• The Author – Bart Busschots

  

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I generally stick to traditional aspect ratios when processing my photos, usually 4:6 or square in fact, but from time to time I get all daring and go for an extreme crop, this is probably one of the most extreme crops I’ve ever done from a single image, but I have to say I like the results. Oh, and yes, I did have to wait a long time till the tractor spat out a bail of hay at exactly the right moment! I think I shot about 100 pictures that afternoon, and this is the only really good one from the lot.

on Flickr – Full-Size

For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
• Exposure: 1/640 sec
• Focal Length: 130mm
• Focal Ratio: F5
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Exposure Compensation: -0.33

When you think of butterflies you generally think of bright colours and pretty patterns. The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) certainly doesn’t spring to mind, what with it being small and brown. However, I’ve developed a real soft spot for these little fellas. There is something about the texture of their wings that I really like, and the patterns on their mostly brown wings can be very pleasing. They are also among the smallest of the butterflies we have in Ireland. As their name suggests they tend to hang out in wooded areas where they are very well camouflaged. I got a lot of pictures of these guys that I really like but this one is my very favourite because to me it just captures the spirit of autumn perfectly (even if I do say so myself).

on Flickr – Full-Size

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
• Exposure: 1/500 sec
• Focal Length: 200mm
• Focal Ratio: F11
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Exposure Compensation: -1.0

I was in Killybegs for a wedding a while ago and was hopping to get some good shots. Killybegs is located on Ireland’s north-west coast and is our largest fishing harbour. The weather was terrible for most of the weekend but the light we got for about half an hour one evening just made up for it all. We had dark ominous looking clouds to the east and a few gaps in the clouds to the west to allow the setting sun to peep through for a few minutes at a time. Photography heaven! I just love sunlit subjects against a dark brooding sky. This is my favourite shot from the weekend showing a collection of fishing boats of different shapes, sizes and colours against a wonderfully dramatic sky.

on Flickr – Full-Size

For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Exposure: 1/2500 sec
• Focal Length: 18mm
• Focal Ratio: F5.6
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Exposure Compensation: -0.67

Most of the world’s attention is focused on Barack Obama today. I can certainly understand why, but I’ve been pre-occupied with something else today, proposition 8 in California. The proposition was to add an article to the Californian Constitution to revoke civil rights for gay people. It passed, not by much, but it passed. The Californian constitution now discriminates against gay people. In the US that’s not a first. But there is something very different about the vote on proposition 8, in CA gay people COULD marry. They HAD rights. They fought long and hard, but they had won the basic civil rights that regular people take for granted. And today, over half of the voters in California choose to revoke those rights, to take basic civil rights away from their fellow Californians, their fellow Americans and their fellow human beings. To make an effort to actively take away rights from your fellow human beings is a hell of a lot different to failing to grant rights in the first place, or even to taking steps to make it harder to grant them in future. Failing to move forwards is sad, but moving backwards is tragic.

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The ruins of Laraghbryan Church are set amidst an old graveyard and next to a modern grave yard. The whole lot is surrounded by high trees so although the church is only a few hundred yards from the road, many people drive by every day without ever realising the wonders hidden behind those trees. Because of the trees though it’s very hard to get a good shot of these ruins so I’ve had to resort to HDR to even have a chance. I’ve taken a lot of shots of these ruins and I’ve settled on this one as my favourite because of the nice shadows being cast across the church.

on Flickr – Full-Size

For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Focal Length: 18mm
• Focal Ratio: F5.0
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Three Brackets:
  1. Exposure Bias: 0.0 (Exposure: 1/800 sec)
  2. Exposure Bias: -1.0 (Exposure: 1/1600 sec)
  3. Exposure Bias: 1.0 (Exposure: 1/400 sec)

When you’re starting out in digital photography you learn a lot in a year. When I originally processed “Where Dark & Light Collide” I processed it very conservatively. I didn’t crop it, and I tried to remove all dark shadows from the image. This had the effect of washing it out so that it never really showed the drama of the sky that day. Having learned a lot over the last year I re-processed it this week and produced an image that I’m much happier with. At first glance the new version is only subtly different, but for me those subtleties make all the difference. All I did was remove the artificial brightening of the shadows, bump the saturation up a little, warm the white balance slightly, and re-crop the image so that your eye is drawn to the sky more. Here’s the result of my tweaking:

on Flickr – Full-Size

You can see the original version along with all the technical details of the shot in the original post.

They’re coming thick and fast now! It’s only a few weeks ago that I happily blogged about my friend Dave McDonald becoming only the second person ever to discover an Asteroid from Irish soil. Well, another of the shining lights of Ireland’s amateur astronomical community (and another Dave as it happens) has discovered the third ever astroid from Irish soil! Dave is a very active amateur who’s involved with both Astronomy Ireland and the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies. Dave, if you’re reading this, congrats!

If you’ve ever wondered just how much of a needle in a hay-stack an asteroid is check out the observations of the asteroid on Dave’s website, the animation in particular rams home the point!

I really have no idea why but since I was a young kid this tiny little flower fascinated me. It just seemed too pretty to be genuinely natural and I always thought they mush have just escaped from someone’s garden or something. However, the Common Dog-violet (Viola Riviniana) is a native Irish wild flower. These things are very small, and only really stand a chance in areas where grass won’t over-whelm them. As such they tend to very well in hedgerows and woods. I love this shot because it shows up both the wonderful colour and subtle details of these diminutive beauties.

on Flickr – Full Size

For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Exposure: 1/320 sec
• Focal Length: 55mm
• Focal Ratio: F5.6
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority

With this double-post I’m finally back on schedule with my photo of the week. Since this is a double-bill I decided to pick a theme, these are my two of my favourite pics shot in my native village of Duffel in Belgium.

The first is a fantastic winter scene that greeted me on the first day of my Christmas holiday in December 2007. When you combine a very thick fog with a very heavy frost followed by a clearance in the morning you get an almost fairy-tale-like scene. I took quite a few shots but this is the one I think worked best.

on Flickr – Full-Size

The second shot is of a Thalys express train passing through Duffel with an international express train from Brussels to Amsterdam. These trains are actually French TGVs in a different coat of paint and are part-owned by the national rail companies of France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. There are very few places where you can get photos of electric trains without pylons in the way, the rail bridge in Duffel is one of those rare places.

on Flickr – Full-Size

For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of the first shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Exposure: 1/320 sec
• Focal Length: 18mm
• Focal Ratio: F5.6
• ISO: 200
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Exposure Compensation: 0.33

And of the second shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Exposure: 1/250 sec
• Focal Length: 30mm
• Focal Ratio: F8
• ISO: 200
• Camera Mode: Auto

I’m on my way literally clean across the country as I type this. This is my first real test of the iPhone ok the go. First impressions are very good. GPS is working better than I expected and 3G coverage is a lot more common than I’d expected. I just downloaded the WorsPress app I’m posting this from over 3G in Litrim of all places! Definitely better than I’d dared hope. Also, the iPhone’s auto correction REALY comes into it’s own when you’re typing in a moving car!

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