Tag Archives: colour rendition

Attempts at Photography

15 Replies

A few days ago I did about 160 words then couldn’t get the next paragraph going. It kept petering out, or wandering off the point. I tried half a dozen times but eventually gave up.

It’s time to grasp myself firmly by the scruff of the metaphorical neck and give myself a good talking to. That sort of nonsense leads to writer’s block, and, as we all know that’s a non-existent condition, it cannot be allowed to take root.

It’s bad enough that I turned out to be a poet rather than a writer of lucrative thrillers, so I really can’t give in to imaginary conditions as well. If I have to be a poet I will at least try to be an industrious one.

Rear View Mirror Shot 1

Rear View Mirror Shot 2

Tonight, the sky was pink and cloudy when we left the shop so I unloaded my camera from my bag and took a couple of shots. The camera filtered most of the colour from the sky and as soon as I tried to take photos people appeared and got in my way. This was to be a theme of my picture taking for the rest of the evening. I tried with the sunset filter on, but that takes so long that everything was blurred. I missed some great moon shots to. Eventually I tried some sunset shots of teasel as the neighbours all decided to move their cars and shine lights everywhere.

The accompanying photos are a selection I took on the way home, including light pollution from cars, “abstract” shots and shots taken in my door mirror (whilst stopped in traffic, not whilst moving).

 

Some Thoughts on Coins and Photography

9 Replies

Today I carried on photographing and loading nineteenth century Spanish coins. They aren’t mu favourite things and some, the ones with the portraits of Alfonso XIII as a baby, are decidedly creepy.

King Alfonso XIII of Spain -looks spooky to me

A problem, became apparent, apart from the demonic aspects of the portraits, the colours had gone haywire. As I progressed with the loading the colour of the coins, which had ben vaguely silver or bluish, started turning brown. This happens with dirty silver coins, It’s not just me, it happens to other people if you look at eBay. There’s a mismatch between the phone (or camera) and the light. Silver things become yellow or brown, gold things become silver and everyone becomes confused. This is particularly true of customers who, as we have seen again recently, never bother to read the details in the listing.

King Amadeo I again – definite brown tone

King Amadeo I of Spain, in his correct colours

I altered the white balance, I altered the lighting setting, I tried landscape (to enhance the greens and blues), I even tried introducing filters. The only thing that worked was taking photos in the front of the shop, which has some natural daylight, but the lighting was weak and it was quite tricky taking hand held photos.

Who would have thought that photographing a coin could be so difficult? Well, 27 coins, with three views of each actually. All done twice. Tonight I will drift off to sleep thinking of coins.

Have a look at some of the pictures to see what I mean. I dream of a small space with proper lighting and equipment. What I get is a small space with poor lighting and no equipment. Considering the poor facilities it’s amazing what we do, particularly as the shop camera, though a better camera for rendering colour, is in all other ways even worse than mine.

There was a short break between monarchs in 1868-71. And 1873-4. And 1931 – 75. Being King of Spain wasn’t necessarily a long-term career.