Sharming urbex in Sharm El Sheikh (see what i did there)

 

Again its been a long time since I've posted on my blog. It's not that I haven't been taking photos its more that I haven't had anytime to do anything with the photos I've taken.

I've recently got married and only a few weeks ago got back from my honeymoon to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

After a couple of days lazing around in 40°C heat I decided to take a walk and see what was local to my hotel. At first glance all that was around was other hotels, however I did walk past a couple of half built and abandoned hotels. I did consider returning on another day because I was hardly dressed for climbing around building sites, however I couldn't resist it.

I wasn't using my normal camera, instead I was using my girlfr....sorry wife's Olympus E-PL1 compact system camera. With the right settings this camera can take some awesome photo's although in other situations such as in low light it can really struggle and produces real noisy images.

On to the photos.



 

The sight on the beach front.

 

Looking down an umbrella.

 

 

 

Looking out of a bedroom window at what I can only guess would either be a bar and pool or fountain. If finished the view from this area would be amazing as this looks out to the beach.

 

 

I found this after taking the photo above of the 'bar'. I stepped out of the building I was in and there was a skeleton scattered around the floor.

 

 

This is the stair case that goes down throughout the 'bar' building. I bet it would look very grand if ever finished. It was a bit nervy walking down with no hand rail and on the loose ground in flip flops.

 

Walking out of the 'bar' building at the top of a hill, there is a contrast in views; a building site/rubbish tip and 'paradise'.

Huge pipes wind around the site in deep trenches.



Back in another building and the views looking out.

The view from the top of this villa.

 

I was here!!!

This pattern was part of a huge dome in the reception lobby.

 

This hasn't ever stopped me before.

 

The death of boats

Tuesday was photography club night. Unfortunately it was rained off, so myself and Bryan went out and took some photos of Kings Lynn's fisher fleet, in particular the decaying vessels on the river banks.

We started off the night in the grounds of St Faiths Church in Gaywood where i really struggled to find anything of interest for me, until I went to the back of the graveyard and found a number of graves using crosses as grave stones.



70mm F6.3 1/13 ISO 200

The cross in the background, which is the point of focus was leaning over so I made it stand straight and its surroundings lean at an angle. My least favourite part of this image is the stump in the middle which is too bright.

Behind this scene is a cross on the floor and a lone grave a number of meters behind it.

 

31mm F4.0 1/30 ISO 200

On the way out I looked closely at the textures on a door and it's lock and noticed this above the door.

 

 

I then jumped in the car with Bryan and set off for the fisher fleet. Bryan had been there before but this was my first time and I would like to return again with a bit more time on my hands. Bryan says since his last visit the wrecked vessels have deteriorated more with some parts of the vessels now collapsed or missing.

The sky was very over cast and boring for photography, so I made sure to zoom in and crop the sky out in shot rather than at the editing stage.

The flaking paint and rotten textures make for a real sight and with a bit of exploring some great details can be found easily.

 

 

It difficult to capture the working fisher fleet as the sight is very messy and busy, with lines and angles leading in all directions .

 

 Three of the finer wrecks very accessible for photography. The two in the foreground are on a different side of the water from the one in the background. The further vessel is brought closer by the angle and focal length.

 

As you can see they were once quite large boats.

Never to be again.

Thursday Urbex

Since I was a boy I've always enjoyed exploring places and buildings.

When I was a young, there was an old shack in front of the family home. In between making bows and arrows and using my imagination and running from my older brothers who liked to pick me up by my ears, I enjoyed looking around the old building and looking through the belongings of the people who once lived there. It was like a forbidden fruit, as I wasn't allowed to go in there and would of been told off if my parents found out.

So jump forward over 20 years and Im always on the look out for place to explore. Im always taking mental notes on what's down each street and what's accessible. Photography now gives me a reason to explore; documenting buildings that may not be here forever or in some cases very long at all as they may face demolition or natural decay.

This particular find, can be thanked to a Saturday afternoon a few months back when I let my Nephew, Josh, have a drive around the back roads and small villages to gain some driving experience (and to keep up my status of being a cool uncle).

We drove past this place a couple of times and noticed that the place looked closed and empty. I was struck at the size of the place and new it would be good to have walk round. A couple of months later mission accomplished.

