Bluebell Wood

For the last couple of weeks I have been visiting Bluebell Wood on a regular basis. I have been waiting for the flowers to bloom. On Sunday my trip was not in vain. Everywhere you looked were Bluebells! The lighting and views were absolutely perfect! I used this opportunity to shoot various shots of the wood with the Bluebells in bloom, using my Canon EOS1 DS Mark3 with a Canon zoom 24-70 2.8L and my amazing Canon 85 1.2L Mark2.

Forgotten accessories

A few years ago, while we were still shooting with film cameras, we were using accessories such as the lightmeter/flashmeter or filters that we do not often use with a digital camera. This is because at the time, we could not see the instant result of the pictures like we can now and it was safer to use the lightmeter/flashmeter rather than wait for the film to be developed which is why it was so important to have the correct exposure. Nowdays, with the instant results of a digital camera, we can use trial and error to find the correct exposure or composition.








Yesterday, I shot pictures of a young boy, Adam. I wanted an action shot with the sun in the frame. I used my flash off camera in manual mode and asked him to scooter down the hill. After a few attempts, I realised I needed my Minolta V as I had to have the correct exposure before I started to take pictures of Adam. Children become tired very quickly and it can be difficult to take repeated shots to capture that “perfect” picture. Because of this, I still find that the lightmeter/flashmeter are important accessories to keep in the bag.

A pleasure ride through West Wycombe Park

This morning, in West Wycombe Park, I photographed a pleasure ride which was organised by the British Connemara Pony Society.












The whole ride was about 10 miles long through beautiful countryside. I chose my position at the river crossing so when some of the riders crossed really fast the splashing water provided some interesting background footage.

Fast mountain bike

A mountain biker wanted me to take pictures of him. I wanted the shots to be dynamic and make it look like the rider was biking at speed. For this reason I took the shots while it was cloudy and used a very slow speed setting. I set my camera Canon EOS 1 DS Mark3 and a zoom Canon 27-70 2.8L at 50/100 ISO. To freeze the rider I used a flash synchro at the second curtain and to make the backround blurred, I used a speed of about 1/20s or 1/30s, aperture F8 and manual focus.

The sky became darker so I under exposed my camera to make the shot look more dramatic. I put my flash on a tripod to my left and remotely triggered this using the pocket wizard Plus II and this picture is the result.

Team Chase

On Sunday I took pictures of team chasing events at Kingsclere. It's considered to be a " grown up " competitive sport which is similar to hunter trials or cross country. The difference is that there are a team of 3 or 4 riders and at least 3 have to finish together. This was new to me but I soon understood the rules after I had watched the first team! So, I wanted to take pictures of one jump and some of the team riding together as you can see. I set-up one camera, a Canon EOS1 D mark 3 with 85mm 1.2L on a manfrotto tripod and used a Pocket Wizard Plus II to remotely control the trigger. I then had to find another view to take photographs of the team riding together using my second camera, a Canon EOS 1 DS Mark3 with a zoom 70-200 2.8L IS.