Brian Jones Photography

Kumadaras Drag Racing (again)

Brian Jones — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:55:15 +0000

Well after a long old winter that I have continually moaned about summer has arrived here in Rural Hungary and I have a lot of images to write blogs about but I will start off the season of blogging with some images from our trip to the annual May 1st Drag Racing event at our local communist era air base!

Location: Kunmadaras

The small town of Kunmadaras has somewhat of an interesting past, up until 1991 it was home to one of the largest Soviet Fighter and Bomber bases outside of the USSR, not a great deal is known about what went on there but 3 times every year it hosts a variety of drag racing festivals. The rest of the year it is a storage base for agricultural equipment although the runway does get used by local crop sprayers!

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300 VC USD @238mm, f10, 1/160th, ISO 200

To be perfectly honest the day started as being a bit of a disaster, the airbase is only about 15km-20km away from home and we had planned to “pootle” along on our mopeds and enjoy the day whilst taking an obscene number of pictures! All of which would have been fine had my moped decided to start, after an hour messing about with no joy I gave in and decided to cycle, a 30-40km round trip in temperatures of 30°C was certainly not what I had planned, but it did not put a massive dampener on the day although I did have to buy a fresh t-shirt when I arrived!

Running Order

This years May 1st “benzin” fuel extravaganza was limited to just a single day which is unusual as there are usually night shows and gigs happening after the day of racing is complete, but the day was filled with a great mix of street racing (turn up sign a waiver and off you go), a jet car show, stunt riding competition and a rather unorthodox helicopter fly by every 20 minutes or so! As you can see below the chap with the self proclaimed “hungaro-copter” was certainly not shy about giving the crowds a good close up look of his “Meccano” wonder machine The attendance was much larger than the event we attended last August, which meant hideously long queues at the beer tent (in which I could now indulge due to the fact that my moped was not playing ball).

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300 VC USD @100mm, f10, 1/160th, ISO 200

New Toys

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300 VC USD @300mm, f5.6, 1/400th, ISO 200

Not only does the arrival of May 1st indicate a rapidly improving summer but also gave me an opportunity to put my “new” Tamron 70-300mm VC USD lens through its paces! A relentlessly grey and dull winter has meant that it has seen little use since I bought it in March but I am still impressed, my long lens technique and certainly my panning technique needs improving the the lens held up really well and if anything I am even more impressed now than I was on my first impressions. The focus was sharp and snappy and it tracked the movement particularly well, I have not shot with a long lens for over a year and my technique was not that great but the VC (Tamrons version of Image Stabilisation) worked really well automatically detecting a panning movement and applying stabilisation in only one axis. In fact I am looking forward to returning for the June event and getting a heap load more practice in before then, although I am not sure where I am going to find any fast moving vehicles to practice on

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300mm VC USD @ 168mm, 1/200th, f11 ISO 400

Drag Bikes

The highlight of these events for me is without question the drag bikes, incredibly finely tuned machines that are useless for doing anything other than screaming down the quarter mile at speeds approaching 300km/h. They are so useless in fact that they tend to be towed back from the completion of the race by a moped which I find more than a little amusing, the winner from what I understand was the chap in the photograph below covering the quarter mile in a shade less than 7.5 seconds hitting a maximum speed of almost 300km/h!

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300 VC USD @ 249mm, 1/160th, F10, ISO200

Jet Car Show!

It would be re-miss of me not to mention the jet car show that we were promised, I have to say I was a little underwhelmed, it was certainly more of a physical experience than seeing a car with a jet engine strapped to it scream away from the starting line. It makes perfect sense given how close people were to the track that the car did not do a full run but it really left me wanting more but the fire up was tremendous, after that though we all just got covered in smoke!

Canon 50D, Tamron 70-300 VC USD @ 209mm, 1/250th, f10 , ISO 200

And Finally!

I have spent a little time over winter fooling around with video and having a slightly more dynamic way of sharing my pictures as well as playing a little with time lapse photography. I’m sure that there will be much more stuff like this to come in the future but for now here is a snippet of the day

Chasing Honey Bees!

