Photography by Sharon Curran

As a member of Flickr I spend quite a lot of time looking at pictures that others have posted and am quite often in awe of some of the amazing pictures posted by photographers on there.

I find myself drawn to some images and wishing I could achieve those results but am sometimes limited by my equipment. For instance I love macro pictures – close ups of things such as flowers, insects and everyday items which look totally different when shot using a dedicted macro lens. Unfortunately I don’t own a macro lens although I do have one down on my ever increasing wants list! However recently I discovered there are cheaper ways of achieving similar results to a macro lens in the way of macro filters.

These filters which are sold singularly or in a pack of four in varying strengths screw on to the front of any ordinairy lens quite simply and are easy to attach and remove. Ok so they aren’t as effective as a dedicated macro lens but for those who are on a budget who may wish to experiment with close up pictures they are a good starting point.

My husband brought me a set of four macro filters for my birthday and I admit when I tried them to start off with I found them difficult to use and they got relegated to the back of the cupboard. However this months assignment for the DSLR Skills Course I am doing was centred around macro shots and they showed you how to use the filters so I thought I’d give them another try.

The kit contains four filters in strengths 1, 2, 4 and 10 magnification. The 10 is the strongest and gives the greatest amount of magnification this is the one that I have used in most of the pictures I took. When you’ve screwed the filter onto the front of the lens you’ll find it completely distorts everything when you look through the viewfinder – this is what threw me the first time I tried to use them.

When using macro your depth of field is greatly reduced so it can be difficult to get the background looking correct too much blur and it looks silly too little and it doesn’t show the macro to it’s best. I just kept playing around and taking shots with different levels of depth of field to see which ones I liked the most afterwards – this is usually the best way to experiment with new equipment.

This shot is of a pink flowering hedgerow, I liked the bright colour of the flowers and thought it would make a nice shot. As you can see using the 10x filter does create quite a heavy amount of blur around the edges of the picture (this is the depth of field) I think it works ok in this image but something is slightly lacking for me.

I carried on walking, keeping my eyes peeled for some interesting looking flowers or shrubs. After a while I came accross another flowering hedgerow which had some shoots which were an unusual shape so I thought I’d try getting a shot of those.

I really liked this shrub because the shoots were a really interesting shape which worked really well with the macro filters. Unfortunately the background in this picture is a little too busy for me with the stem of the shrub which looks a little distracting. The shoot was so close to the branch that I couldn’t easily get a photograph without it looking quite noticeable in the background – shame as this such a brilliant plant to photograph.

Next up I thought I’d try a dandelion shot. These are really popular subjects and I wanted to try something different to the usual full dandelion that most people tend to photograph. I looked around and spotted a half blown dandelion so got down on the ground and started composing my shot – this is whe I really found out what the macro filters are capable of!

I was rather impressed with the above image as it really shows the detail on the head of the dandelion and on each little seed head.

Macro shots work well with flowers and that is what I would use such a lens for if I had one. I love a nice bunch of flowers and they look so different in close up. I thought I’d have a go using the filters on this flower which was almost like a daisy but with purple petals – no idea what kind of flower this was but it made a nice subject.

It was a very bright sunny day and this has caused some shadows on the petals. I’m not sure if they are a little distracting – ideally I would’ve liked to have used a reflector to eliminate them but it was a rather off the cuff trip out with the camera and unfortunately I didn’t have my full kit with me.

In the end I decided to submit the following shot for my homework assignment this month. I spotted some pinecones underneath a massive tree and wondered if they would work in a macro shot – most people have entered flower shots for their homework piece and the consensus on Flickr was that this shot stood out as it is an unusual subject.

So as you can see the macro filters do work to a certain extent, ok they aren’t anywhere near as good as a dedicated macro lens but for those on a budget they are a more affordable option at around £10 – £20 for a set of four on Ebay – much more wallet friendly if you want to experiment with close up shots but don’t want to pay out for a seperate lens.

