A trip to Hamilton Gardens

It was finally fine enough to venture outdoors with my camera today. I was only out for an hour maybe two with my 8 year old son. Both with cameras in hand, a budding photographer I have in him and I am encouraging him as much as possible. Its great though good family bonding for him and I, especially one on one.

I actually felt that I got some great shots today. Because of the summer festival we couldn't go into many sections of the Hamilton Gardens but where we went we made the most of it and enjoyed the time, listening to the insects and not being able to hear the traffic even though we could see it crossing the bridge.

I got asked today why I blog this, well I blog it for me. I blog it in the hope that it might help someone else who has the passion for photographs. It might help them to say "Hey if she can do it, so can I"

So heres todays pics, well my favourites anyway

Recant on playing with photos

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Today's work.....

Night shooting

First off I'm going to ramble on a bit so if you just want to see what I got up to move further down. Its been 14 years since I last did any serious photography and that was on a film camera. Now I have updated to a Canon 1000D and am getting back into it. This blog is just for me to post some of my pics, keep a diary so to speak on what I am learning (as I'm finding I actually do need to relearn a lot) and just follow my progress as I get back into my photography.

So one of the areas I have always had difficulty with is night-time photography. Last night I decided to go for a drive and just take in the sights of Hamilton at night and see what I could get. Some were not so great as I am still waiting for my zoom lens to arrive but some didn't turn out so bad.

First stop for me was The Temple, out at Templeview. Stunning building with a beautiful vibe. Yes I am a vibe person. My lovely driver, Nicole hadn't seen the temple before so was in awe of the magnificent building. Unfortunately our car didn't want to leave and stopped going while we were there but all in all an amazing experience while we were out there. No traffic noise, the sound of crickets and just a gentle breeze to cool the air. Such a beautiful, peaceful place to visit. So after a few missed attempts at photos, playing with settings trying to figure out the new camera and its little tweaks I got a few shots that I would call half decent.




We went around by the lake to try and get some shots but my baby lens wasn't up to the task and there was too much camera shake. We also tried one of the old churches but had the same problem, I couldn't zoom in enough and the camera shake when I was able to get a focus caused a blurred effect. Something I will need to work on. I think the lighting might have had a bit to do with it too, so my list of equipment to buy other than more lenses now includes a speed light and a tripod.

I decided after this I wanted to get some photos of the Rifraf statue that is at the South end of Victoria Street. It stands in recognition of Richard O'Brien from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We are big fans of this in our house hold and it holds a very special meaning.