Secret Shutter » Karyn

Jun 20

by Karyn in Boring to Beautiful 0 comments tags: beautiful, boring, creative, excellent, new, photography

How to Make the Most of an Airshow with only a 200mm Kit Lens

Airshow photography at best can be quite a challenging pursuit. Sadly, in the UK since the Shoreham airshow disaster, it seems that the aeroplanes are flying much further away from the crowds. This makes a lot of sense for safety reasons. However as a budding airshow photographer, this also makes it harder to capture those all impressive shots. So how is it possible to walk away with some great looking images with only minimal kit? Below are some ideas to help out. 1). The first thing to do is accept the advantages and the limitations of the equipment that you are using. A 200mm lens is possibly the least requirement for an airshow. This is not to say it is impossible to get reasonably creative shots from an iPhone or similar camera phone. The following photograph shows a 200mm Nikon kit lens (bottom of image) flanked by the type of lens (a Sigma 150mm-500mm) that would have been useful to take on an airshow shoot. The Sigma 150mm-500mm is a great lens for airshow photography, but one thing that makes the 200mm lens ideal is its size and weight. Having a camera lens that is light allows for […]

Jun 17

by Karyn in Commissions 0 comments tags: art, beautiful, creativity, stained glass, wood

Beautiful Obelisks by Maya King

One of the great things about being a commercial photographer is that you get to work with some really creative artists. Over the last few weeks I have been really privileged to work with the highly talented Maya King. Maya not only makes beautiful stained glass obelisks, she is also a highly skilled silversmith responsible for the beautiful jewellery featured in our jewellery gallery. One of the greatest challenges in photographing work of this nature is ensuring the correct exposure. For example if you want to photograph wood and make it look beautiful there is a good chance that the beautiful radiance of the glass may be lost. Below is an excellent example of how the beauty of the wood is brought out in the image, but the radiance of the stained glass has been sacrificed. Here this was deliberate in this particular shot, because the item was lit from the front in order to make the coloured shadow at the back. When stained glass is lit from behind its beauty becomes apparent, but as can be seen from the image below, some of the detail of the wood has been lost. Again in this shot the lighting was deliberate […]

Jun 02

by Karyn in Boring to Beautiful 0 comments tags: Aperture priority, photography, Timelapse

A Voyage into Timelapse

Undoubtedly one of the most powerful techniques in Photography is timelapse. It allows the viewer to watch little snapshots in time condensed down from much longer footage. With extreme timelapse it is possible to capture tiny buds opening in the blink of an eye, instead of having to observe them for days on end. It has often been said that a timelapse of the sun moving from night to day is the ‘holy grail’ of photography because of the technical amount of knowledge and skill required to capture it. For an inexperienced photographer it is a great way of getting to know your camera settings and understanding how light changing can dramatically effect the exposure of a photograph. Below is one of my first timelapses. It was shot using Aperture priority and I kept my ISO very low at 100. My white balance was set to cloudy so that the tones were rendered warmer in the picture and I made sure that I used a tripod. I set my timings so that the camera fired a shot every 20 seconds. Then I sat down and relaxed. The resulting images were then imported into iMovie in order to string the individual […]

Dec 27

by Karyn in Boring to Beautiful 0 comments tags: beautiful, boring, creativity, how to

From Boring to Beautiful

Here are some photographs to show that with the right lenses and subtle lighting even the most mundane household objects can be made into interesting works of art. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”5″ gal_title=”Product photography”]

Dec 27

by Karyn in Nature 1 comments tags: Beauty, crop sensor, nature, photography

The Beauty of Nature

When photographing wildlife and flowers, cameras that have crop sensors are very useful as they tend to magnify the subject. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”6″ gal_title=”The Beauty of Nature”]

Dec 27

by Karyn in Commissions, News 0 comments tags: bracelet, commission, jewellery, necklace, silver

Jewellery Commission

These are images of our first jewellery commission. We had the privilege of photographing some really beautiful handmade silver pieces. They lend themselves to natural lighting which helped to enhance the beauty of silver. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”3″ gal_title=”Jewellery Commission”]