A few months ago I read an article about light painting and wanted to have a go at it. I finally got around to having a bit of a play this evening and thought I'd share my results. 

Light painting is pretty much as it sounds, controlling light to form an image during a long exposure shot. I used a dark room with the lights out and set my camera to bulb mode. I had the ISO at 100 and the aperture of 9. Whilst you can go out and buy expensive tools for light painting I used a cheap light stick that I got from Tesco and a little laser pen that I had already to experiment. Once I had the camera set up and on manual focus I turned out the lights and used a shutter release cable to set the camera for a long exposure.

Other than cropping the images slightly as I set the camera at 24mm, which was a little wide, these images are straight from the camera. What do you think of my first try? Its definitely a technique I want to play around with a bit more.

Light painting first attempt Light painting first attempt Light painting first attempt

Here are a few photos from a shoot that I did this morning at a group which I usually attend as a mummy with my three year old. If you run a club or group and would like some "fly on the wall" photos for your website or Facebook page, please contact me for a chat. 
J and Amanda having a "rock" For the past couple of terms my Thursday morning activity has been a movement session called Move with Me with my youngest son. It is run by Amanda Turner at St Joseph's School at 10am and lasts for 45 minutes. It is a lovely session which is based on Sherbourne Development activities for preschool aged children which focuses on building confidence, co-ordination and spatial awareness. 

Today I was lucky enough to have been invited to take my camera as well as my son to capture some images for Amanda to use on her Facebook page. The session starts with songs and a focus on a particular body part and then look at ways of moving and looking for spaces. This is the more structured part of the session and (as the name suggests) the idea is that the parent or carer gets involved too! As I was behind the camera today, J happily adopted Amanda as his adult. 

The middle part of the session involves the children having a range of equipment to encourage them to explore physically. As you can see J enjoyed wearing the streamers and a cone hat whilst practising his balancing skills on a bench.

After the excitement of exploring it is time to help tidy up before the parachute comes out. Whether it is bouncing balls "popcorn" style on the parachute or hiding underneath it, the parachute is a huge hit with all the children. The session ends with a calming hug or rock with their adult and the giving out of stickers. 

Right from his first session, J has insisted that his sticker has to go on his back so he can be like Amanda!

If you would like any further details about the Move with Me sessions Amanda has a Facebook page Move with Me and likewise, if you would like to have a chat with me about taking some photos at your group, please get in contact. 

#JallenExmouth #JallenPhotography #Exmouth #ExmouthPhotographer #MoveWithMe #AmandaTurner #Sherbourne #PhysicalDevelopment #BabyGroupExmouth

 

For the past couple of weeks my macro lens, a Tamron 90mm f2.8, has been sitting on the table having blown the dust off it and decided it was time to start having a play with my camera again just for the fun of it. Since having my family, my photography has become mainly portrait based, documenting my boys lives as they grow and change. Busy family life hasn't left me with a lot of time left to just take photos for no reason other than that I enjoy it. At the beginning of January my youngest started nursery so this has given me the perfect opportunity to get out without the "help" of a three year old! 

Many moons ago in life BC (before children!) I particularly loved macro photography. Getting up close to a subject and filling the frame, looking at things in a slightly different way. A couple of years ago I had received a macro lens for Christmas but not really having the time to get out and about with it, it had ended up in a camera bag gathering dust. I decided as part of my new years resolution to use some of my new found time to address my photography bucket list and getting some use out of my macro lens was definitely up there on the list. 

Armed with camera, lens, Gorillapod 5K tripod and remote I headed down to a somewhat blustery Exmouth estuary. The thing that particularly caught my eye when I looked low to ground was the balance between natural and man-made objects. The buoys and the way that barnacles were covering the lower parts of them, the ropes and rusting chains with various shells attached. I set up my camera on the tripod and used the live view and manual zoom with a narrow aperture (about 20) to try to get sharp images. I have to say, despite feeling rather out of practise, I am pleased with the results and am now planning more macro trips out.