Brian Jones — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:23:47 +0000

After a winter that has been incredibly uneventful and really rather dull it is a fantastic to see our damson trees burst in to full blossom this week. It is a magical time of year and the change is incredibly dramatic and quite heartening, for the last 5 months the trees in our garden have been a stark reminder that winter in rural Hungary is a barren and typically inhospitable time. However the return of life in the garden means that good times are ahead and this week marks my return outdoors with my camera on my traditional late April stalking of the honey bee.

Canon 50D, Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro, 1/640th, ISO800, f13

I have to admit I have become almost obsessive of taking pictures at this time of year and this year is no different, in fact I have taken some 2,000 photographs over the last week all in search of that perfect honey bee in flight picture, which with a macro lens of only 50mm in focal length is a pretty tough ask, although this year I have got a results that are a little better.

Canon 50D, Sigma 50mm macro, ISO 400, f6.3, 1/320th

The much talked collapse in the honey bee population feels as though it is a myth in these parts at this time of year, from first thing in the morning through till late afternoon our blossom trees are a cacophony of noise with the humming providing a perfect backdrop to afternoon relaxing in the spring sun. Something we have not been able to do for what has felt like an eternity, fortunately the thousands of bees that cover all of our damson trees are remarkably focused on their goal of harvesting pollen and pay no attention to a great oaf with a big camera trying to catch them in action.

Canon 50D, Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro, ISO800, F13, 1/640th

I’m hoping that this post marks the start of a productive spring and summer of blogging after something of a hiatus over winter, spending the last week out getting back to grips with my camera has been fantastic and cannot wait for more of the same. I’ll refrain from adding all 2,000+ images in my blog post and leave it with just one more, you can check out my nature images in my gallery by clicking here.

Canon 50D, Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro, ISO800, f6.3, 1/500th

Tamron 70-300mm VC USD, First Impressions

Brian Jones — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 07:34:59 +0000

Tamron 70-300 VC USD

The arrival of a new lens for a photographer is a very exciting time and I am no different, unfortunately the arrival of my new Tamron Telephoto lens has been sullied by some of the worst spring weather we have seen in our 5 years living in Hungary! That of course is not to say that I have not been out playing and trying to get some use out of it, I have had a chance to form some first impressions that I will share here and I will do a more in depth review when I get a chance to use it in conditions that are a little more conducive to photography!

Tamron 70-300 VC USD- Canon 50D, 300mm, f8, 1/400th Sec ISO 200

Build Quality

Just as the Tamron 17-50 the Tamron 70-300 VC USD feels like a solidly put together and good quality piece of kit, naturally the build is not up there with Canon L glass but certainly a country mile ahead of Canons typical low to mid end build quality. The zoom ring is perfectly dampened and the full time manual focus feature on the focus ring works like a dream, the almost silent USD drive focuses internally and much quicker than I had expected for a lens in this price bracket and I will get on to the wonderfully performing VC (vibration control) later. It is definitely safe to say this lens feels the part, it also looks relatively solid and with the lens hood snapped into place it is certainly a large looking piece of kit which carries reasonable weight although not too much to make it unwieldy.

Tamron 70-300 VC USD – Canon 50D, 300mm, f11, 1/200th Second ISO 400

Image Quality

So onto the most important aspect of any lens, the image quality… Lets face it the build and VC performance of a lens means nothing if it aint capable of putting out a decent looking image! As I have mentioned other than a couple of days of “reasonable” weather spring has not really happened for us yet and we have veered from freezing snowy conditions and days filled with a damp grey drizzle so I’ve not really put the lens to the test yet but first impressions are certainly very good. Both the owl picture at the top of the page and the moon picture are heavy crops from my Canon 50D and give a reasonable indication of what to expect although I want to get out there in conditions where I can shoot at ISO 100 and with the VC off before I make a final judgement.

