Tag Archives: London

Seven days of nature photography: Day Five

When I think of ‘nature photography’, I tend to think of wildlife on a big scale – photos from an african safari or pictures of birds taken by people with super long lenses. Looking through my photos to pick seven, I don’t have many of those. I’m a happy amateur who has standard lenses and doesn’t see much big, rare wildlife (although I will end with Ethiopian wildlife).

But nature is everywhere.  Weeds grow in the cracks of concrete paving slabs, birds twitter in the street and cats prowl – everywhere, toomuchwhere!

I think it’s a minor miracle that even in an urban space, we still see bees. This photo was taken in the rooftop garden of the Queen Elizabeth Hall of London’s South Bank. I was so chuffed that I managed to get it in focus (ish!) with it’s tongue in the flower.

Bee

Best photos of 2013: bird’s eye view

I enjoyed snapping this picture in London, solely because I immediately saw the pun. Sadly the pigeon was blinking and my wise friend, Moth, said afterwards that in that kind of situation, it’s worth shooting loads in a row, as it’s really hard on the camera screen to know whether you’ve got all the details.

I still like it but I do have a sense of regret for not rattling off a few.

© Carole Scott 2013
© Carole Scott 2013

By Carole Scott

 

Street photography: editing a chef

I have signed up to a great street photography community. I haven’t had a chance to take any new photos in the past couple of days (a woman has to put her nose to the grindstone, don’t ya know), so I have been revisiting older photos.

I have always loved this early one in my street photography ventures. I was shy of taking people’s photos but plucked up the courage to motion my camera at this chef taking a break, next to the back entrance of Arlington Arcade in London. I love the easy smile he gave me.

This was taken long before I had a good camera and photoshop, so I had a little play to see how I could improve it. I am so pleased with the results. I selected him and adjusted the lighting, contrast and sharpness on him in a new layer. Then, in a duplicate layer I reversed the selection and darkened the background as well as reducing the saturation. Finally I created a third layer and used a mixture of the clone stamp, spot healing and copying to get rid of the steel joist distracting the eye just behind his head.

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By Carole Scott

Experiments in Photoshop: street smoker

I was in London at the weekend, to go to the excellent play, Peter and Alice. I didn’t get much time for photos before meeting my friend and I was disappointed by what I did snap. To make up for the lack of good photographs, I decided to have a truly creative play with one that I did take.

I won’t claim that the end result is a great photo but it was a good foundation from which to play.

It’s a ‘spot the difference’ for amateur photographers and burgeoning Photoshop Elements editors out there.

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South Bank Skateboarders

Skateboarders and more at London’s South Bank….


By Carole Scott