My flat Sunday 1st August

The Rather Brutal Fly Killer

As potter is still working hard to support his family (how selfish!) I haven’t been on a proper photo trip for a while and thought I would do something else a bit in depth and proper photography like. I chose to have a macro day so put the Sigma 50mm Macro lens on, the one which doesn’t have an auto focus that works with the D40x. The Weather was a bit wild again so I roamed my flat, hunting for a subject. After stalking the cats and annoying them until they simply walked away every time I came near I thought to do my carnivorous plants, which I have 4 of (3 different species). Keeping the Aperture to 2.8 and 3.2 to give a very tight depth of field and a good shutter speed on ISO 100 or 200 I  got up close to the monster plants, being careful not to actually touch them with the lens as got a suspicion they would eat anything that got too close. They are really interesting and quite brutal plants up close, with leaves and stalks running red form their kills. Strange thing for a Veggie like me, maybe, but they keep the fly’s down and hence keep the spiders away! Above the plant in the bathroom is a small glass wind chime that my sister gave me a couple of years back which was spinning gently in the light. With a bit of struggle I managed to get a few shots of this too though it was hard to focus on something moving with such a small aperture especially with only manual focus, needless to say a few were out of focus! But the glass looked beautiful with the sunshine dancing over it.

Then I had the great idea of shooting my tattoo! fabulous! only problem being it is on my stomach (couldn’t do the one on my shoulder or upper arm as couldn’t look through view finder to focus as am not a contortionist!). After twisting and turning my body at odd angles (not good for the old dodgy shoulder) I managed  to find a way to work around my curves and that so I could see my tattoo through the lens so I could focus.  Really would of liked an auto focus for this one as am all sore now! I used window light to give it some highlight and tried to keep the ISO as low as I could without gaining too low a shutter speed as I was shaking a little under the strain, my poor stomach muscles. So with low F number, low to medium ISO and decent light to give a highish shutter speed I finally got some decent shots of my tattoo which I had never seen except upside down or in a mirror. Of course I had to turn it a full 180 on the computer to get it the right way up. It’s quite pretty! With a little photoshop magic to sharpen the images and turn some to monotone, which I have a liking for these days I got some lovely close up shots to make the everyday look interesting.

My Dragon