Spring Photography

Now that spring is arriving, the weather should start improving. Spring is also associated with birth as the flowers start to bloom and the lambs and rabbits are born around Easter time. So here are a few projects you could do over the next few months and some mobile phone apps that you can use to help you.

Macro Photography

Most compact cameras and some mobile phones have a macro function. If you have a digital SLR camera with interchanable lens, you will need to make sure that the lens is able to do macro photography.

So what is Macro Photography? Macro photography is taking photographs up close to the subject. You can take photos of insects like dragonflies or flowers. The way to do this is to put your camera in to Macro mode, you may need to look in the user manual how to do this as all cameras are different and have different ways of setting up the macro mode. The symbol for macro mode is opposite.

As you can see it looks like a flower, which is not suprising and most people take photos of flowers when first doing macro photography. One of my favourite times to take photographs is early morning when there is water drops on the petals.

Animal Photography

Around Easter time you can often see newly born lambs and rabbits (not a lot of people know this but baby rabbits are called kits or kittens) in the fields. Also migrating birds start to arrive in the UK. The best time to take photos of lambs and other wildlife is just as the sun is about to rise in the morning. This photo that I took of a mother and lamb was at around 5.30 am just after the the sun appeared in the sky. The sun is still low and creates these long shadows.

Sunrise Photography

This is one of my favorite photos I took in Penarth. This photo was taken with a very long shutter speed of about 10 minutes and a tripod. It was taken at 430 am just before the sun was rising. The long shutter speed allowed the waves to merge to create a stillness ghostly look to the water.

Landscape photography

Getting out in to the wild outdoors and exploring the countryside there are loads of places you can go for wildlife and nature photography, including your own local park. No matter how urban your setting, there will always be somewhere close by where you can find wildlife in its natural habitat.

Some useful Apps

The most useful app I have is the TPE app (The Photographer’s Ephemeris). This contains a wealth of information about where the sun is rising from, which direction, the time the sun rises, the position of the moon and so on. This is really useful to help me plan when I need to be at a specific location and work out where the sun will be. I usually aim to be at the location at least 30 minutes before the sun rises so I can find the right position, angle and give me time to set everything up.

Google Maps is another useful app for when I am looking for locations. The satalite view on google maps help me try and understand what the lay of the land will be like. The street view is also helpful to see what kind of photos I could achieve.

Camera 360 is an app I have written about in previous SL First magazines. Check out SLFirst Website for previous issues for my article on Camera 360.

Weather app is a must, espcially with the wet weather we can get in the UK. There are two apps I have, the BBC Weather App and the Met Office App. Both are straight forward and easy to use and help me decide if it is worth getting up early in the morning.

We live in a beautiful country yet too many of us stay in the house to watch TV. My advce is get off your bottom, grab a camera and take photos of the world around you.

Handy Tips
 

• Wrap up warmly, it can be freezing in the early hours of the morning.
• Check the Weather and the Tides, make sure you don't get caught out.
• Make sure your car is running properly
• Take some snacks and hot drinks in a thermos.
• It is always useful to have a Torch or light of some kind.