You may find that once you get them that macro isn’t for you or you will find that you slowly become engrossed in the weird and wonderful world of close up photography and then feel that a dedicated lens may be a good investment for your kit. I’m not going to say which bracket I fall in to but lets just say I had better start saving up!

This coming months module for the DSLR Course is ‘Portraiture’ so I am looking forward to getting stuck in and trying my hand at some shots. I do like taking portraits so hopefully I will enjoy this and get some good photos as a result.

Many thanks for reading. Don’t forget you can also follow my photography through my Flickr account and on Facebook

All comments and feedback appreciated.

Spring has finally sprung and we have seen lots of really lovely warm sunny days over the past month or so. This is my favourite time of year – the brighter mornings and evenings, the flowers all starting to bloom and best of all warmer weather and hopefully less rain. This is also a great time to get out with the camera due to the extended daylight hours plus there are plenty of photo opportunities when it comes to the springtime flower displays.

Unfortunately I missed the daffodils this year but I was determined after seeing some photos of the bluebells in bloom last year that I would try and make sure I got some nice shots of them. I had already researched some of the best places that they grow locally, it was just timing my visit right so that the flowers were out and catching them before they close as they don’t remain open for very long – this would depend on the weather. After a rather rainy Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday morning the sun decided to poke its head out for a while so my husband and I quickly grabbed our cameras and headed off on a mission.

We headed up to a local area called Linford Woods which is has a number of trails and things to explore. The wood originally covered approximate 100 acres but due to development and the building of local housing has now been broken down into smaller areas of woodland popular with locals and visitors to Milton Keynes.

We parked up in a small car park and started walking along one of the many pathways to try and find a nice opening with lots of bluebells. There were plenty growing along the edges of the pathways in small clusters but I was looking for something a bit bigger.

You may recall the song “Teddy Bears Picnic” which starts off with the line “If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise” I always think of that song when we go here because whilst walking you will encounter some of the weird and wonderful sculptures among the woodland.

These sculptures are made out of tree stumps and branches which have fallen from the trees and have been hand carved into various shapes and styles.

Quite often the sculptures can be found in places you wouldn’t necessarily see straight away like up in an actual tree or off the beaten track in small pathways which go behind the trees and then back onto the main bridleway.

Every time we come to the woods we find different carvings. The last time we came we even found one of Rupert the Bear which was really good. This time we found snakes heads carved into the end of felled branches and the gorilla, Buddha and owl you see in the images above.

After walking for a while we came across a really nice area where there was the perfect spot for some photographs. With a nice clearing in the trees and a huge amount of flowers covering the ground – this would do nicely.

I decided to climb right down onto ground level in an attempt to get a good angle. After a few days of rain the ground was a little boggy but I didn’t let this stop me. I was determined and just waded through the mud to get the shot I wanted.

A little further on there was another nice area but we were separated from it by a water filled ditch. Not one to be deterred my husband grabbed a quite lengthy thick log and placed it over the ditch – it was a bit hair raising walking along it to get across the ditch as it was covered in moss and quite damp and slippy from the rain but we managed it and I was glad I did as I managed to get my favourite shot of the day.

The flowers literally covered the ground as far as the eye could see, a glorious blue carpet stretching across the woodland floor teamed with the fragrant aroma of the bluebells in the air it was a magical sight. This is definitely one of the reasons I love spring so much.

After taking a few shots we precariously made our way back across the log, amazingly I didn’t fall in the ditch quite a feat for someone as clumsy as me! By this time the sun was definitely being shrouded by darker clouds and we decided to head back to the car and home for a nice cup of tea.

If you ever visit this area I would recommend a trip to these woods. A lot of people just think of Milton Keynes as a concrete town, full of roundabouts when in actual fact there are lots of really lovely places like this where you can walk and explore. You just need to know they are there to appreciate them.

I’m hoping now the days are longer I will be able to venture out with the camera a bit more. I have lots of very exciting plans over the summer at which I should get some fantastic photographic opportunities starting with the wedding of two good friends this coming Saturday. Although I am bridesmaid I will still be trying to take some photos during the day to mark the occasion – let’s hope the sun decides to grace us with its presence.