Tamron 70-300 VC USD – Canon 50D, 300mm, f8, 1/400th Second ISO 200

I also need to improve my long lens technique a little as it has been a while since I have shot anything longer than 50mm, the image above could have been shot with out the VC as a test to see how the lens performs with out it by dropping the aperture a little. It would also have given me a chance to see how the lens performs closer to wide open. All that being said I think the 100% (650px X 433px) crop below shows performance that I consider to be very strong indeed, all I need to do is work on my technique a little

100% Crop from Tamron 70-300 VC USD

Vibration Control

The VC aspect of Tamrons stupidly long named Tamron SP AF 70-300 F/4-5.6 Di VC USD lens stands for vibration control and it is there name for Image Stabilisation, it does what it says on the side of the tin it stops motion blur creeping in to hand held images. I’ll not go into the dull technical stuff but many folk see it as a necessity on a long lens especially on a crop camera, Tamron claim that the VC on this lens gives 4 stops of image stabilisation which is a bold claim indeed. I have not tested the claim but I am blown away by the VC performance!

Tamron 70-300 VC USD – Canon 50D, 300mm, f8, 1/125th Second ISO 400

Both of the original lenses I had when I started to take Photography seriously had Canons old IS (image Stabilisation) system and to be honest it was nothing short of rubbish, I am aware that Canons new system has improved a great deal although I have not used it but the Tamron system is fantastic. The above image of our rooster was taken at 1/125th of a second and given the age old saying that your shutter speed should be 1/focal length multiplied by your crop factor then it realistically should have been shot at 1/480th of a second to avoid motion blur from the movement of the camera. I also do not have the best long lens technique and usually bump it over the usually just to be certain, but the image above represents 2 stops of gain with the vibration control turned on and I suspect I was no where near the limit of the system.

Tamron 70-300 VC USD – Canon 50D, 300mm, f10, 1/160th Second ISO 400

Overview

All in all I am really impressed with the Tamron and cannot think of a bad word to say about it, I am sure that there are better lenses on the market but given the research I did prior to purchase and my experience then I am pretty certain that there is not a better lens on the market in this price bracket. I love it and cannot wait for spring to finally arrive and for the Storks and Egrets to return to our Hungarian paradise (one of the principal reasons for going telephoto for me) so I can get out with my Tamron 70-300mm VC USD and start getting some shots to be truly proud of!

Abádszalók Böllérfesztivál

Brian Jones — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:04:59 +0000

It’s been a while since I have written a blog post, winters in Rural Hungary can be incredibly brutal but fantastic to photograph, but it would seem that mother nature had other ideas this year. Other than the occasional flurry of snow and a little frost we have not really had a winter this year and to be perfectly honest the conditions outside have given me little or no inspiration for photography. There are however signs of improvement on the horizon and this weekend saw the first “festival” of many to come in a local town called Abádszalók on the southern shore of Lake Tisza.

Location: Abádszalók

Abádszalók used to be at some time an incredibly busy and thriving tourist town and still has a massive program of events during the summer, but as eastern Hungary has become a little more impoverished over the last 10 years it has become a little “ragged” around the edges. It is still however a great place to visit and during the summer months this basin of the man made lake Tisza is a hive of activity and is the place to go for watersports fun and the camp sites are full between the months of June-August.

Böllérfesztivál

The Böllérfesztivál is their first “event” of the year and this year was our first visit in our five years of living here, it was a short 25 minute trip on our mopeds and as such we were delighted that the weather held out. It’s tough to define the Böllérfesztivál, I guess the easiest definition is a festival of pig or more specifically “pork”, bit it is more of a competition where local towns and companies pit their finest butchers against each other to produce the finest sausages, smoked meats, pork soups for a gathering of mysterious VIP’s.

Butcher with Fresh Produce

As a bi-product all of this produce was available to sample as you took a stroll around the various stalls that each village or company had set up, it reminded me of a much more innocent and affordable version of the “Taste of Birmingham” event that I was very fond of in the UK. Tickets for a sample portion cost 200 Hungarian Forints (about 60 British Pence or 80 US cents), whilst the portions were small it allowed for much munching, although traditional Hungarian food is not for the faint of heart loaded with loads of fatty cuts of pork and cooked in liberal helpings of lard. Not particularly something that would cause me to turn up my nose but I can understand for many that it could be viewed as less than appetizing.

