It's been a great week - my very good friend and Godfather to my son came on an all too brief visit and managed to get me to put down my camera for a few days and go out bird watching...
Here is Nick enjoying the bird action around the Dhow Harbour in Abu Dhabi. I've known this guy for longer than I care to mention - we worked on Nature Reserves together and share a passion for the Natural World; it was certainly a treat to go out birding again and find a few species... He also managed to bring the rain all the way from the UK - so thanks for that mate...
The problem is of course that birding in the UAE is difficult at best - most birds here are only found on passage so could turn up anywhere. You have to trudge through this...
and when you have a boot full of sand, the birds are the ones you saw yesterday... We did have some good things though... so all wasn't lost...
In addition to Nick being a fine naturalist, he is also a good photographer - we have shot weddings together, so when I was booked to carry out a corporate staff photo shoot last Tuesday, Nick kindly came and acted as as assistant - basically advising subjects where to stand and helping sort out the lighting - what a good guy!
That shoot went well - all the subjects were professional and co-operative and the client feedback has been positive. The shots were basically this sort of staff portrait.
Lighting was from 3 separate speedlights controlled remotely by my Nikon D200. Once the levels were set it was simply a case of moving people into position and firing off a couple of shots. I chimped to make sure eyes were open and that was that... After a shoot in the Dubai office we were raced round to an office in Sharjah and then to a further office also in Sharjah... It was an enjoyable shoot, the client was a nice guy and helped make the day work. It always helps when this happens...
Of course after the shoot I had to PP the images but that was painless...
So apart from that shoot I have been birding for most of the week - and here I add a note - we are not twitchers - we are birders - there is a huge difference... I'll explain it if you want...
Once Nick departed on Thursday morning I went out for a walk around our Corniche (you know the one I always walk round) and found some cool plants to capture... showy flowers and grasses coming into flower - I liked the way they came out...
This is the first I shot and as always, took loads hoping to ensure I had at least one usable image. Using fill-flash enabled me to make the plant stand out against the background and using a relatively large aperture reduced the depth of field. Once downloaded I adjusted the contrast and brightness to give the colours some punch. Increasing the sharpening also made the picture more dynamic.
Compositionally, I placed the main flower on the bottom left rule of thirds node and the foremost bud on the top right node to balance the image. They also make a diagonal line through the image, linking all parts together.
The second image - showing an ant on a similar flower is another favourite from today. I like the fact that the ant is carrying honeydew on its abdomen and it is off back to the colony with the prize... Composition again is by rule of thirds and focus was careful to keep the ant sharp. Depth of field is vital when shooting such small subjects so a very small aperture was chosen... As before many images were taken before one was acceptable...
And on to my favourite of the three...grass in flower
As soon as you get down low the world changes - this is how the ant must see things - hairs on the stem must seem like great branches to be overcome. I also like the subtlety of colours - pinks, yellows, silvers all mixed together.
Once again I adjusted the contrast to make the background darker. This makes the grass stand out more, gives it punch...
There are some more macro and natural history shots appearing HERE so if you have the urge have a look and tell me what you think.
For all these shots I was using my favourite macro combination of Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 60mm f2.8 AFD and Nikon Speedlight SB-600, and shooting hand held. Macro shots like this are great fun to do - grasses look out of this world when seen in close up - the key is to fill the frame with the smallest of subjects so the viewer sees things they may never have done so before.
Well to round off a good day I had an enquiry about shooting a wedding later in April - if all goes well, that would be a fun way to see in the Spring...
I hope you have enjoyed this wander through the week of Alex JP Scott Photography - we now have two weeks of Easter Holidays so who knows what may appear here next weekend. Stay tuned for that...
TTFN
The problem is of course that birding in the UAE is difficult at best - most birds here are only found on passage so could turn up anywhere. You have to trudge through this...
and when you have a boot full of sand, the birds are the ones you saw yesterday... We did have some good things though... so all wasn't lost...
In addition to Nick being a fine naturalist, he is also a good photographer - we have shot weddings together, so when I was booked to carry out a corporate staff photo shoot last Tuesday, Nick kindly came and acted as as assistant - basically advising subjects where to stand and helping sort out the lighting - what a good guy!
That shoot went well - all the subjects were professional and co-operative and the client feedback has been positive. The shots were basically this sort of staff portrait.
Lighting was from 3 separate speedlights controlled remotely by my Nikon D200. Once the levels were set it was simply a case of moving people into position and firing off a couple of shots. I chimped to make sure eyes were open and that was that... After a shoot in the Dubai office we were raced round to an office in Sharjah and then to a further office also in Sharjah... It was an enjoyable shoot, the client was a nice guy and helped make the day work. It always helps when this happens...
Of course after the shoot I had to PP the images but that was painless...
So apart from that shoot I have been birding for most of the week - and here I add a note - we are not twitchers - we are birders - there is a huge difference... I'll explain it if you want...
Once Nick departed on Thursday morning I went out for a walk around our Corniche (you know the one I always walk round) and found some cool plants to capture... showy flowers and grasses coming into flower - I liked the way they came out...
Compositionally, I placed the main flower on the bottom left rule of thirds node and the foremost bud on the top right node to balance the image. They also make a diagonal line through the image, linking all parts together.
Once again I adjusted the contrast to make the background darker. This makes the grass stand out more, gives it punch...
There are some more macro and natural history shots appearing HERE so if you have the urge have a look and tell me what you think.
For all these shots I was using my favourite macro combination of Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 60mm f2.8 AFD and Nikon Speedlight SB-600, and shooting hand held. Macro shots like this are great fun to do - grasses look out of this world when seen in close up - the key is to fill the frame with the smallest of subjects so the viewer sees things they may never have done so before.
Well to round off a good day I had an enquiry about shooting a wedding later in April - if all goes well, that would be a fun way to see in the Spring...
TTFN
I like the new look... does anyone else?
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