Thank you all for reading and subscribing to my blog it is very much appreciated. There should be plenty of updates coming over the summer as I have a very busy diary. I also have a couple of things bubbling away in the background which I am quite excited about so hopefully I will be able to report back on those soon.

All comments welcomed as always. Thanks for reading!

Have had a lot of stuff going on over the past few weeks but I realised I hadn’t updated my blog for quite a while so I thought it was about time I picked up my camera and headed out to get some shots. Trying to find a subject was proving to be difficult though what with the dark nights and busy weekends but I was given the perfect reason a few weeks ago.

As we entered 2010 along with it came some of the coldest weather the UK has seen in a number of years and the first snowfall of the new decade. When I awoke last Wednesday and I looked out of the window I was greeted with snow covering our street, just like a lot of the country.

Luckily for me my workplace was closed and I ended up with a day off. Instead of curling back up in my nice warm bed I decided to don my polka dot willies, gloves, hat and scarf and head off in search of some photographic opportunities.

One of my favourite places in Milton Keynes is the Peace Pagoda and I have been wanting to get some pictures of it in the snow for a while now so that was where I headed. The roads had not been gritted and were pretty atrocious but I just took it nice and slowly – after all there was no rush snow like this was not going to melt in the 15 minutes it would take me to drive there.

I got there in one piece and parked up the car, as I left it parked solitary in the vast snow covered car park I hoped I would be able to get it back out but hey I’d deal with that when I left! Off I walked along the deserted pathway usually full of people walking their dogs stopping occasionally to take a picture.

The snow was light and fluffy just like icing sugar, perfect fresh snow which had been sprinkled overnight from above. There had only been a few people walking along here as their footprints stood out imprinted into the white blanket below me. You could clearly see the pathways which had been more popular with pedestrians…..

I carried on walking and carefully climbed the steps, popular with photographers but hardly recognisable covered in snow apart from the handrail running up the middle. When I reached the top I looked and the trees created a lovely frame to the footsteps running up the middle of the snow covered ground.

As I reached the usually green grassy hill the I was greeted with the crispest blanket of snow covering the whole whole area. It looked almost magical. There wasn’t a soul in sight something I have never seen before as this area is usually bustling with people – joggers having their daily run, people walking their dogs, couples out for a stroll…..never have I seen it totally empty, just me and my camera.

This is where you find the Peace Pagoda. Officially opened in September 1980 the Peace Pagoda is a central part of the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji Order in the UK. This is where Buddhist monks hold ceremonies to mark specific occasions such as memorials for the Hiroshima victims among others.

Unfortunately the sky was totally white, obviously more snow waiting to fall held within it so I didn’t get the picture I was hoping to achieve but the Pagoda looked so beautiful I couldn’t resist.  Typically later on that day the skies cleared into the most beautiful blue colour which was the exact picture I wanted to get.

As much as I love snow pictures they can look a little samey so I’m not going to post a lot of shots as one looks very much like another but one thing that did strike me is how a sprinkling of snow can make something that would ordinarily look pretty boring look totally different like the branch of a fir tree.

So simple but yet for some reason I really like this picture.

Now the snow is starting to melt and it doesn’t look anywhere near as beautiful as it did a week ago. I think that most people are starting to get rather fed up with it now and will be glad to see the back of it. Unfortunately for some reason the UK really doesn’t seem to cope well with snow even though it seems to be a more regular occurrence, we could definitely do with some lessons with some of the countries who are seasoned pros at dealing with it.

Anyway after my expedition out in the snow I’ve realised how much I’ve missed picking up my camera, even though it was freezing cold it was nice to get some nice pictures before all the snow got trodden into slush. Afterwards I went home and enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee………while my husband decided to top up his tan in the back garden…….

This blog is late going up as I’ve been so busy – I promise to make sure I update my blog more regularly from now on!

With that I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read, subscribed and commented on my blog in 2009 your support is very much appreciated. I’d like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year and that I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2010.