Two “expert” Sausage Makers!

Boiling of Hurka Sausage

Hungarian Sausages are very different to those that I know from my childhood in the UK, they come in two varieties, Hurka and Kolbasz, Hurka seemed to be the choice of the day and despite a recipe list that looks unappetising (Liver, Lungs, Cheek & Blood) they are divine! Although I appreciate that the site of these sausages bursting from their skins whilst sitting in a bath of lard may be encouragement enough for many to not be tempted, but when you get passed the idea then you are rewarded with an incredible flavour and texture that I really love!

Hurka and Lashings of Lard

People

In Charge of the Smoker

Full Military Regalia

No trip to a Hungarian festival of any type is complete without mention of the people, it would seem that many Hungarians need no excuse to get togged up in their national dress of some form or other. The chap above was in charge of two fantastic looking smokers containing a cut of pork called Tarja, a fatty cut of meat from the neck end of the loin, which has become without question my favourite cut of pork. It would seem that he spent the entire day powered by chefs perks and pálinka, a fruit brandy much loved by Hungarians and not so much by me as a result of its obscene strength (often over 60%) and the crippling hangovers it is capable of producing! Where as the old boy to the right seemed to be togged up in military regalia that seemed a great deal older than his considerable age, either way the sights are amazing and I spent most of my day doing double takes at the fabulous array of costumes that people were wearing as they strolled through the heaving crowds.

The Yoof In National Dress

It would be all to easy to assume that this love of dressing up is the purview of an older generation holding on to their culture, however there is also no shortage of “yoof” more than willing to don national dress and strutt their stuff to local folk music. It never ceases to bring a smile to my face and long may it last as far as I am concerned!

Apocalyptic Sunset

Brian Jones — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:42:38 +0000

An unusual but irresistible photo opportunity occurred last night that I could not resist trying to take advantage of, I wish that I had grabbed my tripod but I had just got out of the bath and noticed the most incredible orange glow. So swapped out my sigma macro lens to my trusty Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 and ventured out into what appeared to be the pseudo apocalyptic scene I could see through our living room window.

Location: Újszentgyörgy

I have already mentioned that I noticed tonights sunset from our front window and as sunsets are over in the blink of an eye, I did not stray very far, in fact all three photographs were taken within 50 meters of our garden. I am a little disappointed that I did not grab my tripod and my exploits were cut short by a very sudden and sharp downpour.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/30th @ 17mm, f7.1 ISO640

Those of you that followed my 365 project last year will recognise this view, it is pretty much what we see when we open our blinds in the morning, well until the height of summer when the field directly in front of us is filled with either Maize or Sunflowers. This was the sight that inspired me to grab my camera and head outside to take pictures, it reminds me of a post apocalyptic scene from a movie, rather apt as we have what was one of the largest Communist era military airbases less than a 20 minute moped ride from home which was almost certainly the target of US/UK nuclear weapons until the mid 1980′s.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/30th @ 17mm, f7.1 ISO640

I quite like playing with black and white conversions of sunset images, there tends to be incredible textures in clouds when a dramatic sunset is produced so I have included both black and white and colour versions of two of the pictures for comparison, I think I prefer colour in both instances but that is not always the case.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/30th @ 17mm, f7.1 ISO100

This was the sunset that was responsible for the orange glow that we could see through our living room window, by the time I had strolled out to see the rain had really started to get much more persistent, so not a lot of time for composing the shot. I do however love the tones and the textures in this picture and considering it is such a rushed photograph I think it is one of my better sunset pictures! I also think it works really incredibly well in black and white too, I use Nik Silver Efex pro as my black and white conversion tool, I had always struggled with black and white conversions until I discovered it.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/30th @ 17mm, f7.1 ISO100

As the weather got progressively worst I decided that enough was enough and it was time to head indoors, but noticed one “leg” of a rainbow sticking out over our neighbours house, so I stuffed my camera up my coat and thought I would grab a quick look see. When I got a little further down our garden it was evident that I could see the full span of the rainbow and as the sun was so low in the sky it was quite a majestic arch, so despite the rain I thought I would try a quick panoramic picture and see if I could capture the full rainbow. It could have been so much better with a tripod, I was forced to use really inappropriate settings to get any picture at all, but hey, an average picture is better than no picture and it is great photo-stitching practice.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/30th @ 17mm, f3.5 ISO400, 8 image panorama

Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland!

