Unexpected countryside in the city #CountryKids
Sometimes you dont need to be hitting the country side to be enjoying a bit of the outside. Often, because we live in a city there can be some very unexpected places where you can connect with the outdoors!
I had to take one of my girls into the city for a piano exam the other week and as i was concerned that we had to park and get there we set off early and arrived about half an hour before her slot for her exam. Half and hour wait in the waiting room for a piano exam with two wriggly, lively and not asleep as planned, toddlers was not going to happen.
So we wondered further down the road to The Bluecoat chambers, which is an incredible building in the city, which i believe was an old school and is now home to uber trendy craft shops and a museum. We wondered in and used the ‘facilities’ and then went for a nose around their sensory garden area where they have some sweet little exhibits made by local school kids and habitats for insects. Flower beds and cute little baby saplings, no doubt planted to be the dominating great city trees of the future.
Was lovely to see this little garden in the city. It was a welcome distraction and took enough time that my stay in the waiting room with the little ones went quickly and without too much hassle.
She aced her exam as well!!
Pick me up… #flowertherapy
It doesn’t matter how many times you fall down, it matters how many times you get back up.
— autor nieznany
The trick to backlighting your subject.
Is that an angel before me?
or is it just some very clever back lighting?
I was musing on this, this evening. Possibly because there is still snow on the ground here…*eye roll* and i so often associate this sort of light with those lovely warm evenings in the summer. *sigh*
I miss the sun…
Anyway I really love this sort of light but it can turn out really really naff. It is a really beautiful but it can be difficult to use.
Ever managed it? Taken a shot of your kid with their back to the sun and their hair lights up like a halo? Its lovely right? ah the beauty of backlighting.
and it doesn’t need to be on kids or people!….
But you have to be careful. Shooting into the sun can throw your camera a curve ball from the point of view of what it ‘sees’ as the light and you camera is likely to meter for the sun and then you subject is going to be dark..really dark.
So here are a few tips for getting that sweet backlighting.
1. Try to shoot either early morning or later afternoon/evening. This is why i love the summer evenings as you can be out in the warm in the gorgeous golden light.
2. When shooting try and meter from your subject. On a dslr you could try spot metering, so that you are telling the camera the exact spot you want it to meter for the light and not asking it to take a broad reading of the light. You may still end up with your subject having a dark face. In this situation you might want to bring a reflector into the face of your subject and you don’t need anything posh to do that you can use a bit of white card or paper. You just need to reflect some light into the face to brighten it up a bit. You can use your exposure compensation also to make sure that you are not going to end up with a dark subject.
3. If possible try and have a darker background behind your subject, as you can see in the first shot, my son is in front of a darker, green backdrop of a local park. He is therefore separated by the sun on his head from the background. If the background was white then there would be no difference between his head and the background if that makes sense.
4 . You may end up with a bit of your background blown out a bit…with this sort of lighting though it is actually quite nice and like the point before as long as you are not loosing your subject into the background, this is a particular thing to take care with fair haired kids.
5.If you don’t want sun flare in the image put your subject in front of something that blocks it off, you will still get the lovely glow of the sun in the image.
So when we next actually get some sun. Fancy going out an giving it a try?
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when you get a curve ball #CountryKids
and no im not talking about ball games! Last week we had one of those ‘pass the bug’ weeks as in tummy bugs and it was not much fun to be honest. On tuesday morning I got home from work, having done a 12 hour night shift to be greeted by my son who had spent large amounts of the night on the loo.
Yes I feel sorry for him, honestly. I do. But that is a curve ball for our childcare arrangements and when i usually am crawling into bed having dropped kids off here and there..i now had the pleasure of a 10 year old vomity kid instead. A long day of awake stretches ahead of me. *sigh*
I dropped the little girls off at school and having my son with me and the dog, who always leaps into the car these days. We stopped at a lovely little wooded area that is close to the kid’s school. It is largely unused except by dog walkers, a couple of stunt bmx-ers who have made a ramp and the odd time you might run into a film crew as it is quite close to a studio.
We might have made a funny sight that morning. A scraggy little dog, a ten year old who was looking a bit green and a mama in scrubs and boots shuffling along in a sleep starved manner!
Was a beautiful morning, cold but sunny and it couldn’t fail to lift my sprits a bit. Nice for the dog to have a run and for me to hang out with my boy for a bit!
Dark panda eyes bought to you this week by the NHS 🙂
oh and just in case folks are thinking im busting out the big camera guns for a post night shift walk round the woods. These are all iphone pics lovelies. 🙂
“the best camera is the one you have with you” Chase Jarvis
