my little eye

Several people have asked me about my camera and how I take the photos for the blog. Well, it's not rocket science, I promise.

When I decided to write yarnstorm I didn't have a digital camera, so Simon donated his old one which had been languishing in a drawer since he'd taken up with a newer model. It's a Nikon Coolpix 885 and I think it's obsolete now (we were trying to date the camera last night and reckon it's four to five years old). If you look carefully at the photo, you can see that the battery compartment is held together by Sellotape and has been since I went to New York in March.

I dread the day it falls apart, for this has been an amazing little camera. I'd never used a digital camera before the blog, and it wasn't difficult to master. I am not lying when I say I point, focus and shoot. I don't have any special lenses and only discovered the macro setting earlier this year.

What I love is that it records the colours I see. I have learned that the light conditions are all-important. I use a very deep and wide, south-facing bedroom window-sill which is painted off-white as my 'studio', but take photos only when there is no direct sunlight or when it's overcast or cloudy. Bright sunlight washes out colour and makes it difficult to use the screen. As I also dislike the effect of using a flash, I don't take photos at night-time or when it's dark.

As you know, I love still-lifes and little groups of objects. This was taken indoors in an airy, pale blue kitchen which is suffused with classic English seaside light. This tones down the bright colours and gives an pearlescent effect.

I don't fiddle with the photographs once they are taken. I don't Photoshop them in any way (I don't know how to) and the only adjustment I make is to crop the ones I like. So this is the original picture,

and I cropped it to balance the composition and to eliminate details around the edges. I never crop drastically as I think this spoils the quality - if I wanted detail, I would take a close-up.

Photographing outdoors is great in this country - one of the few advantages to grey skies. The biggest obstacle is unwanted matter in the background (I realise that this is my way of seeing things, not everyone's). So I concentrate on filling the screen/viewfinder with the objects I want to see and often take several photos of the same scene as the smallest change in my hand/body position can make all the difference.

So, although these photos look similar, I much prefer the second one because it cuts out the more raggedy planting in the second plant pot and draws the eye to the wonderful orange zinnia/purple bench combination.

I'm fussy about composition, too. This was an existing grouping I found and although there was more I could have photographed, I was choosy about what to frame in the photo.

I don't often get 'scenes' right as there is too much extraneous detail which distracts. But every so often I like a middle-distance photo, and here a touch of sunlight within the picture works well.

This is about as dark and moody as I can get without recourse to clever photographic techniques (I know they exist because when I was at university I spent a great deal of time in a dark room with a photography-mad boyfriend...but didn't learn a lot about photography). This was just a matter of luck in capturing the mellow afternoon light.

I take photos almost every day now and clearly practice does make a difference. But the basics remain the same - careful selection of subject, good light, lots of photos from which to make a selection, and no fiddling with the images apart from cropping (it's a reality issue for me).

And a good camera. When the Sellotape no longer holds it together, I'll definitely be looking for a new Nikon Coolpix.

                              ***

All the photos in this post were taken in July at my friend Marilyn's house on the beach near Whitstable.

Comments

[manda]

Great post. Thank you for sharing your techniques for taking such beautiful photo's.

[Mary K. in Rockport]

Your photos are beautiful and draw me to your blog over and over. I confess I have thought they were photoshopped because they consistently have a blueish cast that I thought was part of your artistry. (Note: I myself have a not-so-good digicam that I rarely use because it takes icky photos, and I don't know the first thing about Photoshop!)

[Jan]

How funny that you chose this to write about today! I was considering the very same topic, though of course I would be featuring my old Kodak point-and-shoot digital, held together with duct tape.
I suspect lots of bloggers will benefit from your thoughtful explanations and examples of how and why you shoot what you do.

[Dorothy B]

I love your photos. You do a great job.

[Peggy]

I've been "stalking" your blog and I love your photos! I also have a Nikon Coolpix and the battery holder broke as well. My camera is much small, however and the tape doesn't quite get enough grip to hold as well. :(

[Kelly]

Thanks for sharing your photos and your thoughts about making them.

I'll second the bit about shooting every day. It's what's so liberating about digital photography, the lack of limits (especially budgetary -- I always found myself holding back when using film) -- you can shoot all you want. All that practice trains your eye, for while you're shooting, of course, but perhaps even more so when it's time to select the best images from the mass of raw material.

[sabine]

thank yoou for the excursions on colour, photography and framing. i guess, as long as one is nit a professional photographer, any camera can offer some sort of quality. still, if one has an 'eye' and know how to 'see' things a good photo can be taken by any camera. but to 'see' things obviously is not as easy as one can guess. when i studied art history, i was very lucky to have a professor who, as a painter himself, tought us how to 'see'.
Maybe, if one does not know how to 'see', one will see nothing!
lovely photos!