Brian Jones — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:15:19 +0000

It feels great not to have to drag my camera around with me day after day anymore after completing my 365 project for 2012, that is not to say that I am not taking photographs any more, it would seem as though I managed to last just 3 days before needing to scratch this itch again. My plan is to spend a little more time on photographs this year and write slightly longer blog posts based on both photography and location, yesterday provided me the perfect opportunity to kick off with a fresh “photowalk”.

Location: Újszentgyörgy

It may be cheating a little, I intend to tag all of my photowalks with a map to give some idea of where they were taken, I had no plans to go out on this walk but the hoar frost looked wonderful whilst we were out walking our foster dogs yesterday morning and felt compelled to grab my camera and take some pictures.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/100th @ 17mm, f11 with CPL

This was the view that inspired me to go and grab my camera whilst we were out walking our dogs, I love the fact that everything looks like it had been dusted with a coating of icing sugar, it had not snowed this is just hoar frost. I am sure that I will do something similar to this later in winter when we have had some snowfall, things really do look amazing in those conditions. It would seem that I have a couple of dust spots that I need to clean off too that I missed in post production. My attention was immediately caught by the tree in the bottom right hand corner of the image above so I went strolling through the field and was really happy I did, despite the fact that my boots and jeans got soaked through!

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/320th @ 34mm, f4 with CPL

Despite the very cold and soggy feet it was well worth the stroll, I am always amazed by hoar frost, it has not been particularly cold here over the last few days with temperatures hovering just below freezing point, the moisture in the air and some pretty dense fogs had produced the most incredible winter wonderland.

Canon 50D: Tamron 17-50mm 1/1000th @ 28mm, f2.8 with CPL

Having said that the temperatures were not all that cold by the time I had taken a stroll through the field to the tree and taken a few pictures my feet were absolutely freezing so I had to head back indoors to try and warm up a bit, as I was heading back it was obvious that the very bright sun light was warming things up. As I was crossing the boundary ditch into out garden I could hear the frost falling from the trees and what was crisp white frost when I left just 30 minutes earlier was starting to form water droplets.

Canon 50D: Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro 1/400th, f5.6, ISO200

After a very brief pit stop and a change of lens to my Sigma 50mm Macro Lens I decided to head out and take some pictures of the frost that our rose bush had developed. I love the sigma lens it is tiny and wonderful to use and produces crisp and sharp images all of the time, sure it could focus a little quicker but that is a common problem with Macro Lenses. The background in this image really did not work in colour, it was quite frankly an insipid shade of brown/green but think that going black and white helps a great deal with defining the structure of the leaf.

Canon 50D: Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro @ f5.6, 1/400th ISO200

As you can see from the insert above the sun was still beating down and things were beginning to melt incredibly quickly and I was absolutely freezing, but it was great to get back out with my camera and enjoying taking pictures again. Pretty much everyday for the last month or so it had been a chore taking pictures and it has shown, these are far from being great but the enjoyment I got from taking them made me smile a great deal…
As a side note the temperatures continued to rise as was processing my pictures and by the time it came to take the dogs out for their afternoon walk all of the frost had gone and as I am writing this today the winter wonderland has turned into a swamp like quagmire

Canon 50D: Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro @ f10, 1320th ISO100