Now for some pictures.

 

Oh and I've found a way in!

A Playful Discovery; my new 35mm viewfinders and flash photography

Finally I've gotten round to writing a blog post.

A couple of months ago I purchased two 35mm cameras; a Cosmic Symbol and a Holga 135BC.

The Cosmic Symbol, apart from having the coolest name for a camera ever is also awesome looking thanks to its retro looks. The camera itself was manufactured in Soviet Russia between the 70's and 90's and allows the user to control exposure by altering aperture and shutter speed settings on the lens itself.

f/13 1/200 ISO 100

Holga's are the original Instagram before Instagram was invented. I brought the 135 version due to process and development of film these days; 35mm film is the cheapest to get hold of and print in this digital age. The BC stands for Black Corners. Holgas are known for light leaks, soft focus and unpredictable effects amongst others; everything people love about mobile photography at the moment. Compared to even the Cosmic Symbol the Holga is very basic.

A quick shot from my iphone

The link between my new (old) cameras and this post is the Holga flash that I also bought to go with my film cameras.

The Holga 15B is a good bit of fun due to the colour filters attached to the flash unit via a screw. The idea is to put a filter in front of the flash, take a photo using the coloured flash and to wait and see what the photo looks like when you get them developed.

I was bored the other day and wondered whether I could get my 15B flash to fire using my Canon. To be safe, I didn't want the flash to short circuit my DSLR, I attached the 15B flash to a wireless flash trigger (used to fire a flash off of / away from the camera) and shot away at my unsuspecting model who at the time was reading a magazine.

My favourite shot was using a red filter.

f/5.6 1/125 ISO 100

Due to the angle of the flash, I like the shadows on the right hand side of the photo and the catch light in Laura's eyes. Other than that........come on she's red....what's not to like about this!?

During processing of the raw file I also tried out a black and white conversion that will definitely be a keeper.

 

The red filtered flash has created a brilliant look when converted to black and white.

 

Until next time. Which will hopefully sooner rather than later.

I used to go out drinking, now i just go out thinking (how am i going to take a photo of that)

Only a few years ago i still regularly went out 'clubbing' now i only go to photography club. Oh how my life has changed.

In December i spotted an advert in a local paper advertising a new photography group starting up. Having experienced a fresh spark in interest in photography in the last half a year, due to the recent wedding photographer role, i thought id give it a try.

The group has been limited, i guess due to winter, to taking pictures inside, i personally can't wait for some warmer weather so we can go out exploring local spots together. 

Each person has been asked to bring in items they would like to photograph as well as including suitable back drops. Themes have been set, each member is able to interpret the theme and create images around the theme. Thinking of and finding objects to photograph is quite difficult in my opinion as, being honest, i have no interest in photographing objects on a table top.

Although the previous paragraph sounds negative, a positive point for the sessions is that i am learning to create images of items, objects, scenes etc that i wouldn't of previously took photos of. I suppose a professional photographer working on a job may not always be enthusiastic about the subject but they still have to create a quality piece of work regardless.

Working on a table top does test the skills; creating a scene worth capturing, finding the best composition, adjusting camera settings to capture details and to not capture others like gaps and seams in the background and finding a suitable white balance due to overhead lighting.

Most recently i was having difficulty focusing on an object using my 50mm lens. I only wanted one small object in focus however i had reached the limit of the lens and couldn't focus close enough. I had to change to a longer focal length lens and step back a bit to create the same composition. I used knowledge of how focal length affects depth of field/perspective as well as aperture to allow the desired object to be in focus and to to cause the rest to be out of focus.

There's an example of how attending the group and doing something i don't like has been an advantage of refreshing skills.

On to some of my favourite images from the sessions in December and January.

ISO 1600 f/4 1/100

ISO 1600 f/5.6 1/40 

The reflections is the ball is my favourite part of the above image.

ISO 200 f/8 1/200

The shot above was created by using the built in flash to expose the figures and my Nissin flashgun to expose the background. The reason I'm so please with the above image is that the white background was made up of many A4 pieces of paper which had horrible joins everywhere, i used my flashgun to over expose/blow out the white to create the flat background. This was my intention on the night and i was very pleased to have succeeded. The image is slightly over saturated though......my bad.

