This picture I took when visiting a beach in Bahrain in late 2006. What I immediately noticed was how the beach huts were all in a row for almost as far as the eye could see. Seeing this prompted me to take the picture. Later when I got home I used some photo editing software to alter this picture. What I did from the original was; turning the picture black and white using a basic filter, then adjust the “levels” of the photo, sharpening up the picture and then having a slight lighting effect to the distance. I am generally very pleased with how the picture turned out as when I took it I really didn’t quite know what I was going to do with it. I like the way that the closest hut is darker and then everything seems to get lighter behind it. I managed to get this effect by adjusting the levels. The photo also gives me an impression of heat, dessert and bareness, the huts are almost like a railway train!

Again, this picture was taken whilst I was in Bahrain. As we were driving along we saw a camel farmer who kindly allowed us to take pictures of his camels. So, as I usually do, I just snapped away with my camera and I came out with this. All I have actually done with this picture is crop it so as the camel’s head is in the centre of the picture. I love the way that they blue sky seems to get lighter further down the picture. I am not too sure how I achieved this effect, maybe I just got lucky. Also, a minor detail that I like is the camels yellow teeth just showing. I feel that this adds almost a slight sense of humour to the picture. Another point to the photo is whether I should take out the hump (at the bottom) or not.

Another picture taken in Bahrain, this time it is of a date tree. I visited basically similar to an orchard where there were fresh leaves and date trees being grown. One thing that I noticed about date trees was the fantastic shapes of them. I like the way the tree seems to almost grow outwards similar to a palm tree. With this picture I have put it in black white, sharpened it up and added a small lighting effect in the centre of the tree. I feel that doing this has really helped show up in particular the details in the leaves on the tree. As you may be able to see in the picture, the clouds have created a stunning effect, almost like lightening!

With this photography I have used an effect that I often use, creating a black and white image with a hint of colour in it. I find that this really does create a quite stunning effect and tends to divert the attention to the object in colour. In this case it is the leaves that the man is holding. When creating this effect I basically erase through a colour layer onto a black and white layer in the areas that I wish to be in colour. Using colour on top of black and white is similar to the style adapted by Amani Willet in some of her work. For this picture I actually asked him to pose

As with the previous pictures, the one has been taken nearby the date tree orchard. What I found incredible was how the people living there just left their clothes on a washing line, a wardrobe outside. It reminded me of some poverty stricken countries. To gain this effect I decided to put it in black and white however instead of using a filter I decided to play around with levels and the red, green, blue layers. This has really brought out the crispness of everything on the line. This is one of my photographs that I am very fond of. Ir is about humanity, only without the humans.

This photograph was taken in Bahrain with a woman demonstrating the art of weaving. Nothing has been edited with this picture (expect from cropping) leaving it as natural as possible. What I feel this image portrays is the cultural differences between countries. The most obvious thing is that as the women is Muslim; she has chosen to wear a vale. A women demonstrating weaving is not something that we would often see in England. This natural, free flowing style reminds me of that of Melanie Einzig’s photography work. The composition is important with the rectangle of the cushion reflecting the alcove that could almost be a window. The image is timeless, although the plastic bottle brings it firmly into the present.

One of the things that I love most about amusement fairs are the colours. Everything is so bright and vibrant and stands out. With this picture, I held the camera still with a longer than usual exposure. However, as the ride was moving very fast and I did not need a very long exposure to create the desired blur effect. With this it also expresses another aspect of fair grounds, the speed of all the rides. A minor detail that I only noticed once I downloaded this image to my computer was the boy on the ride screaming and by him is the world “hell”. I think that this is a nice little ironic touch to the image that it was just lucky that I captured it. It is like the face in Matt Stuart’s photography of the man on the tube.

This is the ride entitled “Super Bowl”. As I mentioned above, I love the colour of the rides which this picture shows up magnificently. Also, I very much like how the clouds are formed in the sky, which I feel really puts an impact on the ride. A small effect that I also like with the photograph is the ever so slight twinkle from the lights on each seat on the ride. Believe it or not this image is the original with no colour enhancement; it is just as I saw it.

This photograph is the same as the one before however I took it with a long exposure. This again creates a stunning effect with the intense colour still showing through but the image gives a real sense of the speed in that the ride was moving at. As with the “boy screaming” image, I didn’t actually need a very long exposure set on the camera as the ride was moving very fast already.