Project 365(+1) 2012 Highlights

Brian Jones — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:44:43 +0000

Well I made it to the end, a year in pictures I have to admit firing up the camera everyday to take a picture has at times felt like a chore but I am glad I stuck with it. As ever I have grown more comfortable with taking photographs and my understanding has developed a great deal, even if you can not see it in the last 30 or so pictures. The year has been kind to us, although living somewhere we consider to be paradise in a way that we consider to be a dream come true always helps, it has also seen a complete change up in my camera body and lenses which certainly helped give me a bit of inspiration during the first flagging period of 2012. It would be remiss of me not to look back at the last 12 months and share my favourite pictures from 2012, so here they are in reverse order with a bit of blurb

10: Flight of the Wasp

The start of April is always an exciting time for us, we are out working on our smallholding and our fruit trees are bursting into blossom, capturing insects in flight is tough and owes more to luck than technique (well for me anyway). I was delighted when checking through the hundred or so pictures I took when stalking wasps and bees to find this picture.

9: Ossian

Taken at the Tomajmonostora village day in September, this is the lead guitarist of a band called Ossian, this band was somewhat of a surprise when they turned up. Ossian is a relatively well known Hungarian rock band who are celebrating there 25th year in the recording industry so to “headline” the Tomajmonostora village day seems strange to me as it has a population of approximately 600 people. We found out about the day after chatting with the under polgermester (Hungarian equivalent of a Mayor/Local Councillor) at the pub in the village a few days earlier, I was incredibly impressed the organisation was superb and the set up was amazing, add into that the opportunity to shoot live music made me a very happy boy indeed.

8: Just a Tree

We are fortunate to live somewhere that we find very beautiful although not very spectacular, the defining feature of our local terrain is its stark emptiness, the Great Hungarian Plain is the largest flattest plain of land in Europe. This means that landscape photography is very challenging and my style has evolved to pretty much use the sky as my muse and many of my pictures feature almost no land at all. This image was taken at the end of April in the field that borders the bottom of our garden and there is just something about it that I like, I can’t define it but it is certainly one of my favourites.

7: Hungarian Parliament

Back to back black and white photographs now and this image is of the Hungarian Parliament Building on the banks of the River Danube in Budapest, A picture that I am very surprised that I managed to capture as I was more than a little “drunkled” at the time of taking the picture. This was taken in the middle of June on the night that England played there first game in Euro 2012 against Sweden, we had returned Julies Mum to the airport after her first visit of the year and we had booked a room in Budapest and went to watch the match in the open screening area in Szabadság Ter. It was a beautiful summers evening and we shred a bench with a group of guys from Iceland, Denmark and Sweden, there was much merriment and “leg pulling” and a surprising win for England, but the real pleasure was in the great company, surroundings and cheap (for Budapest) beer. I snapped this shot on a stroll down the banks Danube after the match had finished with my lovely wife.

6: Reflections on the Tisza

This picture was taken just a few days before the image of the Parliament building above, a friend of ours has a small fishing boat that she uses to potter around the tributaries of Lake Tisza in the summer, she kindly took us out on it for a couple of hours when Julies Mum came to visit in June. We have been out on the Tisza dozens of times but rarely is the water as calm as it was on this beautiful summers day, despite the initial trepidation when seeing the boat Julies Mum seemed to have a great time.

5: Working the Land

One of those images that I would never had taken if it was not for undertaking a 365 project, I vividly remember being very short of ideas when I took this picture at the start of October and then I noticed a tractor ploughing the field that we can see from our front window. So I grabbed my camera and took a stroll to see what I could come up with, I took a couple of pictures and was struck by the rather filthy looking exhaust coming out of the tractor and I struck upon the idea of trying to go black and white and really accentuate it. I took quite some tinkering in Photoshop to get the effect that I want and the source picture is technically sound but nothing special however with a couple of filters and some selective “dodging and burning” I got exactly what I wanted.