ISO 400 f/7.1 1/200

It took many attempts to achieve focus in the desired place. The image has had the contrast increased to create a harder edge between the subjects and the background.

I hope you continue to enjoy my images and honest approach.

Thanks.

Ben

Day tripping in the big smoke

Just days after New Years i received an email at work offering return travel to London and back for £5 each. So that weekend myself and Laura got up early Saturday morning and by car,coach and train went to London.

Although i have visited London numerous times as a teenager and in my early 20's i hadn't ever done much sight seeing, so armed with my trusty Canon, sight seeing was the aim of a long and tiring day.

Here are my favourite images of the day.

 

Ive been wanting to practice street photography for some while. I think it takes real guts to step out in front of someone you don't know and photograph them candidly. From what i read, new starters to the genre tend to use a zoom lens/long focal length in order to stay incognito, this wasn't a choice to me as i only had my kit and 50mm prime lens with me on the day.

In the first and second image i like the motion captured (particularly in the second image) and how people are crossing the image in different directions.

When walking close to the London Eye, there are a lot of street performers, i noticed the performer creating large bubbles and a child jumping to touch them before they burst. As i got close enough to take the third image, the child made his last and not so spectacular attempt.........damn!

Graffiti found on the embankment.

The third image was difficult to expose due to the different lighting sources; daylight and artificial from the overhead lights. I really like the depth of field captured by using an aperture of f/7.1 and the hard lines and angles of the different walls.

Landscape in portrait orientation of the river Thames with St. Pauls Cathedral. I was first drawn to the scene by the detail on the street lamps, i then noticed the river and buildings in the background.

Before we left for the trip i had planned to get this shot of the London Eye. In my mind this has came out better than i expected. i had originally planned for the shot to be the opposite of this but when comparing both images i much preferred this composition. I like the empty space on the left compared to the circular shape of the wheel and the diagonal lines of the cables and support structure.

Thanks for looking.

Stepping up to the challenge! My first wedding.

I thought it was about time i updated my blog.

Since my last post i have bought 2 new cameras and a new phone, joined a photography club, been sight seeing in London; all of which will receive more detail in future posts.

Most importantly i was asked to and shot a wedding.

I was asked approximately 6 months ago to play wedding photographer in December. In between the proposition and the event i went through stages of acceptance, joy, denial, worry, nervousness and im sure many more emotional states.

At times i doubted my ability and although the people closest to me, always assured me i could perform and achieve results.

I found myself at night thinking about lighting, white balance, apertures.......what if it rains, what if my camera stops working etc etc.

Closer to big day i started to prepare by scouting the church in view of finding the best locations and camera settings needed. As the wedding was in December available light was minimal, not helped by an afternoon ceremony, i knew that time would be short to get the list of photos agreed.

Winter afternoon sun is low in the sky and can make beautiful golden glow images providing you can find a location that lets the light shine onto the subject. At the church i knew available light was going to be issue, the best locations were on the wrong side of the church where the sun was blocked by the church itself.

Fortunately using my head i looked around the church grounds at the time of day i knew i would be doing the real shoot. I found a spot on the edge of the grounds where the last bit of sun sines through some trees and an old brick building. Bang! here's the spot to get the bride and grooms shots.

So on to the day.

Batteries were charged, lenses cleaned, camera bag packed, shirt ironed, Laura had a new dress, the sun was out and it wasn't raining....................however it was freezing cold! In the end it was the temperature that applied the most pressure on the day; the bride and groom were cold, families and friends were cold and my hands were cold holding the camera.

I decided on aperture's to use, so when it was time for the photo's outside; they were done in approx 15 minutes from beginning to end. Not so good when i had loads of nice ideas to try out.

On to some of my favourite photos from the day.

 

Great golden light.

I over exposed the background and use fill flash to create this high key image.

I love how they're are looking in opposite directions deep in thought.

A happy lady!

Lloyd, the groom, loves toys, cartoons and comics, so i knew they would love this high contrast image that has a real comic feel

This has a timeless feel to it thanks to the sepia filter that i applied.

I hope you enjoyed my write up and viewing my some of my favourite images of my good friends wedding.