WATER: Paul's first pass

I'll post more later this month, but here's a small taster from my back catalogue. No PhotoShop^TM.

Goslings

Nikon F80
Nikkor 28-200
Scanned from a negative, so no EXIF data

Spring is here. This springtime shot of a Canada goose and her brood of goslings was taken in May 2001. Say, "Aaah." Located at Crofton Pumping Station, near the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon canal, I remember being distinctly cold and damp. The overcast skies are why the water is that foreboding gumetal grey. There was no heating in the boat, nor running water.

Reflections of Doha

Nikon F80
Nikkor 28-200
Scanned from a negative, so no EXIF data

At the time, 2001, this was called the Doha Marriott Gulf Hotel. It's now simply the Marriott. I was on the roof of one building, and happened to spot the reflection of the rig support vessels moored nearby.

MOVEMENT: Paul's stuff

Despite vacationing being on holiday in the United States, I found time to take some photos on the subject of "movement". Curiously, all my previous month's submissions would have sufficed. But here are some new ones, edited for size and removal of those annoying dust bunnies.

Salem swing

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 40mm
1/30 sec F27

Maybe this should have been cropped to portrait. However, I left it landscape to retain the blurred, movement-streaked background. This is the best of about a dozen attempts to get the child's eyes in sharp focus. I nearly managed her hand. This sort of shot is intensely difficult to get right.

From a moving train

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 20mm
1/30 sec F22

Shot through the filty, scratched, graffiti-strewn window of a Boston tram, I was amazed that this one came out in any way acceptable. The blurred background of parked cars, plus interference patterns between railway sleepers and fencing all serve to accentuate movement.

Night train

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 48mm
1/4 sec F6.7

Not actually shot at night, but in a tube station. Other attempts to take photos with even longer exposures were thwarted by the Tripod Police. I was leaning against one of the columns and a Metro employee seemed to think that I was trying to shoot passengers with some (unspecified) firearm.

The Hare and the Tortoise

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 62mm
1/500 sec F6.7

Bronze statues in Boston, Massachusetts don't actually move very much. The fable in which they appear revolves around the subject of movement, so it counts. Image cropped in Photoshop^(TM) and an annoying distraction has been clumsily cloned out of the image.

Boston lights

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 32mm
1/1000 sec F6.7

The green traffic light is for "Go", hence movement. I tried to clone out the annoying power cable but it proved too difficult for me. The repetitive pattern of the building's windows was too hard for me to align accurately enough to fool the average bear. Fail.

Moving bridge

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 22mm
1/250 sec F16

The bridge at Mystic, Connecticut opens at twenty minutes to every hour, at which time there is a procession of boats up and down the river.

We're on a road to nowhere...

Nikon D70S
Nikkor 18-200 at 18mm
1/750 sec F3.5

I wanted everything in focus, but in a moving vehicle it wasn't likely to happen. The large discrepancy between bright outdoors and dark car interior has almost lost interior detail. I used a little Photoshop^(TM) to burn in the highlights on the dashboard. In retrospect I could have improved depth of field by closing the aperture, relying on the lens' vibration reduction to deal with camera shake, and setting the 'film speed' to automatic to allow a moderate shutter speed.