I haven’t written anything in my blog in a for while so I thought I’d take some time to keep everyone updated with what I’ve been up to.

The first piece of news is that I have finally pulled my finger out and enrolled on an evening photography course. For the past couple of years I’ve looked at the brochure for the local Adult Continuing Education department and thought about doing one of the photography courses but instead of just going for it I’ve procrastinated about it for so long that I’ve missed the enrolment date, then six months later I just do exactly the same thing. This time around I was determined not to miss the boat and so I got myself into gear and actually enrolled. The course runs one evening a week for 6 weeks and covers quite a few different topics including the history of photography, camera modes, aperatures, shutter speeds, lighting, night time photography, flash photography, faces, places and how to mount your pictures for showing at exhibitions etc. The course doesn’t start until 3rd November so it’s still a few weeks away yet but I’m really looking forward to it.

I decided that I wanted to get out and about with my camera so I took a couple of trips up to a local lake to take a few pictures. It was early evening and the sun was setting behind a pub which sits on the side of the lake, the pub was designed to look like a windmill when it was built in 1992 using real parts from Holland and it is a great setting for photographs. Having never been up to this particular lake before I took a little walk round to try and find the best spot, stopping off every now and then to try a few shots before moving further round.

The lake is quite large and has lots of different areas where you can take photographs, it’s a nice little walk as well and is popular with joggers and people walking their dogs. I wish the nights wern’t drawing in as it really nice to go walking round some of the lakes in Milton Keynes after work in the early evening sunshine – unfortunately there is less and less of that every day now!

I find it very frsutrating that when you tell someone that you come from Milton Keynes you usually get the same response….”it’s like a concrete jungle there, it’s got no soul” I always get a little but annoyed at people when they say stuff like that because they probably haven’t seen all the beautiful lakes and areas we have which are a far cry away from the shopping centre that most people remember when they think of the town. We have so many lovely lakes and country parks where you can take a picnic and just watch the world go by and whenever we have friends visiting for the weekend we try and take them to at least one of them. Places like Caldecotte lake……

I love going out for stroll and taking in all these beautiful places that are right on our doorstep, they give plenty of fantastic opportunities for photographs too which obviously gives me even more reason to visit them.

I think my favourite shot from my recent trip up to the lake was this shot below, I just like the silhouette against the sunset and the way the sunset is coming through the windows in the body of the windmill so they look like lights.

Even though I love my SLR and have been constantly impressed by the difference in quality of the pictures it takes in comparison to my little compact digital camera I still use my point and shoot occasionally; mainly because it is smaller, lighter and easier to carry than my SLR but in some situations it actually takes better pictures. One of these situations is when shooting in Macro mode.

Even though my SLR has a macro mode the shots don’t always come out that well. I think that’s because to get the best results from an SLR you sometimes need to be prepared to invest in extra lenses as they do a lot of the work. I would love to have a macro lens but at the moment funds just don’t stretch to one however if I happen to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow it would be one of the first things on my list of wants. I love looking at Macro shots especially of things like flowers, and even though they make my skin crawl some of the insect shots taken with a dedicated macro lens I’ve seen are amazing!

The macro on my little point and shoot works quite well and sometimes the result I get with that is better than if I were to try the same shot with my SLR. An example would be when I was messing around last weekend – I was going out and decided to try and take some macro self portrait shots of my eye with my compact camera. I worked out that if placed a mirror behind the camera I could check whether I’d got my eye in the correct position using the preview screen. This gave an extra little detail to the picture….

If you look at this shot above you can just about see a reflection of me taking the picture in the centre of my pupil which I thought was pretty cool.  I wish I could’ve managed to get the very tips of the lashes in but to get a good close up of the eye was my aim which I think I managed.

They say that your eyes are the window to your soul…..well in that case I definitely was destined to get into photography looking at that picture!

Anyway thats enough from me for today I think.  As always many thanks to all of your for reading and subscriving to my blog. If you have enjoyed it please leave me a comment – they are always appreciated.