h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I love your seascape/skyscape.

In fact, I like clouds. No two cloudscapes are exactly the same. if I was any good at photography (which I'm not) I'd take up taking photos of clouds.

Thanks mvp!

That's true! You never get the same cloudscape twice. Ever. A totally unique pattern, in that very moment.

It would be good to know about clouds, the different types, and the technical facts of how they are formed.

I didn't have my camera for this pic . I was to be seen waving my phone at the sky in a rather scatty way. You can't see the screen when the sun is out, so its a fluke.

I love flukes like that. It's a gorgeous photo.

There is a very large framed photo in our living room. All it has in it are clouds. I took the photo out the window of an airplane about 20 years ago, somewhere over Atlanta, Georgia.

So we've looked at clouds from both sides now...

Your cloud photo sounds amazing. Somewhere over Atlanta Georgia.

Its clouds illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all.

To further quote Joni. Ah Joni.

Must listen to that song again.

A lovely picture CC, there are three different clouds there and the land nicely framed it!

That is a most impressive photo, a real "big sky" that goes on for ever. Well done.

Thank you! In this case, a most fortunate fluke, then. .

Photography can be a challenge, I think. It's a moment in time. There's a huge sky above, or something/someone interesting trotting/walking/flying/galloping past, yeh yeh you get the picture. hah! the picture.

... or a sequence of events unfolding, or a political statement waiting to be made (although not in my case, I'm not clever enough for political statements).

And how to capture it? How to express the moment with the technology one has.



Of course, once its a photograph, its not the same as the moment. It has a photographic identity.

(Discuss). (Or not).



My best work is always a mistake or fluke, but I'm still a closet obsessive with composition.

If I take a snap of a cityscape, say, and the top of a spire is chopped off, or things look unbalanced around the edges, I'll not be happy, and if cropping doesn't sort it, I'll delete it in a huffy, puffy way.

Unless its a passing photo, and the subject cannot be revisted, in which case I'll just be huffy puffy and live with it. .



So, how do you photographers work out your composition??

Please? If you have a moment to tell me.

I took a few photography courses in the Philadelphia area. One was at an art school and included some darkroom time.

I love darkrooms, though I don't enjoy the way my mouth feels after an hour or so in one. You can taste all the chemicals. It's worth it, though - watching the pictures emerge is satisfying, also messing about with the enlarger. Of course, digital is different.

Because of the darkroom, all our photos were black and white. I remember doing one of two bears mating...over at the zoo. Whenever I looked at the photo, I would remember the kids who were there at the time...asking their mom, 'What are they doing?'

'They're playing,' was the answer. Amazingly, I still held the camera steady...

I have bad memories of darkrooms; when I was at art college our photography teacher smoked cigarettes in the darkroom, flicking ash into the developing fluid. Digital photography is whole different ball game and much cleaner. I spend hours cropping and recropping photos and it doesn't cost a thing. Mind you it doesn't really make the photos any better...

So, how do you photographers work out your composition??

Please? If you have a moment to tell me.

Well that is a tough one and there is always the exception to every rule. However as a rough guide

1-Whilst composing the shot leave plenty of room around your subject for cropping.
2-Also position the point of interest slightly off center for effect.
3-Pay attention to distracting objects in the foreground.
4-Expose for the sky especially in wide landscapes.
5-Take more than one shot.

That is my top personal rules.

Oooh lots of photographers!

Will answer individually! Thanks!

Darkrooms! Thanks Mr D my friend!

I've never seen a darkroom for real, or tasted one. .

I think it was darkrooms that always put me off photography, the digital revolution was good for someone like me.

Mind you, your description has helped me imagine how fascinating it must have been watching the photographs appear from the chemical solution. Kind of alchemical.

Perhaps the digital can be too fast, some of the magic can be compromised.

There's a couple of classic Columbo episodes that feature darkrooms.

Love the mating bears. .

