Off to London for the day tomorrow :) and will be taking this (the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens) with me to see how it does at the top of The Shard.
The fence of the shared garden for my block of flats.
On my way home from work on Wednesday it was actually nice and sunny (after a few weeks of grey and miserable weather), and the flowers in the little communal garden behind my flat have started flowering. Took some photos with my iPhone 5S, and also put the macro lens of my Olloclip 4-in-1 lens to the test.The Olloclip is a 4-in-1 lens which slots onto the iPhone on the corner where the camera is. It's got a wide angle lens, a fisheye lens, and two macro lenses (one 10x and one 15x).
The below is the middle of a flower, and it was taken with the 15x macro lens. It's a bit blurry as it was a bit windy, which is not ideal when it takes so little to make the photo out of focus at that high magnification.
My little stack of photography books :) The top one is the Humans of New York book. Love the concept of what he (Brandon Stanton) does, and bought myself the book as an early christmas present last year. The book has been an inspiration, and has also in part fuelled my dreams of going to New York.There is also the HONY Facebook page, giving you your fix right there as you are wasting time on Facebook ;)
Came home from late shift the other week, and it was foggy and cold. The photo below was taken in the alleyway outside my flat that evening.
Went into Jessops not last weekend but the one before (15-Mar) to drool over photography gear.. and ended up buying the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens.. whoops ;)Given that it takes a ridiculously large filter (82mm) they had to order one in since the only ones they had in store at the time was some £130 ones. And I'm all for UV filters and they're easily replaceable if scratched etc, but £130 for one seemed a bit excessive. I exercised some restraint and didn't use the lens until the Wednesday when I was on late shift and could pick up the filter from the shop.
The photo below is one of 30-odd photos I took having a quick wander around town before my shift. Still getting used to just how much fits in the frame with such a wide lens, but looking forward to taking it with me on a trip to London or something. And will definitely take it if (no, I should say when) I go on holiday to New York in August/September (money permitting) :D
Had a wander around town on Saturday, mainly because the weather was nice, but also to test out the geotagging app I'd downloaded earlier in the week.The geotagging app, called Geotag Photos Pro, worked a treat. I've just uploaded my file and have geotagged the photos I took on my DSLR on Saturday :)
As it was nice weather on Saturday the fountain on Old Market Square was full of children running around playing in the water (like it was summer or something). This little girl was definitely enjoying herself.
So Thursday this week was World Book Day. I have a bit of a thing for books, you could say.. These are some books I've gotten in the last couple of months. Currently they actually live on my desk, in a pile, because I've run out of room in my bookcase.. I was 11 or 12 I think when I read my first fantasy novel - it was The Belgariad by David Eddings. Now, I was a bit of a book enthusiast before then; but those books are what got me into the fantasy (and later sic-fi) genre. I stopped reading novels translated into Swedish when I was about 16 and I got fed up of waiting for the latest book in the Wheel of Time series. Got the English one from the school library, and haven't looked back since. To this day however, I have still not read The Belgariad in English.
To be honest I have not been reading as much as I used to in the last few years. And really, I need to stop buying more books - I've got plenty of them which I haven't read yet already. I got myself a Kindle a couple of years ago, but I don't know.. there something special about an actual book. The last book I read was The Shack, which I got for christmas 2012. I read the first half on my way over to Sweden for christmas, and the other half on my way back home. Just could not put it down when I started reading it.
Playing catch-up on these a bit atm, because this week (3rd-9th March) is actually week 10. The week 10 photo will come tomorrow. This one is an exception to the rules of my fifty-two week challenge as it wasn't taken during week 9. I had planned to go to Nottingham Light Night on the Friday that week (on the 28th Feb.), but as I spent the day knocked out with a migraine it didn't happen. This was in fact taken as I was waiting for the bus on Monday morning. It was a lovely morning (despite it being Monday), and I love the reflections you get off the bus stops at certain angles.
Double rainbow! :)This was just out my lounge window as I hurried to get the camera when I saw it, and it was gone a few minutes later.
Spring is in the air :)
New glasses as of two weeks ago. My geek glasses :)As I've been battling a cold for the best part of the week, this weeks photo was taken from the comfort of my sofa..
Saturday last weekend I had a wander around town and tried out my lens. I got the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM as a bit of a "spur of the moment"-purchase when buying a flash gun (the Canon Speedlite 430EX II) since Canon was doing a winter sale cash back offer. I already love my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens, so buying the 40mm one seemed like a good idea. It might be my imagination, but the photos taken with the 40mm lens seem sharper than those taken using the 50mm lens. Either way, I am well pleased with the new lens - and it's taken me a while to decide on which photo to post for last week. The photo below is down Market Street towards Old Market Square.
On my way home from Sweden I had to change train at Manchester Piccadilly station (as I my flight went to Manchester Airport). I had a 20 minute wait, and fortunately (with a 22kg suitcase and 10kg hand luggage) my train home went from the opposite side of the platform the train came in to from the airport. Also, I got a nice view of the main station building as you can see below.
There were some photos which were strong contenders when choosing the photo for week 3 of the fifty-two weeks project. Below are a few of them. The side street next to one of the larger shopping centres in Stockholm city centre. Regeringsgatan, around the corner from Gallerian.
One of the things I love about Stockholm is that it's on the water. This is the view from Strömbron.
Sunset from Riksbron.
This was the week when I was in Sweden, and there were some good photos to choose from (even though I only went in to Stockholm with my camera one day). I will post some of the other photos which only just lost out to the one below at a later stage.The photo which I picked just reminds me of home I suppose. Love these lights my parents have hanging over the back door in the kitchen. I would steal them and take them with me home, but don't think that would go down too well with mum ;)
Since I was working all through christmas and new year I went over to Sweden to see my family in January instead. Went for 11 days (10th-20th), and as always it was really nice to see everyone; especially as I hadn't seen them since July.This photo was taken just as I got out the exit at Arlanda Airport and I was heading for the coach going into Stockholm.
Ok, so the plan initially is to add a week a day (or something along those lines) to catch up by the end of this week. Then after that it'll be a weekly post. So this photo was taken one morning on my way to work, on 03-Jan-2014. Not looking very wintery, but I just love how the morning sun reflects in the puddles.
With it being a new year, and having enjoyed my 30-day challenge a few months ago, I thought I'd start a new project for this year. Since I don't think I'd be able to keep up with a daily project such as the 365 project, I'll make it a weekly one instead - hence the title of the post of "Fifty-Two Weeks project". The rules I've set myself for this fifty-two weeks project is simply that the photo has to have been taken in the week I'm posting it for (the week being Monday through to Sunday). And that's it, simple as that. Obviously the purpose of this is to keep developing my photography skills, and to try learning new skills and try things I've not done before.
As I'm currently on holiday visiting my family in Sweden I might not have time to upload the photos from the last couple of weeks just now, but if anything it'll be when I come back home.