are so close to a subject that it becomes abstract to you it's almost hard to see what the subject really is. Abstract and macro (close up) photography both look really great printed on canvases so that they look more like a painting than a photograph. I personally like to have large art in my house the bigger the better or a few small ones that fit together to make a larger one almost like a montage.

This image will look great in a large format printed on a canvas. It will give a lovely colourful touch to your room I can also see it together with other similar images in different coulors to have them all in  close proximity to each other complementing one another.

This is a hibiscus flower.

Getting this hibiscus flower I sadly got a lot of pollen on my shorts and in my beach bag while carrying it home... not good for my clothes but it would also have been very cool with pollen on the images! Need to be more careful next time.

These are yellow flowers that grow several tight together on a bush I am not sure what their names are.

I took all flower images at home so that I could have the flowers arranged and my camera on a tripod. I also sprayed water on the flowers with a water squirter from IKEA. I used my Canon 100mm 2.8f lens for these shots had my camera on Manual as well as the lens. When you photograph images so close up it is usually hard for the lens to focus so you need to focus manually.

This image was taken with my 50mm 1.4f lens camera mounted on a tripod.

Last week I was busy photographing a sport event which I also enjoy doing, the organizers also had evening activities that I attended with my camera at hand. I felt a bit like one of them paparazzi photographers pointing my camera into peoples faces while they were chatting and enjoying themselves. I guess it is a bit different since I was at least not sneaking in the bushes with a long zoom lens but rather asked everyone to please look at me and don't forget to look at the images on facebook!

So this week I have been busy with editing some of the images to get them ready for magazine use. I am just finished and will deliver all the images to the client tomorrow.

I just heard from my sister that it is Thanksgiving this weekend in America so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that celebrate it!

Cheers,

Helen

Herb Garden at a Hotel in Egypt

Hi there,

Hope you are all well. I have this week busied myself with lots of different things such as editing images that I took in Sweden on my last trip, I still have loads to do before I am finished, as well as editing images that I have taken this week. I have had several different motifs that I have taken photographs of.  Peaches, Champagne bottle for a magazine as well as an Herb Garden at a hotel that they have recently started. It is really nice because what they do is they have this lovely looking herb garden where guests can sit and relax in the shade of the dens trees, it looks splendid together with their overall hotel landscaping as well as they use these organic growing herbs in the hotel cocking! I was walking around between the rows of lovely growing basil, rosemary, dill, lemon trees and olive trees its mesmerising to feel and breath in all the different scents. Very relaxing you really envy the guests and want to be one of them, to be able to just sit and relax for a bit. I might come back and do just that if I ever get the time. 
I think it is a splendid idea for a hotel to have access to their own herb garden, no need to stress over deliveries that are not arriving on time since you have it all outside in your own garden. They even play nice soft music in the garden for the plants not for you as a guest even though I am sure that you can sit and take part of the tunes whilst reading your book. They play the music for the plants to make them grow better they have the speakers positioned so that they are towards the herbs they play twice a day different kinds of tunes to make sure that the herbs get exactly what they want. 
I have photographed other hotels in Sharm el Sheikh that have taken the same idea of having their own fresh grown herbs at their doorstep but they have taken it one step further they also have vegetables such as tomatoes, corn, pumpkin etc. that they can easily grow here in Egypt in their gardens solemnly for use in their cocking. I don't think I saw any speakers in their garden though...

Do you learn from your mistakes?

Learn from your mistakes or if you can someone else’s mistakes is even better to save yourself some time.

Yesterday I had planned to shoot images of a tree that have started to bloom, it has many red flowers on them that look like a bottle brush (You’ll understand what I mean once you look at the images).

On my drive down to the Golf Club where the trees are I saw a Grey Heron in the water trap on hole 3 I stopped by the side of the road, quickly changed my lens from my 100mm 2.8f to my 70-200mm 2.8f so that I at least would have a chance to get a decent shot of the Heron. I ran across the road, at the same time I check what ISO I have the camera set on to see if I need to change it or not I have it on 200 and I decided that was good, by this time I was almost certain that the bird would have flown away. The bird was still standing in the water looking about I first shoot a few images then I dare go a bit closer to get a better vantage point so that I can get the bird and the flag on hole 3 in the same shot it looks great in my view finder. I fire away a few more shots the bird gets spooked and flies away I continue to shoot it while it flies away to my luck it flies towards me so it is actually coming closer and closer great! It can almost not have choreographed it any better. I stop shooting and to take a quick look at the images before I go back to the car. That is when I realize I have been shooting without a memory card in the camera. Just Great!

So the moral of this story today is to ALWAYS check all your camera gear before you leave your house since you never know when that money shot will appear!

So try to save yourselves some future grief and learn from my mistake!

Enjoy the images below the ones I had planned to shoot all along and the only ones I did shoot yesterday!

They are all taken with my Canon 5D, Canon 100mm 2.8f I did manual focus on all of them hand held some and some are taken on my tripod.