Pinhole cameras fascinate me. I saw an article in a magazine about how to make one from a box.

I love the pinhole effect.

Of course you can get a digital pinhole effect setting, but is it the same???

Hah! Probably not.

Hullo Chris!

W-w-w-what??

Ash in the developing fluid. This is most worrying. .

When I got my first digital camera, I thought I was going to miss going to the chemist to get the wallet of developed photos.

Then I remembered that, having waited for about three days, it was really disappointing when you opened the long anticipated wallet, because most of them were rubbish anyway.



Our cookery teacher at school used to flick ash into the dishes, apparently, which is why I did geography instead. . Macaroni smoky. . Baked potato with beans and ash.

Which is irrelevant, apart from the ash.

Hullo Bob!

Ah, these are great tips!! I'm going to put them all into practice, and see what happens! Thanks!

I like the leaving the space for cropping.

Interesting about the distracting objects in the foreground.

Of course, sometimes I find a random distraction can change the nature of my intention.

Well, this was a photo of a mailbox, a pigeon and a light effect. Its now a photo of a passing poodle, that lifted its leg on the mailbox.



Pinhole cameras. Pinhole cameras. Pinhole cameras.

(heads off into the photographic landscape with new obsession)

(and a bunch of new tips)

Thanks folks!!

"I like the leaving the space for cropping". In addition if you have a tendency to take photos that are not 100% vertical straitening needs lots of space.


"Of course, sometimes I find a random distraction can change the nature of my intention".

I'm sorry, Cactuscafe, I've just realised that I was so distracted by Dmitri's mating bears that I forgot to say how much I liked your photo; you've managed to frame it so that the clouds are perfectly balanced. I love that bit of coast - we spent most of our summer holidays in Teignmouth during the 1950s and 60s and my brother's just bought a holiday flat in Exmouth (yes, I do disapprove of people buying holiday homes in seaside towns!) so he's taken lots of photos just there.

Hullo Chris!

Dmitri's mating bears are definitely a distraction. . An altogether different aspect of reality than skies over the Exe Estuary.

Ah, you must have wonderful memories of holidays in Teignmouth!

Exmouth! Nice. Great beach!

There's a great bike track that runs from Exeter all the way to Exmouth, along the Exe estuary.

We cycle to Topsham regularly, because we live in Exeter, so it doesn't take long at all, but we've never got as far as Exmouth.

There's also the quirky little branch line train, The Avocet Line. I go on that a lot.

We go out to Topsham to watch for avocets and other birdies. 'Tis RSPB terrain.

The last time I was out there, the professional birdwatchers were going crazy about the red rump swallow which had been seen on the marshes. It's very rare apparently.

Talk about cameras! These fellas have camera lenses the size of giant telescopes!

I'm out there with my little handbag sized Panasonic Lumix, trying to take birdie pix, and failing.

That tiny speck in the corner is the Very Distant Red Rump Swallow. . Actually, I never saw it.

Hullo Bob!

Interesting about straightening photos.

I wonder can I straighten a pic on my phone? Must check. Probably not.

A few years back I took a series of curious photos on Brighton Marina, about fifty of them.

It was such an amazing evening, the clouds were all lit with sunset orange, and the buildings and neon signs looked like a space city.

I must have been in some kind of altered state, because the pics are seriously tilting. The horizon is kind of sliding into the lower left corner of the frame, with the sky following it.

I don't have them on file, only print outs. I didn't have a phone then.

Now I'd try to straighten them.

Would they be the same though? . They are forever wonky.

However, now I'm going to take a conscious tilting picture then try to straighten it.



That was an interesting posting wasn't it?

No???

Yes, I find alcohol usually manages to straighten my photos out...

Yes.



Here's the wedding photos before the reception. The church and surrounds are kind of tilting, that's odd.

Here are the photos after the reception. Ah that's good, nothing is tilting. This champagne is good for photo straightening.