The key point about this picture is the truly amazing colour that has appeared. Many people have asked me whether I have used a computer to get such strong colour but I simply tell them that this was the original, just as I shot it. Another interesting point to the picture is the way that the three horses are lined up together and called “Tracy, Amy and Brandon”. I really like the general clarity of the picture and how everything’s seems to show up such as the shine on the bars. I am very proud of this image as I took it just about perfectly so no alterations had to be made to it. It is a classic, almost iconic image. Another view is that it is a nightmare or fantasy childhood memory, the faces of the horses are rather scary!

On an art trip to London in 2006 I decided to go out and about with my camera and see what I could photograph. Unfortunately, the weather and the lighting were not ideal on the day, so to produce this picture was quite something for me. The original in all fairness was not very good and usually I would not have spent time working on it. With this though I have added a lighting effect to the “end-point” of the picture, put a black and white filter on and fiddled around with levels and sharpening tools. I love the way the image seems to meet a centre point that the people are walking into. Another thing is the tree formations. The way they seem to cover the path is truly amazing. Another point is how the “front” trees are very dark and moving along, the trees seem to get light. This was achieved by editing levels. The effect is very similar to that in the beach hut photograph. The photo as very strong linier and arial perspective, the black and white makes it feel very “classic” like the work of photographer such as Henri-Cartier-Bresson.

This photograph is of part of Real Madrid stadium (Santiago Bernabeu). What immediately caught my eye with this is, is how the chairs all seem to get smaller and fade into the distance which I believe creates a nice effect. This picture reminds of one of Alan Wilson’s pieces work with lots of chairs. I think what is very eye catching is the strong blue on the chairs. Also, having the same object (in this case chairs) loads of times can create a very intense effect.

Another picture taken in Madrid, basically just showing five work men. The thing that made me take this photograph was how all the work men instead of working were in fact just standing around which adds a sense of humour to the picture. As with some of the photographers I have researched, this picture has a sense of natural beauty to it. The photograph reminds me of similar images by Melanie Einzig where she is taking pictures of almost anyone doing something is interesting. The poses here show the men crossing their arms with each one looking almost identical whilst one of them is leaning back to make his point.

In this photo I am experimenting with taking photos in unusual conditions, this one at night time. If I had used a longer exposure, I might have captured more of the background but it would have been difficult to keep the image sharp.

Now, this image is almost the opposite to what I taken before. With this photograph I took it with a fairly long exposure without a flash. As you can see it has captured a very weird blur of a fast moving bus creating almost a repeated blur along the line. Fortunately, as the exposure was not too long it has managed to still keep some of the static objects (mainly the background) in focus. Creating blurred objects with different length exposures is very similar to what Trent Parke does. However, he tends to use black and white for his “blurred” pieces but in this case I feel that this photograph would not look half as effective in black and white.

Now, this is a very interesting picture. I was walking along a street at night in Madrid when just by chance I saw this fabulous man just asleep on a bench. I immediately saw a great photograph opportunity and got out my camera. To avoid having a horrible flash on the person I opted not to use to flash so instead I used a long exposure. I got the desired effect with the car blurred in the background however I was not totally happy with everything being blurred; the man is a little fuzzy. A tripod would have helped, but then I probably would have misses the shot!

This picture is demonstrating the effects of a longer shutter speed in broad day light. What this has done is slightly blurred the moving crowd. I would have liked there to be more of a crowd and for them to be moving faster or use a slower exposure (thus creating more of a blur). The original image I decided to shoot in RAW format as apposed to standard JPEG. The reason behind this is that with RAW images they are far more editable than JPEG ones. As a result I now shoot all my images with a long exposure in RAW because those are the types of images that may need editing around most. The only down side that I find when shooting in RAW is that it does take up a lot of space on my memory card in the camera. I find that RAW images are around 5-7mb whilst my high quality JPEG’s are only around 3-4mb.

This was one of the first things I saw on my summer trip to Amsterdam. I remember it being very wet but to my surprise I saw a group of people cycling in very bold yellow anoraks. I later found out that they were on a tour of the city by bicycle. Having the people bright yellow really makes the picture for me especially as the bikes and macs match and there are 2 yellow posters in the background to match as well.

This photograph I took on the same day as the people with the yellow anoraks. I was very pleased in the way that I managed to capture the rain without having to use a long exposure. Another thing about the picture was the angle that I shot it at. At first I was a little disappointed and was going to straighten it up but now I believe that having it at a slightly tilted angle adds a small twist and un-usualness to the picture. Also the little patch of red really stands out and brings light to the image.