4: Brutal Winter

I love the simplicity of this picture and it kind of sums up the the bleakness of a winter on the Pannonian Plain, we honestly thought that we had gotten used to the cold Hungarian winters but when our real winter arrived in February this year we were introduced to a whole new level of brutality. We are fortunate that our lifestyle allows us to shelter indoors and not to have to bother trying to get the the office or the local store for provisions and we did not have a great deal of snow but the cold was on a different level to anything else I have ever experienced. Over a 10 day period we had a maximum daytime temperature of -10°C with temperatures at night heading close to -30°C, we had a week with no domestic water as our pipes froze and we had to collect water from a standpipe in the street. Fortunately our house constructed of “Mud” is superbly insulated and if it was not for heading out to collect wood, water or photographs we genuinely would not have noticed.

3: Inoculate the World

A very simple looking shot that was without question the most challenging photograph that I took in 2012, as a Stock Photographer I am continually trying to work out concepts and ideas that are commercially interesting and different to what else is available in the market place. Usually I struggle and my portfolio is very similar to others out there, however this and a previous effort are both selling really well for me which is great as it was the culmination of about 5 hours work. Sure I could have got a similar picture by messing around in photoshop but what fun would that be for a photographer? This is actually 8 images stacked together in order to get an appropriate depth of focus with the subject illuminated by two off camera flashes and the globe that you see is a refracted picture that I had displayed upside down on my television. Naturally Julie thought I was insane and on more than one occasion I had to start the process from scratch as I managed to knock the water droplet off the hypodermic needle, but a picture I am more than pleased with!

2: Land of Plenty

An all together simpler picture is my second favourite picture of the year, for me it sums up early summer in our rural retreat, we are surrounded by thousands of hectares of wheat, barley, sunflowers and maize and the golden glow of these grains against the blue sky just makes me think of late spring/early summer. Not really a great deal else to say about the picture, it is as simple as it gets but I love it!

1: Mother Natures Fury

There was absolutely no question in my mind as to what was going to be my favourite photograph of 2012, in fact the minute I saw this image n the back of the camera in May I knew that this was probably going to be to my mind probably the best photograph I had ever taken. I have been fascinated by thunder and lightning for as long as I can remember and even as a child I would sit at the window and watch a storm for hours, so living out here where we get proper grown up storms I am often found in a trance at the window during storm season and if we are lucky to get a dry storm I am always outside with my camera trying to grab a photograph. This storm was perfect, moving nice and slowly and from the south east in the direction of our village and I spent a couple of hours outside photographing it as it approached, this was the final picture I took as it was getting a little too close for comfort but I am glad that I stayed out there for just one more shot.

As a side note I would like to say a huge thank you for those that have taken the time to comment on my project throughout the year, it really does help to know that people are looking and engaging with what I have been posting. There will be no project 365 in 2014 but I do have lots of photography plans for the year so my site will be far from quiet!

MMXII 366

Brian Jones — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 23:04:57 +0000

I hate falling behind with my 365 project Well I finally made it, 366 photographs one for each day of 2012 and as you can see from todays photograph we will almost certainly not be seeing the new year in, a dense fog has descended on our village and there aint a great deal to take pictures of. I had hoped to maybe snap some fireworks at midnight but conditions were far from ideal and the last photograph pretty much sums up the final month of my 365 project, a bit of a let down, as a whole it has been a great deal of fun but the last month or so it has been a real chore and I am now looking forward to leaving my camera alone for a couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment here or on Twitter/Facebook over the last year and I’ll be back shortly with a sparkly new website and some cool ideas for photograph trips in the coming year.

MMXII 365

Brian Jones — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 10:38:06 +0000

Well the website redesign is well under way and give it a week or so I should be up and running with a much cleaner tidier website focused much more concisely on images rather than absent minded drivel. My homepage is now sorted and I have just one more photograph to take in my 365 project and I am done, and can concentrate on something a little different.

MMXII 364

Brian Jones — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:25:31 +0000

A photograph driven by a lack of sleep and a mountain of frustration for one of my final 365 project pictures, this is Little Miss, one of our cats and it would appear that she is on heat at the moment which means she spent the night moaning and wailing which in turn sent our two canine house guests barking all night long. In retrospect it was probably not the best day to begin working on changing up my website, as you can see things are a little different around here and they are far from finished but slowly getting to where I want to be