[Acey]

I always enjoy my visits to your blog but this particular post was exceptionally appealing to me. I loved your how-I-do-it discourse. I don't mess with my images in photoshop, either, and often feel that this is unacceptable or not trying hard enough by blogging standards. Now I feel quite liberated. And a lot more normal ;)

[maryse]

thanks for posting about this topic. i've wondered for a long time about the color and light in your photographs and was convinced that you did a little doctoring because of the vividness of the colors in your compositions. it's amazing what natural light can do, isn't it.

i don't mess around too much with my pictures either other than a little cropping now and again and sometimes some brightening just because my house is so dark, even when the sun is shining and sometimes it's difficult to see details.

and i love coolpix cameras. i'm on my second one.

[shelley]

I agree with you about needing to take a lot of photos to get a few great ones. That's where a digital camera is so genius. I do believe in a certain innate quality that one can have about colour, composition, etc. My sister just bought a house and we are redoing it. Just standing in the place gives us a "feel" for what to do. We hold up swatches and our gut just tells us whether the colour is right, etc. I think we both have the same instinct because we will look at something and both have the same comment, good, bad, or indifferent. I get the same sort of feeling when I take photos. Just something visceral.

[LLA]

I always admire the stunning pictures that you use to illustrate your posts - thank you so much for the "behind the scenes" how-and-why you do it!

[Deborah]

Thank you for you honesty. I have the same brand camara and recently upgraded because I dropped the old one and it shattered! What I dislike about these camaras is the flash. It is difficult to control it. Like you, I choose to use it rarely. With no flash, picture sharpness becomes an issue so I use a tripod (stacked books on a surface!) to stabalize the camara before I shoot. With all of this, however, one cannot manufacture good eye and girlfriend, you got good eye!

[Laurel]

I love my Nikon Coolpix. I got a 5MP one this January and it is easy and fun to use. I'm sure I haven't figured out all the cool ways to use it, but it does what I like.

You really know how to take good pictures, the colors are so inspiring.

[Katherine]

Your photographs are always glorious. I always come away feeling inspired to try and take better pictures myself (But oh! these terraced houses are so dark...) Anyway, thanks for the mini tutorial - such wonderfully colourful subject matter. I think I know what I want for Christmas...

[Robin]

Absolutely gorgeous...no one does it like you do!

[al]

ah, i am just learning to take better photos with my 4-year-old (at least) nikon coolpix2000. it's a clunker, but clearly one can coax some pretty photos out of old cameras!

[littlejennywren]

Thanks so much for the photography lesson. I am new to digital cameras but I am really enjoying being able to see my efforts straight away and just delete the worst and try again without having to wait for the film to come back from the processor. What a wonderful invention!

[Alicia P.]

So love knowing how you see things Jane. Thanks for that.

[Virginia]

Thanks to you for illustrating that it is not a matter of how good is your camera, but how good is your eye. Clearly, you have the eye.

[Darci]

I love these pictures and I kept saying "oh, that is my favorite" after each one...but I have landed on the window sill of sandels as my fav...it says so much - primarily that there children running around without shoes in the summer...the Best!

[strikkelise]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on taking photos. You have written about never altering the photos (photoshopping) earlier, and I wondered how you managed to keep the same light etc. always.

I'm still amazed by your eye for colour. How do you find all those yarnstormy colour combinations, they seem to be everywhere?

[Vicky]

Great tips. Short and to the point so that there is plenty of time left for some sewing! I think you definitely have an eye for a good picture.Thanks.

[paula]

Those are such beautiful photos.
I do love your artistic eye!
My husband got me a Nikon coolpix 5700 for Christmas 2002. I love it and use it almost daily too. It is getting worn out and the internal light meter no longer works correctly and needs to go to the fix it shop but it is hard to part with it while it is getting fixed.
It took me a very long time to learn how to use it well and I still don't know how all the gadgets work even after reading the novel of an instruction manual.

[Blair]

Jane, I love that your photos represent what you are actually seeing, not merely a version highly redone in photoshop (I don't do much in photoshop either). I also own a Nikon Coolpix, and, although I've often thought it might be fun to have a very fancy camera to tinker with and develop my photography skills, I love how portable and lightweight my camera is, and am thankful it seems to do a lot of my thinking for me. And, as already commented, an easy camera gives us lots more time for creating, right?

[Kirsten]

Thanks for the tutorial. Your photos are fantastic. Your subject, your friends lovely home, really adds to their charm.