Again, taken in Amsterdam but believe it or not the photograph is of public urinals. This may seem a little strange but this is something that I haven’t seen in the UK and it was strange at first to me to see such objects just in the open. Another point that I didn’t see at first was the way that they are lined up, all at the same angle. Also, if you look closely at the picture, I have managed to capture even the minor detail of the grey on the urinal such as the little granite marks. The look like something from Dr.Who, sadly no one was using them.

This reminds of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but in fact it is just a bridge in Amsterdam over some water to a museum. I was very pleased at how clear and crisp the picture turned out. I love the way that the sun sparkles majestically off the blue water and how clear the sky is. The shape of the bridge fascinated me as well because it seemed very long and low down. The building (Nemo science museum) reflects the shape of the bridge and the rail on the left reflects its harbour nature it also lead your eye into the image.

With this image I feel that it portrays a similar message to one of Richard Bram’s pieces of work showing the differences between modern and old. The photograph is of a Porsche (usually an expensive car) and of a Citroen 2CV (usually not as expensive). It was only by chance that I saw this picture when I was having a walk along a riverside bank in later afternoon. Although maybe not as clear in this image, the light wasn’t very light nor was it dark. I like the subtle effect of the afternoon light.

What I am most pleased about with this photograph is the exuberant lights at night. I like that way the signs light up the street. This has given an interesting effect to the picture like almost multi-coloured. I took this image with a short exposure but used a flash, just to touch the people sitting. I did however want light to be the subject of my photo rather than the people.

The first thing I remember saying to myself when I first saw this canal was just how wonderful it would look at night so I waited until it was pitch black to take this photograph. The picture really has a good side and a bad side. The good side was that I was pleased about how the lights reflected into the water with a slight shimmer effect. The bad side was that unfortunately the picture is slightly blurred. It is blurred because I decided not to use a flash which would have only really captured the light in the picture not smaller details such as the boats and houses. So I used a fairly long exposure to capture all of the light I could. I really wish I had my tripod with me at the time as this I feel that this had the potential to be a really stunning photograph.

This is one of my most successful long exposure photographs without a tripod that I have taken to date. The picture is of a tram moving along in Amsterdam. As with the previous picture, I remember seeing the tram moving and I thought to myself that it could make a really great picture. I thought that taking this photo at night time would be better than day light to capture all of the night time lights. What I am most pleased about is the level of detail that I managed to get without a tripod. I find it fantastic how the writing on top of the tram as been captured completely in focus as well as some of the background (shop in the distance). As I’ve mentioned before, I love minor details in photographs. This picture even shows everyone sitting inside the tram and right down to the colour of their clothing.

Before I took this photograph I saw some of Tony Howell’s work of the Burnham-on-Sea lighthouse and I decided to go out and try and emulate some of his work. I walked down to the beach with my camera and tripod on a clear summers evening to see just what I could take. It was really the first time I had been out talking sunset photos. What I found was that in only about an hour I took around eighty photos. What I find amazing with this picture is the colour in the sky. The subtle yellow/orange looks very effective against the darker parts of the sky. What I have done different to Tony Howell is capturing the sky static. On the majority of Tony Howell’s, work he has achieved an effect which makes the whole picture lighter and adds slight movement to the sky. This is a technique that I would love to learn as I feel that it could really enhance some of my photography work.

I took this picture in Bahrain in late October time and what I noticed about their sunsets was that they set very quickly, almost in thirty minutes. When I took this picture I had in mind what I did with my lighthouse photographs and some of Tony Howell’s work. As I’ve mentioned before, I find that sunsets can create some really stunning effects so I again ended up taking a lot of photos of the sunset. I also experimented taking these photographs at various angles to gain different effects. What I did with this picture was decide that the boat would be my centre piece so I zoomed in on it and positioned myself so as the sun was in line with the boat. I am very pleased about how this has come out as I was a little worried that the picture may be a little too dark. What I did different to Tony Howell’s work is that I found in Bahrain there was little cloud formation, so obviously I couldn’t create some of the effect that Tony Howell has in his work. The colour in the photo is also quite fantastic as the colours yellow and orange seem to be everywhere. For instance, there are really strong colours around the sun but faded colours around the water.